Finance: Fundraising & VC
Showing 79 articles for Finance: Fundraising & VC.
How investors use terms and soft nos to take advantage of founders
Y Combinator
December 16, 2021
Fundraising & VC
9
Pitching investors
7
- A high valuation means nothing if the terms hand away board control
- "Come back with a lead" is VC-speak for no
- Investors push founders to raise more to hit their ownership targets, not yours
SaaS fundraising landscape and the TinySeed syndicate explained
Startups For the Rest of Us
December 1, 2021
Fundraising & VC
9
Business models
5
- Those cold investor emails are PE funds, not VCs — know the difference
- Secondary lets founders de-risk personally without abandoning a bigger exit
- TinySeed's syndicate pools angel checks into one cap table line item
Common fundraising mistakes YC founders make
Y Combinator
November 29, 2021
Fundraising & VC
9
Bootstrapping
6
Identity & self-belief
5
- Raising before traction is fear-based — it kills your leverage permanently.
- Founders who obsess over investors instead of customers are building wrong.
- Google and Facebook raised from strength; that's why founders kept control.
Bootstrapped to venture backed: lessons from nine years and a pivot
Startups For the Rest of Us
September 7, 2021
Bootstrapping
9
Fundraising & VC
7
Business models
5
- Raising on a SAFE gives you capital without giving up board control
- Anti-funding bias made sense 15 years ago — the terms have fundamentally changed
- A part-time chief of staff handles the processes founders are terrible at
TinySeed Fall 2021 SaaS Accelerator Application Info Session
Startups For the Rest of Us
August 16, 2021
Fundraising & VC
9
Business models
6
- TinySeed funds bootstrapped SaaS founders who already have revenue and product-market fit.
- The program combines $120k investment with year-long mentorship from SaaS experts.
- You get optionality to run profitably, raise later, or sell without venture pressure.
Thinking Through Funding as a Bootstrapper
Startups For the Rest of Us
July 13, 2021
Bootstrapping
9
Fundraising & VC
8
Business models
5
- Micro-rounds reduce personal financial risk without forcing a venture-scale exit.
- Use capital to hire sales, customer success, or test expensive growth channels.
- Bootstrap remains best if you lack product-market fit or want a part-time lifestyle.
Ho Nam of Altos Ventures: Berkshire-Style Investing in Early-Stage Tech
Acquired
June 21, 2021
Fundraising & VC
9
Long-term planning
7
Resilience & grit
5
- How Altos turned an $85M fund into Roblox's largest IPO shareholder
- Why founder control and capital efficiency beat growth-at-all-costs
- Missing on selling becomes a feature, not a bug, when conviction is right
The Art of Selling Your Business: Negotiation Strategies for Founders
Startups For the Rest of Us
January 19, 2021
Exit strategy
9
Closing techniques
7
Fundraising & VC
5
- Hire an M&A broker to run a competitive bidding process—multiple offers create massive leverage.
- Retrading happens post-LOI when buyers manufacture reasons to lower offers; understand structural pitfalls.
- Most acquirers are 5–20x your company size; they're more likely than Google.
How Peloton turned skeptical investors and customers into fanatics
Masters of Scale
August 25, 2020
Fundraising & VC
9
Niche selection
8
Growth hacking
7
- 400 VC rejections — why wrong investors waste your time
- Physical trials convert skeptics; words and videos rarely do
- Never force a crow-eating moment when doubters come around
How Female Founders Raised Their Series A: Process, Psychology, and Partnership
Y Combinator
December 18, 2019
Fundraising & VC
9
Pitching investors
7
Hiring & recruitment
5
- Optimise for the partner, not valuation — misaligned incentives cost more.
- Tara closed its Series A in nine days by running a ruthlessly structured process.
- Female founders face pressure to mirror male norms; traction is the only real equaliser.
Why startups should raise more capital than they think they need
Masters of Scale
November 21, 2019
Fundraising & VC
9
Case studies
7
Pivoting
6
- Undercapitalising is itself the risky move in competitive markets.
- The planning fallacy guarantees novel projects overrun — always budget for failure loops.
- Minted's pivot from failed stationery to crowdsourced design survived only because capital was available.
Cash flow management
YouTube
How much to spend after raising your seed round
Y Combinator
October 18, 2019
Cash flow management
9
Fundraising & VC
6
- Running out of money is a top-two reason startups die.
- Most seed-funded companies never raise a Series A.
- Park half your seed round separately to force frugality.
How modern startup financing works: from Series A to SAFE
Y Combinator
September 20, 2019
Fundraising & VC
9
Equity & cap tables
6
- The SAFE replaced debt-based convertible notes as the default first-round instrument.
- Valuation is the only term you need to negotiate in a SAFE.
- Flexible SAFE rounds make dilution easy to lose track of — until the priced round hits.
Why your startup deserves more money — and when it doesn't
Y Combinator
November 28, 2018
Bootstrapping
8
Product-market fit
7
Fundraising & VC
6
- Spending $2M without product-market fit earns no right to more money
- Break-even beats fundraising: revenue replaces investor dependency and fear
- When you stop needing investors, they suddenly want to fund you
Crypto tokens, ICOs, and what founders need to know
Y Combinator
September 14, 2018
Fundraising & VC
8
Business models
7
Post-mortems
5
- Tokens solve trustlessness, not fundraising — most startups shouldn't ICO
- CoinList accepted 5 of 2,500+ inbound token sale requests
- Token investors have no formal tie to the company — misaligned incentives by design