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My Adventures Raising VC - AMA
2 points by myexperiences 5359 days ago
Briefly, this is my 4th company or so, first time trying to raise capital. We currently have a few employees and do 60k/mo in revenue (profitable). I met with a bunch of VCs over the past few mos trying to boost the company into hyperdrive. We are in a not so sexy part of the consumer internet space. Ask me almost anything. Almost all intros were done by a portfolio company c-level or someone who knew a partner - unless noted.

I left out about 10-15 VCs we are currently still speaking to or I can't remember. Currently we have no funds committed to our Series A and looks like we might not be able to raise. Luckily, we are profitable, but growing slower than I'd like.

In no particular order:

Sean Marsh - Point Judith - No response.

Mark Suster - GRP - Very difficult through email - very helpful if you can get in front of him.

All of Foundry Group - #1 VC IMO - super helpful even though we aren't in their theme.

Alfred Lin (cold email) - Sequoia - Very nice & honest.

Charlie O'Donnell (cold email) - First Round Capital - Nice, helpful, busy.

David Skok - Matrix - Very nice, responded to all emails promptly.

Jon Flint - Polaris - No Response.

Jeremy Liew - Lightspeed - Very busy, nice & honest on phone.

Tony Conrad - True Ventures - Quick response time, quick no as we weren't in a market he knew.

Michelle Goldberg - Ignition - Not friendly at all - maybe we got her on a bad day.

Ian Sigalow - Greycroft - Friendly on phone - didn't respond to follow up email.

Axel Bichara - Atlas - Very nice even though he knew he wouldn't invest.

Patricia Nakache (cold email) - Trinty - Helpful as she could be.

Jim Robinson - RRE - No response.

1 comments

What does your company do?

What would you need the money for that 60k/month could not provide eventually?

I prefer to stay anonymous as maybe one day we might talk with one of the above again.

Our goal is $100mm/yr in 6 years - $60k/mo is very very tiny compared to that goal. The $ we were trying to raise would be to hire a much larger team and scale out. So instead of hiring 30 right away, we are now hiring 1 or so a month.