This question was posed recently in a freelancers' mentoring network I'm in, and the idea caught my attention:

Could a press release not just gain you visibility, but also carry a carefully crafted message targeted to attract VC funding?

The person who posted the question was with a startup company whose product (a transportation sharing app) hadn't yet been tested or brought to market.Among the first replies came from a Skeptic: 'What do you hope to achieve with a press release? What is the press release about? "We're working on an app and we'll tell you when it's finished?? A press release should be news." Where would this press release go, he asked, and who would pick it up?These are actually great questions to start with on EVERY press release. That fantastic internal achievement by your company or enterprise is not necessarily newsworthy to anyone else, unless it has independent external value to the world. And most importantly, be able to articulate to yourself or colleagues WHY you're issuing the release - e.g., how it will strategically advance the company's interests.Another sage PR pro pointed out the differences between VCs and Angel Investors. The latter are the ones who typically fund the earliest stages of a startup. Once the business is making money or growing at a sustained rate, if there is the potential for wide scale adoption for a disruptive technology, that's typically when you start pitching VCs. VCs aren't interested in the very early stages until the concept can be shown to "have legs."However, all that being said, a few other answers showed there are still some optimists and dreamers among my often-jaded fellow PR professionals, to counter the discouraging remarks of the skeptics and doubters.One stressed how an innovative concept coupled with a high end logical presentation demonstrating how your product is different would be one message that VC's appreciate and understand.Another said it's about building your influence and credibility by "seeding the market with your ideas and innovations." His strategy would be to issue a series of releases linking the product's major development phases to the production team's unique expertise, experience or knowledge. The purpose of this strategy would be to both gain attention and build engagement with markets and audiences, who include stakeholders such as VCs. However, you would still need to overcome the hurdles posed by the Skeptic, above.For some products the timing of a press release can be crucial as well. It's ideal if you can relate your company's story to something topical in the week's news, and avoid releasing it while another story or industry theme is dominating everyone's attention.Put all the above answers together logically, and the answer to whether a press release can attract VC funding is a qualified "yes." If your product has potential for wide-scale, ready adoption and solves a problem with older technologies in your space, and if the timing is right, VC's would be interested in hearing about that news.One final piece of advice from yours truly: If you do issue a release, be sure to invest in a good PR distribution service that can target current journalists and bloggers who cover VC and finance. Also, remember that Graphite offers a host of experienced business marketing professionals who can help guide your company's go-to-market strategy.