VC Minute – quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better
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Rich Maloy:
This is Rich Maloy with SpringTime Ventures, bringing you the VC Minute, quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better. First, I wanted to thank AVL Growth Partners for being a phenomenal supporter of VC Minute and startups everywhere. Outsourcing your finance and accounting functions is a no-brainer for startups. And you need to work with a firm that specializes in high-growth companies. Founded in 2009, AVL has fueled the success of over 1200 early-stage companies, specializing in raising capital, M&A, financial modeling, scaling, and bringing financial transparency and a disciplined approach to the companies they work with. Head to AVLgrowth.com and explore how they can be pivotal to your growth.
This week’s guest is Liz Giorgi, co-founder and CEO of Soona. Liz is based in Denver, and she’s known locally as both a great leader and a top-notch fundraiser. We got a teaser of her mindset last week, and we’ll hear more from her this week.
Liz Giorgi:
My name is Liz Giorgi. I am the co-founder and CEO of Soona. Soona is a virtual photoshoot platform for e-commerce. What that means is that there is nothing that we buy on the internet that doesn’t have a photo or a video that sells that product to us. We make the creation of those photos and videos easy by giving merchants a platform where they can plan their content creation, complete their content creation, and then distribute that content to all the places where they sell online.
To date, Soona has raised 53 million, most recently raising a 35 million Series B from Bain Capital Ventures in Q1 of 2022. And we look forward to continuing to grow this business.
When we talk about fundraising, I think the first thing that comes to mind for me is that fundraising is a principled practice. It is not this task that’s on your to-do list. It is not the kind of prerequisite to starting a business. I think of it a lot like having other skills in your business, having the ability to be deeply practiced at financially modeling a business, having the ability to be deeply practiced in Go-To-Market, and having the ability to be deeply practiced in media relations. These are all skills that you gain, build, and learn over time. And as the CEO of a company, this is a deeply integrated part of your job.
In fact, I would think if you’ve got a top three list of what’s your job as CEO of the company, how you manage capital, and how you raise capital are on that top three list at all times, no matter where you are in the life cycle of the business. And so I think just starting there: changing your relationship with fundraising, with which many founders have a relationship that’s, treat fundraising as a necessary evil if you will. Instead, treating it as a part of the practice of doing this job really well and having a deeply principled approach to how you develop the skills around that practice is the first major unlock to becoming really great at fundraising.
About Soona
soona is a self-serve content creation platform and home of the virtual shoot. create high-quality photo and video content from anywhere.
About AVL Growth Partners
AVL Growth Partners, founded in 2009, is the leading fractional Finance and Accounting firm supporting organizations in pivoting from growth to scale. AVL brings an experienced team of CFOs, Controllers, and Accountants to your organization, delivering transparent, strategic actions for short and long-term success. Transform your financial approach affordably with AVL, supporting companies coast to coast – get to know AVL Growth Partners at avlgrowth.com. (Sponsored)
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