Master The Art Of Fundraising With Inner Circle

Eric Kinariwala has revolutionized the pharmacy industry with his latest venture, Capsule. In a recent exclusive interview on the DealMakers podcast, he provided an insider’s look at what it takes to cultivate one of the fastest-growing companies in the world.  

Getting ready to raise money for your startup? Here we will be breaking down the pitch deck as well as the digits you need to know about creating and presenting the presentation that will get you funded.

Thinking about selling your business? This piece covers the 100 questions potential buyers will ask startups… Selling a business is often the best move. Maybe you receive an offer too good to refuse. It may be foolish or negligent not to accept offers you are receiving. You may be in a personal situation that is demanding more of your time. Exiting may be better for the business than raising another round of money.

Thejo Kote knows a thing or two about building startups. Two of the ventures he has cofounded were accepted by Y Combinator. One sold for over $100M. He is now working on his third venture. A startup aiming to simplify spending and accounting for other growing businesses.

Wondering how startup financing rounds get oversubscribed? Ready to launch your first fundraising campaign and want to make sure you bring in enough money? How do some startups seem to attract more money than they asked for while others struggle with hundreds of investor rejections for years?

Need a startup business plan template for your new venture? What’s the best layout for a business plan? What role should it play in your small business startup? How do you best make it work for you? The Role Of The Business Plan In Startups Every business needs a...

Will investors fund my startups? Does your startup really have a chance of getting funded? Whether you are still debating whether fundraising is the right path right now, or you’ve had some rejection and want to know whether it’s worth continuing, these questions will help you evaluate your startup, and improve your game to increase your odds of getting funded. Or you might find it’s time to make a quick pivot to give your vision the best chance of success.

Who are the 10 most famous entrepreneurs and what made them insanely rich? There may be only a dozen or so truly iconic entrepreneurs that stand out for their wealth and accomplishments. How much are they worth? What really made them so much money?

Are you wondering how to start a business with almost no money and if it is even possible? Why should you, even if you just sold your last startup for millions and have plenty of cash?

Ready to build a highly successful business? In this article, you will find the 10 tips for building a successful business.  Here are the steps to take to create a valuable and growing business that will last and see your idea through.

Dimitri Sirota has been on both sides of the table as a founder and investor. He is now on his third venture of his own and has invested in at least eight other startups as an angel. What has he learned about the patterns of success along the way?  In a recent exclusive interview on the DealMakers Podcast, Dimitri Sirota shared his story, and his learnings of what patterns and factors can increase the likelihood of success for startups and entrepreneurs.  

Today, Chuck Cohn’s EdTech startup enables you to connect in about 20 seconds to an expert in just about any subject. His startup is now probably one of the most popular and best-funded, but a few years ago, most people just didn’t get it. I caught up with Chuck for an episode of the DealMakers Podcast where he downloaded his knowledge and experience to our audience. 

Due diligence is no fun for entrepreneurs who are selling their startups. So how important is due diligence in acquisitions. This is the least fun part of being an entrepreneur. Even if it wasn’t essential, it can certainly teach you a lot about business. It will definitely make sure you are prepared next time and will ensure your next business is much more tightly organized than the first.

Ben Sigelman is redesigning the fabric of how software is developed. Some of the most notable VCs are backing his mission with tens of millions of dollars. Sigelman has a love for deep technology and making an impact. His application is making its way into many of the things we interact with every day while empowering developers in their own work.  

One of the biggest challenges in acquisitions for entrepreneurs is making sure the employees are taking care of. What happens to employees after your company gets acquired is one of the areas that negotiations tend to focus with potential acquirers during the M&A process. 

Having spent time on both sides of the table, Shoaib Makani has learned a lot about the patterns of successful startups and how to find a unicorn opportunity to harness and ride. Shoaib has not only worked with hot and fast-growing tech startups, but he’s funded them and raised hundreds of millions of dollars to build a billion-dollar venture of his own.   

Taking a look at the journey’s of the most successful entrepreneurs, companies and founders with amazing exits, it is clear that startup success is a lot less about what you know and your coding skills when you take the leap than about leveraging resources, learning as you go and find the best help. Here’s where you’ll find access to many of the things you’ll need and find of value on your own mission.

Shishir Mehrotra knows a thing or two about disrupting things in a really big way. Despite trying to fight his destiny to be in tech, he has raised millions of dollars to launch startups, and has worked on some of the projects that have changed our culture the most over the past decade.

Lior Elazary is a true serial entrepreneur. He sold his first business while still in school, and is now heading up a robotics startup worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Whether he intended to or not, Elazary has become a real dealmaker, building and exiting at least three companies, and is now on his fourth venture. Lior recently graced the Dealmakers podcast sharing his approach to building companies, his early entrepreneurial spirit, his methods for funding his startups, and why more founders should look forward to failure.  

When you look at the list of startup founders who dropped out of college and went on to make millions or even billions, or to just disrupt the world, it’s like a who’s who of entrepreneurship. So how these founders went from college dropout to millionaire entrepreneurs?

Sujai Hajela and Bob Friday took their own journeys before landing at the same company. Then they joined forces to raise $90 million to build a tech company that was recently acquired for over $400 million. I recently caught up with cofounders Bob and Sujai for an episode of the Dealmakers Podcast. They shared how their unique paths led them to work together, how they selected an amazing lineup of tier-one investors, what makes a great CEO, selling their company to Juniper, and the advice they’d give themselves before starting another business. 

Stuart Landesberg has raised millions in startup capital to create a new consumer-driven experience that puts more products in homes that are good for them and the environment. As a founder Landesberg has learned a lot about leadership, teams and scaling startups. We caught up on a new episode of the DealMakers podcast, where he shared how he got started, what he’s learned about partnering and working with the best investors and perseverance it takes to build a venture that really makes it.

Ready to sell your startup business? Make sure you’ve covered these bases if you are wondering what to do when selling your business in an all stock acquisition. Selling a startup is a big moment. Perhaps the only thing bigger than your payday is going to be everything you’ve got to do to get through the finish line and how complex taking stock is going to be.

Thinking of selling your startup? Here’s what you need to know about startup acquisitions… Having sold my own company, interviewed dozens of the most successful founders with big exits on the DealMakers Podcast, and through my work advising entrepreneurs at Panthera Advisors, the following factors really stick out as what you need to know before you think you can hang up a for sale sign and cash out of the business you built.

Sanjay Shah bootstrapped his technology startup from nothing to $250 million in revenue before accepting private equity funding. Bootstrapping may not be as common as raising big money these days, but it certainly worked out for this entrepreneur. When you can pull it off, it puts you in a much stronger position to choose strategic investors later and can provide a great sense of accomplishment.  

Ready to raise millions of dollars for your next startup fundraising round? You may be wondering what are the slides you need in your pitch deck? Below is an in-depth commentary on a pitch deck template that I put together some time ago. It includes the slides you need in your pitch deck and that are necessary to pass the pitch test with potential investors and get the money you need to take your business to the next level.

Looking for some empowering reading material. It’s no secret that leaders read. Today’s billionaire investors and entrepreneurs are among the most hungry readers. So what are the favorite books of billionaires every entrepreneur should read?

Vivek Ravisankar has raised tens of millions of dollars for a tech startup with an admirable goal: his venture, HackerRank, is making resumes obsolete while unlocking an enormous amount of tech talent, busting the notion of a technical skills gap and helping companies speed up innovation.  

How entrepreneurs get paid after an acquisition? There’s plenty to think about and keep you busy without even considering trying to navigate an exit for your startup. The acquisition process alone is like a whole new MBA of hustle and hard knocks and street smarts crammed into a few months. Though how do you actually get paid if you make it through the finish line to the closing?

What are the steps to an effective elevator pitch? An elevator pitch is one of the most important assets for every entrepreneur. It can open up many doors, referrals, and funds, or send them running. Even if you never plan to do any active networking in person, you...

Ashish Thusoo believed in the cloud long before most thought it would ever catch on. Now, his company Qubole is empowering other startups to scale and grow fast with self-service AI, machine learning and data analytics in the cloud. Thusoo’s venture has raised almost $100 million from heavy hitters like IVP, Norwest Venture Partners and Harmony Partners, and he’s enabling a new level of data processing and efficiency for their clients. 

Given that big exits and valuations appear to be one of the factors that are really inspiring all the media attention around the startup ecosystem and billions in venture capital investments, it’s a part of starting a company that every entrepreneur needs to understand. Still, there seems to be a lot of persuasive myths and misconceptions about this eventual milestone among entrepreneurs so here is what every entrepreneur should know about acquisitions…

What are the most common business acquisition mistakes that you may encounter during the process of selling your business? An acquisition with a lot of zeros attached to it is the ultimate end game for most of today’s entrepreneurs and their investors. Even if that...

Vijay Balasubramaniyan has raised millions of dollars for his tech startup, Pindrop, that is shaping the future of how we communicate and do business. His venture has been funded by some of the most enviable investors, and your life may soon be a lot easier thanks to those who believed in him when most thought voice was dead. 

Have a great business idea? What are the different ways to finance your business? These are some of the questions that you will certainly ask yourself once you are building your own venture. There are actually a wide variety of ways to fund your business from initial launch to scaling your company through to an IPO. Speak with a fundraising consultant and determine the best method for you and your idea at each stage.

How to develop your brand strategy? This is certainly one of the key questions that entrepreneurs should ask themselves. Brand strategy can be everything for a startup business. Your brand can make or break you, and not only mean the difference between failing and thriving, but also in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars in company value. 

Jennifer Fitzgerald has raised tens of millions of dollars for her Insurtech startup. They are taking on a space worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. While she is now seen as one of the first pioneers of this space, it hasn’t always been an easy flight with clear skies. I recently caught up with Jennifer on the Dealmakers Podcast to find out more about her journey with her startup Policygenius. She shared her lightbulb moment, the steps to quitting her job for her and her co-founder, Francois de Lame, the fun of fundraising, the advice she wishes she had when she started and how to scale as a leader in a fast-growth company.

The M&A market is very active today. Yet, history suggests that very few mergers and acquisitions are successful. Ultimately, at least 60% are expected to fail. So, what are the different types of successful acquisitions? The outcome of M&A deals is important for many different stakeholders. The founders who launched the companies being bought, the buyers, the teams involved, investors and of course the customers. Although buyers may often never intend to continue to invest in certain business units, no one likes failure. 

Momentum is key when pushing a startup financing round. No matter which stage you are at, it can be real work and take strategy. Here’s how to build momentum in a financing round to get the funds and close the round. 1. Get Your Data in Order Be prepared. Be ready to...

Saeju Jeong is a repeat entrepreneur, driven to deliver a more proactive approach to healthcare. He’s already raised $120 million for the mission, and the data suggests their method is working. Driven by his father and inspired by NYC’s growing startup scene this entrepreneur is now on his third venture. One which has become the largest of its type in the world.  

It may be simply being struck by an opportunity, seeing where the business puck is headed, or a gaping void in the markets that you have a solution for. More often, startup ideas the actual start of the startup journey initiate from getting frustrated about inefficiencies or lack of good service and solutions in antiquated markets. It’s that friction that creates highly valuable business pearls.

Thinking about selling your startup? What are your next steps when you are thinking about how to sell your startup company? It would be nice if Google called while you are reading this with a nice outsized offer to buy your business, and were willing to close with cash next week. I’ve interviewed some founders on the DealMakers podcast who pretty much had that experience. Though it is typically far less common than you think. 

What is an earnout and how earn-outs in acquisitions work? Should you have one in your term sheet? What key terms do you need to watch and negotiate as a founder selling a startup?  If you thought selling your own product was a challenge, welcome to a whole new world of selling fun. You’ll never sell anything as complicated as a startup.

Jonathan Cherki has raised millions of dollars for his venture, without ever going to work for someone else. He began by bootstrapping his startup, Contentsquare, and then took it global with the help of some great VCs. I interviewed Jonathan in this recent episode of the DealMakers Podcast. He shared why he made the move to NYC, the reasons to start fundraising, who to pick as partners, and how to manage when you are a global company with offices on different continents.

Are you really ready to begin a fundraising round for your startup? Before going for it there are certain questions that entrepreneurs must ask before seeking funding. Who doesn’t want more money for their startup? The media even makes it sound simple and like the...

How startups are valued during an acquisition? While billion-dollar startup stories seem to be everywhere, the average exit is still really only around $150 million. Where on this scale will your startup acquisition land? It’s important to know what your company is worth. You don’t want to throw out a ridiculously low offer and sell yourself short by a billion.

How to avoid getting attached to your business is one of the most difficult challenges that you will need to handle over the course of building and scaling a company as an entrepreneur. 

Selling your business will be one of the most critical decisions you will ever make. As seen on the list below there are plenty of mistakes to avoid when selling your business. Whatever you do, don’t make these big regrettable blunders. Whether you’ve already received an offer for your company, or you are just staying ahead of the curve, these are the things you should take into consideration and be discussing with your M&A advisor before signing anything.

Rajaie Batniji is a lifelong learner with a passion for having a tangible impact. His titan of a startup, Collective Health, has been disrupting the healthcare industry and is now valued at over $1 billion. It’s no secret that our healthcare system is seriously flawed. It’s dominated by a massive $250 billion incumbents who haven’t been moved to change things. As well as politicians who have failed to find a happy medium. 

What’s in the secret sauce and what are essentially the top reasons why startups succeed? Having interviewed over 100 over the most successful startup founders and investors on the Dealmakers Show, these appear to be the shared ingredients for building billion-dollar companies.

Steve Loughlin has gone from being involved in the operational side of very successful startups to now sitting on the other side of the table making investments in early-stage ventures with one of the most respected firms. In his first venture founding a startup, Loughlin created a $390 million company that was acquired by Salesforce. Now as an investor, he’s looking for others to fund. 

It’s inspiring to read stories of other entrepreneurs who are offered crazy sums of money for their young startups. You’d think every deal is just a slam dunk, putting an enormous amount of money in your bank account, after signing a few pieces of paper. I’ve interviewed some of the most successful founders with big and fast exits on the DealMakers Podcast who seem to have stories like this. Of course, in reality, most deals can take a lot longer, be far more complex, and take a lot of detailed negotiation. So, how does it usually work? How can you get the best deal? What should you pay attention to negotiating?

Cofounders Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan have raised millions of dollars to change the lives of home & commercial service & replacement professionals. They’ve built a $1.67 billion business in the process. Starting out as a project to simply help their parents’ businesses become more efficient, these entrepreneurs struck on a winning business idea worth billions of dollars.

Leaders read. Founders of billion-dollar fast-growth startups and businesses that last read even more. Keep your reading list full with these one hundred books for entrepreneurs.

Mike Serbinis has started and sold an incredible portfolio of companies. He’s raised over $100 million and enjoyed exits all the way up to $3 billion. What drives someone to this level of entrepreneurship? What empowers them to not only build one hyper-successful fast-growth startup but to do it again and again? What’s the one thing they wish they could tell their younger selves about what’s coming?

We recently celebrated producing over 100 episodes of the Dealmakers Podcast. During this process, I have collected the most important lessons learned from entrepreneurs that have built billion-dollar companies. On the podcast, we’ve featured many great entrepreneurs and investors who have raised hundreds of millions for their startups as well as many that have exited for $1B. These are some of the key takeaways…

Ali Ghodsi loves coding and creating things that have a massive impact on the world. One famous VC made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Ali is now co-founder and CEO of Databricks which is worth almost $3 billion. In our recent interview on the DealMakers Podcast, Ali Ghodsi shared how he got started in tech, what made him leap into business, what it takes to raise half a billion dollars and become the CEO of a successful hyper-growth company.

Should you be raising money for your startup? If you are looking for capital, what what is the psychology behind fundraising? Without a doubt, raising capital is one of the most critical decisions entrepreneurs need to make for their business. Bringing in the wrong investors could be fatal as divorcing an investor is harder than divorcing your own husband or wife.

Dan Cane has scored one of the best first exits ever, and is now onto his second startup, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to serve the healthcare space. Ever since he was five years old, Dan Cane was an entrepreneur. He hustled from his front yard in South Florida and has gone on to build transformative companies in education and healthcare technology. 

When exploring doing business acquisitions, how do you approach as en entrepreneur the structure of the transaction when thinking about cash vs stock acquisitions? If you’ve taken funding for your startup or hope to, one day in the next few years you’ll either take your venture public or sell it. M&A offers can start coming sooner than you think. Before you start entertaining offers or having any conversations it pays to have some understanding of the different types of ways to get paid, and what they can mean for you. 

Thinking about selling your business and wondering what to are the things to look for? Here are ten things to consider before an acquisition in order to come out on top when doing M&A. Exiting a startup for millions or even billions may sound great. However, it is quite different than selling your old car, home, or product. There is a lot to the transaction. It can impact you on many levels. The payday may be life-changing.

David Karandish has gone from young entrepreneurial side hustles to raising over $150 million, and now launching a new startup ecosystem after selling his first company for almost $1 billion. From learning to code at an early age to launching an AI venture that is supporting the new world we live and work in, David Karandish has learned a lot about capital fundraising, the different stages of a business, building a sustainable company and M&A.

When you get to that point when there is an offer or a potential offer on the table, what are the things to expect when your company is getting acquired? Sometimes an offer will catch you by surprise, and come much earlier than you expected. Often it was what you’ve been hoping would happen since you really began putting your original team together.

Ido Susan launched his first hyper-growth startup – Intucell, at just 23 years old. Just a few years later he sold the company for $475 million. His newest venture, DriveNets, has raised one of the largest first rounds ever. In spite of what some might consider a four year forced detour from his aspirations to become an entrepreneur, Ido leveraged the opportunity into an incredible business and exit. He is now building his formidable new venture.

Want to sell your company for millions or even a billion dollars? Are you wondering about the things you must do to get your company acquired? Make sure you are on top of these ten things to make it happen.

Yuchun Lee is a big fan of bootstrapping and operating a lean startup. It’s paid off pretty well for him so far, including an IPO and acquisition for around half a billion dollars.

Are you at the point where you are thinking about how to get your startup acquired by a larger company?

Jay Chaudhry hasn’t just built one successful startup. He’s done it five times with his latest venture, Zscaler, already valued at $10 billion. He may not even like the word ‘exit’, given his unique way of thinking about building and setting them free. Yet, he has...

M&A has been changing. Huge deals are becoming the norm. If you thought a $5B valuation was big, that’s now just play money. We’re also seeing some notable deals emerge as incumbents reshape their entire DNA and startups go on buying sprees of their own to supersize themselves

Whether you are just starting to feel out your exit plan, or you’ve received an inbound offer and want to shop around to ensure you’re getting the best deal for your shareholders and company, a good acquisition memorandum can go a long way.

Constantly learning and staying inspired to reach the next level is vital for entrepreneurs. There are many ways to do this from travel to reading books, to listening to podcasts. Serious startup founders may not have much time for watching TV. Video may even be far too slow for you on an everyday basis.

There are too many misconceptions that hold back great talent and ideas. They hold individuals back, the companies they could start, and deprived communities and the world of what could be. Ironically, the one thing that strings together successful entrepreneurs seems to be persistence. Vision is a close second. It has nothing to do with where you are born, how much money your parents gave you, or luck.

We could probably fill a black hole with all of the business ideas and dreams that never happen. There will be far more ideas though up this year than ever make it to getting to one customer. Ideas and dreams are cheap. Few are truly genius and original. That’s okay. What makes the most consistently successful entrepreneurs and businesses are not ideas.

There is a lot of amateur and outdated advice out there today. There are a lot of disguised sale pitches. There are lots of principles which can help create a successful business. Though even they are often disrupted. If you have to boil it down to just one thing, what do you think will give you the best entrepreneurial advantage?

Most startups fail. The majority will never be heard of. They are bust and out of business before anyone knows their name, or will have seen them enough to remember them. Even of those who do get traction in customers and raising money, many will fail. What is it that separates the top 10% that really make it, make it big and stay up there?

The promise of big, easy and fast money to build business ideas has inspired countless entrepreneurs to throw their hats in the ring to try and get their share, and make their visions a reality. For some the game of raising capital to build businesses and achieve buzzworthy exits has become a business of its own. Of course, in reality it is a little more complex and demanding than that. So, how do funding rounds work?

One of the most common questions I’ve received over the years of working with entrepreneurs is how startup founders can connect with the investors they need to fund their ventures. Over the past six months I’ve had the huge honor of interviewing many of the most successful entrepreneurs. Some of them have sold their companies for billions where the chances are 0.0005%.

Having a great lawyer is vital as the founder of a startup venture. That doesn’t make finding the right fit easy or fun. Yet, it is a necessity. I’ve seen the devastation left in the wake of startups and entrepreneurs failing to have good legal counsel and representation. I’ve interviewed some of the most successful serial entrepreneurs and angel investors on the DealMakers Podcast, who certainly wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for an effective legal team. Being a former attorney myself I’ve been involved in many scenarios on the other side of the table, including a $113 billion arbitration case.

What you do with your pitch deck will make all the difference in fundraising and whether your startup survives long enough for the world to experience what you’re creating. It’s a shame to see entrepreneurs’ potential and valuable startups fail to make it for the sake of what they do with a few slides. If you are serious about success, here are five common errors you just can’t afford to make.

When it comes to investing in startups his most popular investment to date was the angel investment he made into Facebook. His initial investment of $500K was worth over $1B upon the company going public in 2012.

Cabify has already raised over $400M in funding. Backing by notable institutional investors includes investments by Rakuten Capital and Seaya Ventures. Uber competitor Cabify is now one of the leading startups in Spain, with over 1,000 employees worldwide. This growth is largely thanks to the following pitch deck.

The truth is that it may be as much an art as it is a science. There are very few certainties, and many variables that can impact the future of a venture. But there are definitely factors, criteria, and themes that are commonly repeated in how startup investments are made. In fact, the best venture investors are those that are able to have a pattern recognition when coming across opportunities that resembled other successful investments they may have done in in the past. 

So what lessons can be learned from the proven experts in order to increase the chances of getting funded? What do this startup investors look for or look like? Below you will be able to find the 10 things that might answer these questions.