VC Minute – quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.
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Welcome back everybody to another week of VC minute, I’ve got some fun topics lined up this week. So without further ado, let’s get after it.
We have a portfolio company right now that is going back out to fundraise again. They have tried unsuccessfully to fundraise for at least the last year.
The deck is beautiful. People love this product. It’s just something that is outside of the wheelhouse for most venture funds, and they’ve been out to market to try to raise a few times already.
We believe in the business. We believe in the founder. And we believe in supporting our portfolio companies through their ups and downs. So we’re working with this company on this particular fundraise.
Here’s the lesson I want to share with you. If you keep going back to the same investors over and over again, and you have not made significant progress on the revenue, and you’ve not made significant progress on your fundraise. You need to cross those investors off of your list because they are not going to move your round forward.
Those investors have been hearing the same story from you for the last six or 12 months. Without having made significant progress on at least one front, especially, and ideally the revenue front, without that significant progress when you come back to raise again it is a negative signal.
So if you have that whole list of investors, and these are the 20 people that we’ve been talking to for the last year, and they haven’t said yes and they haven’t said no, those folks are a no. Cross them off your list. Don’t waste your time with.
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