Li-ran N.

𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐁𝐲 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝) A practical, founder-first guide to how early-stage fundraising actually works—based on real investor behavior, not pitch theory. Key Takeaways: 1️⃣ Fundraising is a system: Targeting, sequencing, and momentum matter more than a great story. 2️⃣ Signals beat effort: Investors react to traction, clarity, and risk reduction—not hustle or long decks. 3️⃣ Mechanics decide outcomes: Timing, dilution, and investor selection compound far more than valuation. Bottom line? Fundraising isn’t about persuasion—it’s about engineering proof and leverage. P.S. Want a PDF of Raise Millions? Get it free: https://lnkd.in/guuxKa-J ♻️ Repost to help people in your network. 💡 Follow Alejandro Cremades for more strategy insights.

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Your pre-seed deck does not need an exit slide. It needs a clear path to product-market fit. 🚪 I see founders get caught up in the “exit” hype way too early. Someone tells them they need an exit strategy, and suddenly they are asking themselves, “Okay… who could I sell this company to in 10 years?” When you are raising pre-seed, your real job is to build a product people want. Not to map out a billion-dollar sale before you even have users. Investors notice when you focus on exits. To them, it can look like you are skipping the hard work. It’s a red flag if you talk more about selling than about solving real problems. There are only two cases where an “exit” slide makes sense: → You are building with the clear goal of a strategic acquisition. You already know the buyer, have connections, and it’s almost an insider deal. → Your founding team has proven exits. You know the process, you. have done it before, and you can speak from experience. For everyone else, leave the exit slide out. Show your path to product-market fit instead. What matters most at pre-seed: ▪️ How you will reach PMF ▪️ What problem you solve ▪️ Who your first customers are ▪️ Why your team can build it Focus on building something people love. Exits come later, after you prove value. Have you ever felt pressure to include an “exit” slide?

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Venture capital benchmarks are complete fiction. I track real performance data on ~200 emerging manager funds. The public benchmarks everyone quotes use flawed methodology that makes the industry look better than reality. When you strip away SAFE caps and speculative valuations, focusing only on priced rounds, the numbers tell a different story. Top decile funds are printing money at 2.7x+ TVPI, beating the performance of the top technology stocks. Top decile: 2.7x+ TVPI Top quartile: 2.2x+ TVPI Mean: 1.2x TVPI Stop comparing yourself to fake benchmarks. Start comparing yourself to real performance. The methodology matters more than the numbers. Do your homework before you believe any benchmark.

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I blew 20 VC meetings before I realized I didn’t need a perfect pitch; I needed to show investors how I'd make them money. Here’s how I did it by focusing on milestones 👇🏾 REGULAR PITCH: I thought my pitch was smooth: "Our product is in market and we’ve gotten 7 customers and $100K in ARR. We’re raising $750K to hire engineers to move off of no-code" Sounds solid, right? Nope. 20 meetings and 0 checks in, I realized I was making a big mistake. I was telling investors how I'd use their money, not how they'd make money. MILESTONE-FOCUSED PITCH: Once I understood venture math, everything changed. My new pitch: "We're at $100K ARR with seven customers, and our product is a no-code MVP. With $750K, we'll grow to $1M ARR in 15 months - which will allow us to raise our seed round at 2-3x our current valuation." WHY THIS WORKS: Pre-seed investors aren’t investing in today’s version of your company. They’re investing in what your company can become. They need to believe that in 12-18 months, you can raise another round at a 2-3x valuation. That means if you’re raising at a $6M valuation today, your job is to convince investors that you’ll be able to raise at (at least) a $12M valuation down the road. Why do you have to double your valuation? Because VCs need to show their LPs (limited partners; the people who give them money to invest) that they're picking good companies. Happy LPs = more money for the next fund. TAKEAWAY: When fundraising, your job as a founder isn't to show investors your great company. Your only job is to convince them you'll hit the milestones to raise your next round at a higher valuation. The other parts of your pitch (team, product, GTM, etc.) are just there to support the story. What’s your biggest challenge with fundraising? Drop a comment and I’ll try to help! Save and repost this to help a first-time founder 🤝🏾

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Startup Founders: this is the secret 🤫 to raising money for your startup: Investors are desperate to find great companies to invest in. Angel investors put money into founders and business ideas that solve a big problem for customers that could be potentially huge and explosively growing market. VCs want to deploy capital to help companies grow. Companies the have proven their business at a basic product-market fit level. If you cannot get investor interest in your company, there is usually one of three reasons: 1) You are too early for the investors that you’re pitching to. 2) You don’t have a solution that addresses a big customer problem in what could be an large and explosive market, where you have an unique value proposition, and a sustainable competitive advantage. At least from the investors perspective. So this could be true, or a perception based on your inability to convince them with evidence. 3) The investors don’t beleive in you and your team. This can be hard to swallow. But not all investors are the right fit for every team. And you may need improvements in your team. There can be a number of reasons behind this one including: (a) they don’t think you have the business, technical, and/or market domain expertise to win; (b) they don’t know, like, and trust you; (c) they don’t think you have the ‘right stuff’ to stick it out when things get rough. You can mitigate or eliminate ALL of these issues. It comes down to the secret: Build better companies. A lot of ‘entrepreneurs’ don’t want to hear this: The problem isn’t the investors. It is you. Great businesses with great teams and stellar leadership always get funded. It may take creativity and tenacity and a lot of investor ‘NO’ answers, but they ALWAYS get funded. Agree or disagree?

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All VC "theses" fall into 3 categories. Know them and your pitch will hit 10x harder. 1. The Follower ("Access Thesis") - Their mindset: "I don't want to miss out." - The reality: They aren't analyzing your market, they just want to know who else is coming to the party. - The pitch: Sell momentum. Who's in? How much is committed? - Working with them: Take the check to fill the round, but check references first. Passive capital is fine; emotional capital is lethal. 2. The Pattern Matcher ("Heuristic Thesis") - Their mindset: "Does this look like the last winner I missed?" - The reality: They bet on traits (e.g., repeat founder, buzzy keywords, location, growth rate, etc.) and call it pattern matching; they don't actually care about what you're building. - The pitch: De-risk for them. Know and show how you check their heuristic boxes. - Working with them: They'll be good operational partners, but they may not get the vision. 3. The Prepared Mind ("True Thesis") - The mindset: "I’ve been waiting for a company to build exactly this." - The reality: They saw the future before you walked in. They don't need convincing that the opportunity exists, just that you are the one to capture it. - The pitch: Skip the generics and go deep on the specific insight you share and why you're uniquely positioned to build the future. - Working with them: High impact, but high friction. If you pivot away from their worldview, things get messy. Pitch FOMO to the Followers; pitch stats to the Pattern Matchers; pitch vision to the Prepared Minds. Pro-Tip: Listen to their questions to spot the type. "Who is leading? How much is left in your round?" = Type 1. "What's your CAC?" = Type 2. "Why now?" = Type 3.

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I DON’T SEND my company deck to investors before the first meeting. 60% go unopened. Opened decks get about 1:56 of attention (DocSend). Fewer than 2% of cold sent decks earn a meeting. A file without me lets VCs pattern match me into a “pass” in under two minutes. They won’t grasp what I’m building, hear my conviction, or why I’m the one to build it. Instead, I send five lines: What we do (one line). One traction signal. One stat on the opportunity. One “why now.” One team credential. Ask for a 15-minute call. If they won’t invest 15 minutes, they won’t invest 15 thousand.

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Founders, especially at the early stage, if you have, or are planning to raise venture dollars, you should be paying attention to reports like this one (link in comments) from Carta & Peter Walker re: 2024 VC fund performance. Some things to think about: 1. LP pullback: The number of LPs actively investing in VC funds has nearly halved since 2022. Funds are relying on fewer but bigger checks, so raising cash might get tighter. 2. Extended runways & bridge rounds: Seed-stage bridge rounds hit an all-time high (40% in 2024), and it’s taking longer than ever to get from Seed to Series A. Plan on having at least 18-24 months of runway to manage this. 3. Down rounds are increasing: About 20% of priced rounds now are down rounds, way up from ~7% just three years ago. The market’s cautious—so valuations are resetting more frequently. So, consider... 1. Staying lean and clear on your milestones. 2. Start chatting with investors early (think: 6-9 months before you actually need the cash). 3. Be pragmatic about valuations; a down round isn’t ideal, but it can be strategic, not catastrophic.

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Founders, your Ideal Investor Profile (IIP) is as important as your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). While many founders are using ICP frameworks to find product market fit, I find almost no startups are using a similar framework for fundraising. Which investors are most likely to: - Convert? - Send $ on the timeline you need it? - Be a good long-term partner? I see early stage startups meeting with VCs who either do not have a mandate to invest in their geography or else are unlikely to convert soon (most common). I see founders meeting with investors who do not invest in their industry. If you are fundraising you are selling. Your product is your equity and your customer is the investor. Treat the process almost the same as you would when selling your startup's product/service. Design your IIP, go to market, get feedback, iterate, repeat.

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Founders often scramble to prep materials *after* a VC shows interest. That’s backward. You should be ready for diligence before your first meeting with a VC. Smart founders: 🗂 Have their data room ready 📊 Can share a clear KPI dashboard if asked 💸 Keep clean, up-to-date financials 📣 Track and communicate metrics Flailing around getting your files in order can erode investor trust. Put in the work ahead of time and it will build confidence in you and your company. #FundraisingAdvice #StartupTips #RSCMFounderFriday

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Over the past few years, fundraising has become significantly tougher, especially for smaller funds. This, unfortunately, is the case even for VCs delivering solid returns. In my recent Crunchbase piece, I talk about how emerging managers can survive (and even thrive!) in a challenging fundraising environment. I discuss why the process today is more about familiarity than performance, and highlight places where managers should look for capital that others ignore. Check out the full column via link in comments. Curious to hear from other managers who have recently raised successfully. Which part of this rings true?

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At Vibe Capital, we believe the venture landscape is bifurcating. The reason is simple: reality is full of drunk cats. "Drunk Cats" are the emergent, second-order effects that arise from simple rules. They can tank a product, entire system, or an entire country. The ability to see -and master - these drunk cats reveals the true split in startups today. It is no longer between software and hardware, but between "impressionistic" founders who map the world as it is, and "mechanistic" founders who can reverse-engineer reality from first principles. My latest Dave's Quick Hits newsletter provides the playbook for identifying and funding these mechanistic architects. It is about a fundamental shift from describing effects to mastering cause. I break down the three core stages of the Mechanistic Playbook: 1. See the System: Identifying the hidden rules and emergent flaws in any complex system, from software to biology. 2. Debug the System: Using technology to patch the legacy "bugs" of a previous industrial paradigm. 3. Architect a New System: Building with true primitives, like DNA, to program matter itself. The next trillion-dollar companies won't be built by operators chasing surface-level trends. They'll be built by system-thinkers who can see, debug, and architect reality’s source code. You can read the full analysis and the investment theses here: https://lnkd.in/dkhkBUwh #VentureCapital #DeepTech #FrontierTech #Investing #Strategy #Biotechnology #Nanotechnology #vibecap #vibecapital #drunkcats

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I could fill your head with hundreds of deck tips. But more is not always better. I’ve spent countless of hours iterating on decks of founders I work with. And countless of hours looking at decks as a VC. That's why I've prepared one golden tip for every slide of your pitch deck to help you with clarity. Check the carrousel below for one top tip on: 1️⃣ Problem 2️⃣ Solution 3️⃣ Product 4️⃣ Market 5️⃣ Business Model 6️⃣ Competition 7️⃣ Traction 8️⃣ Team 9️⃣ Fundraising Ask Is that an exhaustive list with best practises? No. But would they boost your deck game if used? Definitely! P.S. What are your additional pitch deck tips! Let's crowdsource them below. ⬇️ I'll start first with 2 more. 📌

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If you don’t believe small funds can compete with mega funds, you probably shouldn’t work in startups. The core premise of our industry is that small, focused, founder-led teams can outmaneuver much larger, better-resourced incumbents.

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Two New Metrics that Might Keep Your Startup Alive in 2026: VC's love rules and formulas. The Rule of 40. CAC/LTV. Burn Multiples. Neat equations that promise precision in a world where controlled chaos is the norm and clean math is hard to come by. Right now I’m working with a founder who reminds me why those formulas only get you part of the way and new measures are required, especially at the early stage. This team built a product I genuinely love, an app I open nearly every day. It’s been downloaded millions of times and is widely used. Unfortunately, churn is higher than they’d like and monetization isn’t fully dialed in yet. The burn is shrinking and profitability is in view, but not without a bridge round, which I recently helped to catalyze. It was a hard round to close. It doesn’t have AI in the name, so most VC's aren’t excited to dig in. In an attempt to make this kind of startup more legible, here are a couple of the principles that gave me confidence to continue to back this team: Dollars-to-Progress Ratio: Every time I open the app there’s a new feature waiting for me. Every six-week check-in comes with a chart that climbs steadily up and to the right. The epitome of capital efficiency is a team “propelled by the fumes from a petrol-soaked rag.” This team has raised very little, but has converted every dollar into product and TikTok-fueled growth. And every dollar feels like an investment in possibility at a time when term sheets can start to feel like overpriced lottery tickets. Morale Multiplier: The product is great, but it was the founder's enthusiasm that pushed me to catalyze this round. He cares so deeply it’s impossible not to leave every interaction more energized than you arrived. When we meet, I’m astounded by how often he has exactly the question I have in mind queued up as the next slide. Updates are delivered regularly and filled with clear detail. This founder recently became a father and after the extension closed, he told me he finally felt like he could sleep again. You’d never have guessed how much weight he was carrying based on how he carried himself on calls. There’s still plenty of work ahead, and the odds are long, just like with every startup. Still, this is the kind of team that makes you "waltz to work". I’m skeptical of many startup “rules”. But trusting in exceptional founders has rarely led me too far astray.

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