Ask HN: what's your experience with patents and investors, as a startup?

I founded a startup in the EU, where you can't submit or defend patents for software. You can work around this by patenting the underlying processes and all, but it's hard to defend, even if you do have the resources to go to court. However, the first things that investors ask me is "do you have a patent for that?". On the other hand, I see major VCs in the US speaking out against software patents. Can you share your experience regarding software patents when pitching investors?