The wording and the timing do most of the work. An introduction request that lands inside a quarterly letter, or that mentions the fund in passing, reads as part of the investor relationship however good the intention. Kept separate, it reads as what it is: a question about a company the LP happens to know.
What makes an introduction request read like an investment ask
Six signals blur the purpose, and each is easy to send by accident.
- It arrives with fund mail. A line at the end of a quarterly update or an annual meeting follow-up inherits that message's purpose.
- It mentions the fund. Performance, a future fund or "our relationship" in the same email ties the favor to the LP's standing with your firm.
- It praises SourceX. Calling SourceX "exciting" or "an opportunity" turns a question about one company into a recommendation, and a recommendation invites the wrong reading.
- It hints at upside. Talk of what a company "could earn" is a promise you cannot make; the sample Channel Partner Agreement says a partner may not commit SourceX to prices, licenses or payouts (section 7.1).
- It carries attachments. A deck makes a two-line question into a document the LP has to evaluate.
- It leaves interest unstated. If the LP has to wonder who benefits, they will assume the worst.
The email below removes all six.
The separate-purpose introduction email (Illustrative)
Illustrative. Placeholders in brackets; the company and people are generic.
Subject: A question about [the distributor you chair], unrelated to the fund
Hi [LP first name],
This note has nothing to do with the fund, your commitment or any investment, and ignoring it will not touch anything between us.
You chair the board of [the distributor]. From public information it has operated for about 25 years and employs well over 50 people full time, which meets the first screening test at SourceX, a company that licenses records established businesses created themselves, for AI training and evaluation. Whether those records are the company's to license, and whether SourceX wants them, only SourceX's review can say.
Whether the company talks to SourceX is [CEO first name]'s decision, not yours or mine. If you think [CEO first name] would want to hear about it, I can send you four lines to forward. If not, that is the end of it.
You should know my interest: I am a registered SourceX referral partner, so SourceX could pay me a reward if the company licenses data. The company's payout would be the same either way.
If the answer is no, one word is plenty: "Pass."
[Your name]
| Line | What it does | Why it is written this way |
|---|---|---|
| Subject | Names the company question and rules out fund business | A subject that mentions the fund gets filed, and read, as fund mail |
| Opening sentence | Separates the purposes before anything else | The LP should not read on wondering what is being asked of them as an investor |
| Public facts | Explains why this company, from what anyone could find | Board knowledge and fund reports are never material for an ask |
| "Only SourceX's review can say" | Stops an implied promise of fit | A partner cannot tell anyone a company qualifies |
| The CEO decides | Limits the LP's role to forwarding, or not | The LP never decides for the company |
| Your interest | Says who could be paid and that the company's payout is unchanged | SourceX pays the reward separately and never deducts it from the company's agreed compensation (terms, section 4) |
| "Pass." | Hands the LP the exact word for no | Declining should cost one word, not a careful paragraph |
The last line is not decoration. In two lab studies with 535 participants, researchers found that giving people explicit words to decline made agreeing feel more freely chosen, beyond simply telling them refusal was allowed (our paraphrase of the study's summary). A separate set of 12 experiments found that a polite word added to a request did not significantly raise compliance, while having a polite way to refuse made people decline more quickly (our paraphrase of the abstract). Both summaries describe experiments, not investors or business introductions, yet they point the same way: make saying no easy, and any yes you get is worth more.
Method note. The email's parts come from SourceX's terms (the single credit in section 2 and the payout sentence in section 4) and sections 4.2 and 7.1 of the sample agreement, all read on 2026-10-27, plus the two studies paraphrased above. The wording and the timing rules below are this page's design and have not been tested on LP introductions.
If the LP says yes, send the forwardable note and nothing else:
[CEO first name], [your name] at [fund] works with SourceX, which licenses operating records that established companies made themselves, for AI training and evaluation. They thought our order and service history might be worth a screen. SourceX could pay them a referral reward if we license anything; our payout would not change. Entirely your call: reply to them directly if you are curious, or ignore this.
Once the CEO says yes, the introduction itself is a separate step, and the introduction email builder and the double opt-in introduction explainer cover it.
When to send it
Timing is the other half of keeping purposes apart. These rules are this page's choices, not SourceX terms.
- Its own thread. Never inside a quarterly letter, a capital account statement, an annual meeting agenda or a reply to fund correspondence.
- A clear gap. At least five working days between the request and any scheduled fund communication to that LP, in either direction.
- Not during a decision. Wait while your firm has any decision of its own in front of that LP. A favor asked then can look like part of the bargain.
- Best when invited. If the LP has just mentioned the company, a system it is replacing or its long history, reply within a few days, still in a separate message.
- One follow-up, then close. After ten working days, send one line ("I'll take silence as a pass, and that's completely fine"), then close the request and never raise it in a fund setting.
Who can reach the CEO
Check before writing that the LP actually holds a role at the company. Chairs, directors and family shareholders who sit on the board can choose to raise it; a passive shareholder with no role is the wrong person to ask, and asking them to find the CEO for you spends goodwill for nothing. If the LP is the company's CEO, rewrite the email to them in that capacity: they decide for the company, and the fund still stays out of the message. How to find these roles in the first place is covered in the company introduction hidden in an LP's operating network.
What the request leaves out, and why
| Left out | Why |
|---|---|
| Fund news, performance, a future fund, the LP's commitment | Each one ties the favor to the investor relationship |
| Any investment pitch of any kind | The note concerns one company's decision, nothing to put money into |
| Any claim that the company qualifies or that SourceX endorses anyone | Only SourceX's review decides fit, and nobody speaks for SourceX |
| An offer of anything to the LP | Nothing in return keeps the request clean; an LP who wants to introduce registers and signs before submitting, and only one partner can be credited per company |
| Attachments, data requests or system questions | Nobody collects company data for SourceX; section 4.2 of the sample agreement gives a partner no authority to share a company's records |
Where a separate-purpose request can still fail
- Any ask has a cost. Some LPs will feel any request from a manager as pressure, however it is worded. No data on how LPs receive introduction requests has been published; log each reply, and stop asking any LP who passes twice.
- The research is general. The two studies above did not test LPs or business introductions, and we use them as a direction, not a measured effect.
- The LP may embellish. An LP who forwards in their own words may add praise or promises. Offering the four-line note reduces that, but cannot prevent it.
- Your own firm's rules come first. If your firm limits who may write to LPs, or how, its policy outranks anything on this page.
- Untested wording. This email has not been tested on completed introductions. To learn whether it works, count requests sent, passes, forwards and CEOs who asked to talk, per quarter.
To turn down a request cleanly in the other direction, see how to decline an introduction request, and for general introduction manners, warm introduction etiquette. Other guides on investor and board relationships sit in the guides library.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Before the first request goes out, register as a partner and sign the agreement so the disclosure line is true, check the company's public facts against who qualifies, and keep the program terms open when you write the interest sentence.
The email above concerns a company introduction only; readers weighing SourceX as an investment should use SourceX's investor page to request materials, entirely apart from any referral.
This article is for information only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any offering by SourceX is made only to verified accredited investors through its offering documents.