The Fundraising Wisdom That Helped Our Founders Raise $18B in Follow-On Capital
First Round distills lessons from over 1,000 rounds raised by its portfolio into a tactical playbook for follow-on fundraising: narrative construction, running a tight process, benchmarking traps, and partner-meeting dynamics.
Front Series A Deck
Collin publishes the actual deck Front used to raise its $10M Series A, slide by slide, with commentary on what worked. Later viewed over 2 million times and followed by her Series B, C, and D decks.
How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech moonshot
Halioua details exactly how she raised $5.1M pre-product for a dog-longevity biotech as a solo, first-time, female founder: building the narrative for a moonshot, sequencing investors, and handling deep-tech skepticism.
How to Raise Investment
The Monzo and GoCardless founder (later YC partner) condenses raising ~$400M across six years into a practical guide: sequencing angels before VCs, running a tight process, and why business quality dominates fundraising tactics.
The Non-Obvious Guide to Fundraising
A 4x founder turned VC lays out what actually drives fundraising outcomes beneath the standard advice: psychology, sequencing, the 'ladder of proof', and how VCs really talk about deals internally.
How to Convince Investors
Graham on the substance of persuasion: convince yourself first, be a domain expert, and make the truth about your startup legible rather than performing confidence you don't have.
How to Present to Investors
Practical demo-day-era advice on presenting: explain what you do in the first sentence, show a demo, and optimize for being understood rather than impressive.
How to Pitch Your Company
Seibel's formulaic, repeatable pitch structure: a two-sentence company description anyone can repeat, traction, unique insight, market size, and the ask, with examples of each done well and badly.
How to De-Risk a Startup
Polovets enumerates the specific risks investors price (team, market, product, execution, financing) and concrete actions that retire each one, reframing fundraising as selling reduced risk at increasing prices.
Front Series B Deck
The actual deck behind Front's $66M Sequoia-led Series B, published with commentary on how the narrative evolved from the Series A and what growth evidence carried the round.
My Conversation with Substack Co-Founders Chris Best & Hamish McKenzie Fresh Off Their $100 Million Funding Round
Newcomer interviews Substack's founders immediately after their $100M round at $1.1B: how the round came together after a rocky stretch (including a crowdfunded raise when VCs cooled), and how the narrative was rebuilt.
Bessemer's Published Investment Memos (LinkedIn, Shopify, Pinterest, Twilio and more)
Bessemer publishes the actual internal investment recommendation memos behind its best deals, showing exactly how partners argued for LinkedIn, Shopify, Pinterest and others: the risks flagged, the numbers at the time, and the bet being made.
Front Series C Deck
The third installment in Collin's published-deck series: the actual deck behind Front's $59M Series C, showing how a growth-stage narrative differs from the A and B stories she'd already published.