A: You need to be judicious about giving VC customer references -- you want to protect your customers time with the VCs that have serious interest (vs. having VCs build out their rolodex or worse, connect your customer contacts to their other portfolio companies).
In general, we recommend a few approaches :
Ask the VC that the customer references be the FINAL step in the diligence process
Set the expectation with the VC that if there are any other items of diligence that need to be done besides the customer reference, that you would ask those be done first. You treat your customers’ time very seriously, and you are happy to intro them to the VC, but only if all other items are done by the VC and they are ready to move forward. That is, the expectation is that if the customer reference call goes well that the VC is ready to write the check. If there is anything else they would need to verify / diligence even if the call goes well, you’d ask to prioritize that. Ask them what’s the process if the customer call goes well?
(2) Better than that, have them connect you to their customers
A stronger move is to tell the VC that other funds have been connecting you to customers in their rolodex. That has proven valuable because it demonstrates the value the VC can add as an investor for your diligence of the VC, and the customer is a trusted contact of the VC to make the diligence more objective. You would welcome that if that’s a fit on their end.