How to attract investors and successfully raise a $450M Series A round, drawing from the experiences of a multi-exit founder in deep tech founder.
How to attract investors and successfully raise a $450M Series A round, drawing from the experiences of a multi-exit founder in deep tech founder. It also covers broader topics relevant to building a winning startup and navigating the investment landscape.
Well, I I think um, you know, uh there are there are uh I think four things that uh you want in an investor, right? Um, uh you care about the investors um, you know, uh uh name brand because their their credibility helps you in terms of attracting, you know, employees and customers and so on. Uh you care about um uh you know, their strategic advice and their value whether they can they can really give you, you know, value in terms of uh you know, [clears throat] uh building uh the company. Uh you obviously care about their their money, uh you know, their capital and you care about um the network that they have. Do do they actually have like, you know, people they can introduce you with and so on. Um and um, you know, you really want to try to find people that have, you know, a a lot to contribute on each of those metrics. So, it's not just money but it's uh it's money that comes with a
network, uh money that comes with credibility, uh you know, money that comes with with actual advice that that you can that you can uh you know, that can help you build build your business. I've been lucky because this is my I guess my seventh startup now and I've been able to work with a lot of great VCs over the last, you know, many years uh to be able to tap into those networks. If you're starting out from scratch as an entrepreneur, it's a bit harder, you know, you're kind of you know, unproven so there's a bit more skepticism uh but I think in the end if you have those four things I mentioned at the beginning, if you have a big unsolved problem, if you have a a differentiated solution, uh if you have an exceptional team, uh and if you have customer validation, uh then I think you have a a pretty good chance of of bringing in some some great investors uh you know, at good valuations.
>> So, what does a great investor look like? If you had to break that down, what does what does that look like? Uh again, I I would say those four things for the investors, right? The the you know, uh how good is their network, how much experience do they have relative to building other companies so they can give you advice, um you know, uh uh how um you know, uh uh uh you know, how much how much you know, uh you know, uh uh cash can they put in basically. The these are all the things that I think, you know, create great investors.