No one knows what investors are looking for

Not even the investors themselves.
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If they did, the whole process would look very different. Investors would just ask for the specific information, compare the answers, and make decisions quickly. But the investment process in deep-tech is long, iterative, and deeply human.
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That’s not to say investors aren’t qualified. Seasoned investors absolutely know how to invest to achieve the outcomes they desire - but they can’t give you a formula.
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Knowing how to do something is not the same as knowing what you’re doing explicitly. In philosophy, this is the difference between procedural and propositional knowledge.
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An experienced music producer can tell within seconds whether a song will resonate, yet can’t isolate that decisive variable. Their knowledge is embodied; it comes from exposure to thousands of similar situations and their outcomes. It’s essentially pattern recognition.
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Likewise, investors have trained their intuition through years of experience with founders, pitches, and results. They operate in an “I’ll know it when I see it” mode. That’s why the investment process evolved the way it did — it gives investors enough exposure to recognize the patterns they trust.
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This is a universal human dynamic in our pursuit of value. Once something becomes an explicit value marker - say, market size - it stops being a differentiator, because every founder adjusts for it. The real opportunity signals always remain underground: patterns investors can sense but not describe.
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If investors don’t know what they’re looking for, you certainly don’t either. Trying to prove you’re what they want makes no sense - and misses the real opportunity: discovering together what it might be.
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Yours,

Sagi