Boardy Alternatives: 6 Ways to Reach Investors When Your Network Isn't the Answer
Boardy is an AI voice agent that calls people in your network and turns those conversations into warm investor introductions. It is genuinely useful, but only if you already have a network worth leveraging. Founders outside the SF bubble, first-timers, and anyone raising without a rolodex need a different system: a large active investor database and outreach that does not depend on who you already know.
Below are 6 real alternatives, an honest look at what Boardy does well, and where each option actually fits your stage and network.
What Boardy Does Well, and Who It's Actually Built For
Boardy's model is to call people in your network by phone, ask who they know, and stitch those answers into an intro graph. It is a clever use of a voice agent, and it plays directly into the strongest fundraising signal there is: a warm intro from someone the investor already trusts. Data on this is consistent (see our own breakdown of warm intro versus cold email conversion rates): a warm intro from a portfolio founder or a trusted LP converts at roughly 40-60%, while an untargeted cold email sits closer to 1-3%.
So Boardy is best for a specific founder profile: someone with a real network already in place, most often a repeat founder, a YC or Techstars alum, an operator who worked at a well-connected company, or someone raising a later round where their existing cap table already has investor relationships to pull on. If that describes you, a tool that surfaces and activates those connections is worth trying.
The honest gap is this: warm-intro tools have nothing to activate if you do not have a network. A first-time founder, a non-US founder without an SF Rolodex, or anyone raising their first pre-seed round has few or no first-degree connections to the investors they need. Calling your contacts to ask who they know only works if your contacts know investors. For that much larger group of founders, the answer is not a better way to mine a thin network. It is a way to reach investors directly, at volume, without needing an intro at all.
That is the real fork in the road this article is about.
6 Boardy Alternatives at a Glance
| Logo | Tool | Approach | Best for | Needs an existing network? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Round Funded | Active investor database + AI-drafted cold outreach from your own Gmail | Founders without a strong network, or anyone who wants a repeatable system | No |
| Boomerang | AI mapping of warm-intro paths across your existing network | Founders who already have connections and want to see the paths clearly | Yes | |
| Warmintros.io | Thesis-matches pre-seed founders to investors and surfaces intro paths | Pre-seed founders with at least a partial network | Mostly | |
| Metal | AI "fundraising OS" combining discovery, warm-intro paths, and a pipeline | Founders who want one tool for both warm and some cold discovery | Partially | |
 | OpenVC | Free directory with a moderated "submit deck" gateway to opt-in investors | Founders who want a free, trusted way to get a deck in front of investors | No |
 | AngelMatch | Large scraped investor database plus cold email from your own Gmail | Founders who want volume cold outreach and don't mind a bigger, less-curated list | No |
Boardy itself is the seventh point of comparison implicit in the table above: it sits closest to Boomerang and Warmintros.io in approach, and it requires a network like they do.
The 6 Alternatives, One at a Time
1. Round Funded
Round Funded pairs a curated database of 60,000+ active investors, filtered so you see funds and angels who invested recently rather than a graveyard of dormant contacts, with automated outbound: connect your own Gmail, and the product drafts a personalized email to each investor from your real startup profile, sends it from your address, and tracks opens and replies. Accelerators and incubators are first-class results, not an afterthought, and a shareable founder Data Room bundles your deck, traction, team, and ask on one link with view and engagement analytics attached.
Best for: founders who do not have Boardy's precondition, an existing network, and want a repeatable system for reaching investors directly. Round Funded runs on Round+ at $99 a month (one connected inbox, the full database, base CRM, and email-open tracking), Round Pro at $249 a month (three inboxes, reply and click tracking, an AI email generator, and investor updates), or a $899 one-time Lifetime plan. There is no free tier; the monthly plans include a 3-day free trial for first-time subscribers, while Lifetime is a one-time purchase. It is a deliberate stance aimed at founders who are serious about running a real outbound campaign rather than testing the waters.
Honest limit: because outreach goes out from your own Gmail rather than a whitelisted opt-in gateway, your reply rates will be normal cold-email rates, not the roughly 40% ceiling a moderated submit-deck flow can claim. You are trading a lower per-email reply rate for volume, control, and not needing anyone's permission to start.
Start raising with Round Funded ->
2. Boomerang
Boomerang is a warm-intro tool built on the same idea as Boardy: map the paths through your existing contacts to the investors you actually want to reach. If you already know a handful of operators, portfolio founders, or angels, Boomerang can help you see which of them is one hop from a fund you are targeting. Best for founders who have a network but have not organized it, and want the paths made visible rather than reconstructed from memory.
3. Warmintros.io
Warmintros.io leans further into pre-seed specifically: it thesis-matches founders to investors and then looks for intro paths into that match, rather than starting from your contacts and working outward. Best for pre-seed founders who have at least a partial network and want the matching done for them, with the intro path as a secondary layer on top.
4. Metal
Metal describes itself as an AI fundraising OS: investor discovery, warm-intro paths, and a pipeline to track it all live in one product. It is newer and more AI-forward than the incumbents, and it tries to bridge the warm-intro and discovery worlds rather than picking one. Best for founders who want a single tool that at least attempts both approaches, with the caveat that a product doing more things is often less deep at any one of them than a focused tool.
5. OpenVC
OpenVC is a free, well-loved investor directory with a genuinely differentiated feature: its "submit deck" gateway moderates your deck and forwards it from a whitelisted OpenVC address, so investors who opted into the gateway reply at a meaningfully higher rate than they would to a stranger's cold email. The free tier covers most of the product (roughly one gateway submission a day), and a paid plan (publicly around $99 a month) lifts the limits. Best for founders who want a free, trusted way to get a deck seen without building outbound infrastructure of their own.
The trade-off is scope: OpenVC's directory and outreach are English-only, it does not offer built-in Gmail-based outbound at real volume, and accelerators are not treated as first-class the way they are on Round Funded.
6. AngelMatch
AngelMatch is one of the larger scraped investor databases, tens of thousands of contacts with verified emails, paired with cold email sent from your own Gmail, open and reply tracking, an AI email generator, and a lightweight CRM. Of everything on this list, it is the closest in model to Round Funded: both send cold email from your own inbox rather than a gateway. AngelMatch has no free tier and offers a short trial. Best for founders who want to run volume cold outreach against a very large list and are comfortable that "large" trades off against "curated for recent activity."
The trade-off versus Round Funded is that AngelMatch is English-only with no multi-language product or SEO, and its database leans toward quantity over the active-recency filtering that keeps a Round Funded list from going stale.
Where Round Funded Fits
If Boardy's precondition, a network worth mining, does not describe you, the honest next move is not a slightly different warm-intro tool. It is a system built around the assumption that you are starting from zero connections: a database that only shows funds and angels active in roughly the last six months, outreach the AI drafts from your actual Data Room facts (not invented traction), and a pipeline that tracks every reply in one place.
Browse 60,000+ active investors on Round Funded →
How to Reach Investors Without a Warm Network, Step by Step
- Start with the investor database on Round Funded and filter by stage, sector, and geography so your first list is 30-50 investors who are plausibly a fit, not a spray of every fund you can find.
- Fill out your startup profile with real numbers: stage, traction, ask, and use of funds. This is what the AI grounds every email in, so a thin profile produces a generic email and a specific one produces a specific one.
- Connect your own Gmail so outreach sends from your real address, not a gateway or a shared domain, which matters for how the email reads on the other end.
- Let the AI draft the first version of each email, then edit anything that reads off before it sends. The draft should reference the actual investor's stated focus, not a template with the name swapped in.
- Track opens and replies in the pipeline, and use accelerator and incubator applications as a parallel track, since accelerator admission itself opens warm-intro paths later.
- Follow up once, briefly, on anything opened but not replied to after 4-5 business days. A short, one-line follow-up outperforms silence and outperforms a second full pitch.
Who Should Pick What
If you have a real network already, a repeat founder, a YC or Techstars alum, or someone with a warm relationship to several relevant funds, a tool like Boardy, Boomerang, or Warmintros.io is worth trying first, since a warm intro will beat cold outreach on conversion almost every time.
If you do not have that network, or you want a repeatable system that does not depend on who you know, Round Funded, OpenVC, or AngelMatch are the better starting points. Of those three, choose OpenVC if you want a free way to get a deck seen and don't mind the daily submission limit. Choose AngelMatch if raw contact volume matters more to you than an active-recency filter. Choose Round Funded if you want the database, the AI-drafted outreach, and the accelerator and incubator layer in one product, and you are ready to run a real campaign rather than test a free tier.
Most founders end up doing both: cold outreach through a tool like Round Funded from day one, while any warm paths that do exist get worked in parallel, not instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Boardy worth using if I'm a first-time founder with no network?
Only partially. Boardy's whole model depends on your contacts knowing investors, so if your network is thin, there is little for it to activate. A database of active investors you can reach directly is a more reliable starting point when you don't yet have warm paths to lean on.
What is the actual difference between a warm-intro tool and Round Funded?
A warm-intro tool like Boardy, Boomerang, or Warmintros.io finds paths through people you already know. Round Funded finds investors directly, whether or not you know anyone, and drafts the outreach for you. See the full warm intro versus cold email breakdown for the actual conversion-rate math on both.
Does Round Funded do warm intros at all?
Round Funded is built around active-investor discovery and cold outreach, not warm-intro mapping. If you have some warm paths, work them in parallel using your own network while running cold outreach through the investor database for everything else.
Is OpenVC or AngelMatch a better fit than Round Funded?
It depends on what you're optimizing for. OpenVC's free submit-deck gateway is strong if you want a trusted, no-cost way to get a deck seen and can live with daily limits. AngelMatch has a bigger raw database if volume matters most to you. Round Funded is the pick if you also want accelerators and incubators as first-class results and a product that runs in more than one language.
How much does Round Funded cost compared to these alternatives?
Round Funded runs $99 a month on Round+, $249 a month on Round Pro, or $899 one-time on Lifetime, with no free tier. OpenVC has a generous free tier plus a roughly $99-a-month paid plan. AngelMatch has no free tier and a short trial. Boardy, Boomerang, Warmintros.io, and Metal do not publish pricing details we can confirm here.
Can I use more than one of these tools at the same time?
Yes, and most founders effectively do. Warm-intro tools and a database like Round Funded's are not mutually exclusive: run direct outreach continuously while working any warm paths your network actually has, rather than treating it as an either-or decision.
Do accelerators count as an alternative path to investors?
Yes. Getting into an accelerator like YC, Techstars, or a regional program opens warm-intro paths through the accelerator's own investor network, on top of whatever direct outreach you're already running. See the US accelerator directory for active programs by stage and industry.
Final Word
Boardy is a smart tool for the founders it was built for: people who already have a network worth activating. If that isn't your situation yet, the fix isn't a better warm-intro tool, it's a direct path to the investors themselves.
Start reaching investors directly on Round Funded →
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