# Anchor investor

The first sizable commitment in a raise, whose name pulls the rest in.

Investors move in convoys, and the anchor is the one who moves first: a respected fund committing early is diligence other investors borrow, and the same round with no anchor is twenty people waiting to see who goes. Ask a prospective anchor directly whether their name may be used with the others, because that permission is most of what the anchor is worth. A raise stuck at [soft circles](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/soft-circle) usually does not need more names on the list; it needs one of the names already on it to sign first.

In numbers: A $500,000 anchor from a known fund is a third of a $1.5M raise committed in one signature, and the name gives the remaining $1M a reason to follow.

Source: https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/anchor-investor
Not dated: A definition is editorial: what a term means, why it matters, and an example. None of it reads a source that can go stale, so there is no date to take and a stamped one would be the build time wearing a costume.

Site index for machines: https://searchspheresource.com/llms.txt