Former YC president Geoff Ralston's fundraising fundamentals lecture: round mechanics, dilution math, SAFEs, investor psychology, and process design for a first raise.
The canonical YC fundraising lecture; comprehensive baseline for everything else in the library.
This video was created by Y Combinator and features Geoff Ralston. We summarize and link with attribution; all rights belong to the creator.
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28 min
YC partner Brad Flora's Startup School talk on how startup fundraising actually works: what investors are looking for, how rounds come together, SAFEs, and how to run a tight process. Draws on YC batch data and his own founder experience.
9 min
Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel break down rookie mistakes founders make around investor terms and incentives: what investors actually optimize for, misaligned terms to watch, and how naive founders get squeezed.
45 min
YC CFO Kirsty Nathoo explains SAFEs versus priced rounds with worked cap table examples, showing exactly how caps, discounts, and stacking SAFEs dilute founders.