Topic
Fundraising
Fundraising tactics, pitch strategies, and what VCs actually look for.
What the experts say
“True moments of immediate conviction in pitches—where you know right away something is exceptional—happen only once or twice a year, or sometimes zero times a year for investors.”
Acquired · 1:45:38
“You can discover and help fantastic founders even when your initial instinct doesn't immediately recognize their potential.”
Acquired · 1:45:38
“A capital-light model with smaller fund sizes could allow for operational changes such as reducing partner compensation.”
Acquired · 1:29:15
“Listeners can become an LP through acquired.fm/lp or by searching LP Show in their podcast player.”
Acquired · 1:59:56
“Other firms are overfunded with over $20,000,000 per partner of capital.”
Acquired · 1:30:00
“A founder should evaluate their cap table by measuring whether equity allocations generated multiple equity points of value and meaningful impact on company success, rather than simply giving equity to people who 'bought a ticket.'”
Acquired · 1:28:29
“When founders sell their own shares as part of secondary selling during fundraising, they become more price-focused and optimization-oriented compared to when they are just selling equity from the cap table.”
Acquired · 1:35:13
“Secondary share sales during fundraising tend to clarify founders' true pricing interests and reveal what the right valuation should be.”
Acquired · 1:35:13
“The relationship between a founder and board member that begins during fundraising is ultimately more important than the immediate anxiety about funding and terms.”
Acquired · 1:14:13
“Entrepreneurs pursuing ventures like Webvan should get funded by the best investors, and investors should do everything possible to give them the best odds of success.”
Acquired · 1:22:27
Related episodes
fundraising
meetings
startup
As I said, not more than three to four minutes. We wanna make sure we move into the discussion fast and don't lose attention. Of course, if they ask questions, roll with it, but you'd be amazed at how many meetings I have where fifteen minutes in,...
A couple of big mistakes I see founders make in this next step. Number one, they go to their priority names first. Do not do this. Your pitch both in delivery, style, and messaging will improve so much with each meeting. Start with a couple of...
You can now use that to create an FAQ page that's in the deck, and that will prevent you from having to answer the most obvious questions in other meetings. With each meeting, you will find ways to iterate the deck, the messaging, and the way that...
This is a slide that you should have in the deck. One thing I love in startups and always I have when I'm presenting my funds in a slide, I have a slide at the end which says why you should not invest in me. I I think the most important thing for...
Investors often need a reason to move, and so it's good to put a timeline on the raise. I would say fourteen days is perfect. This is enough time for any VC to do the work they need to do, but, also, if they cannot do it in that time without a...
I hate pictures where it's a a slide by slide read off. I would personally not have the slides showing at all. I would have asked for a deck pre the meeting, and I, as a VC, should have gone through this beforehand. That's really my duty as a VC to...
It's super easy to do. That should reveal a lot to you about how this investor behaves in tough times. I also find it's really important to be very vulnerable in this process. Talk about ambitions, inspirations, fears, childhood traumas. My mother...
So few do this. You really need to make it succinct, concise, and break it into chapters if you can. A minute per one, two to three is ideal. In these, you want to show a couple of things. Found a problem fit, in other words, why you specifically...
They will provide you a term sheet That likely is based on the National Venture Capital Association's model term sheet, but they will provide you with a term sheet telling you what they think you're worth and whether they're gonna get participating...
but you don't want angels to have so little that it simply is too small for them to care and really step up and help you when you need it. So make sure that that check size matters to them. Next, I see so many founders also drag out the process,...
to lead the round. They not may not want to engage separate counsel and due diligence and negotiate the terms. They might prefer that you as a founder give them a term sheet saying, this is what I think the round is gonna look like. What do you say?...
Now we've talked quite a bit about term and structure and things like that. I wanna ask you, like, one of the things that I see a lot of confusion with first time founders is this idea of the term sheet. Right? Like, are you supposed to walk in with...
egregious behavior. We have to remove this from the industry. Do not ever accept it. Number two, if it's an early round and the investor wants to invest in investment tranches, This is where they invest a little bit now, and then if you hit...
k. Right? So it's not a problem that you're talking to multiple investor, but you kinda wanna manage that process. You know, sometimes you have really hot companies where they get to a million and then $1.05, and then they're really close to 2. And,...
It is a sheer numbers game. It was Mickey Cusi at Volt who said on the show recently, for his series b, he got 68 rejections before Laurel Bowden at eighty three North said yes. Volt sold in 2021 for a reported $7,000,000,000 to DoorDash, making a...
Otherwise, you can shop the term sheet, I e share it with everyone, and use the first people to commit as leverage to create FOMO to get other people to commit, which can be disadvantageous for being the first mover as a VC. So that's why they'll...
I think there are other firms where the balance was different. Right? It was like two to one the other way. LPs didn't love that. The third is there's an alternative, which is we could just raise a bigger fund overall. But I think everybody kind of...
fine, you didn't need that much to to move the needle. So we're gonna go into the fundraising process today because there's, like, a lot of unknowns that I think need to be addressed. If we think about, like, chronologically speaking, we decide on...
should only have five and then 15 each for tier two and tier three. So how do we choose who goes in what tier? First, I would say that founder references speak volumes and also lead to warm intros, and so I would go there first. Speak to your...
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