Series A is a different sport: real metrics, partner meetings, and a much smaller set of funds. These sessions cover the traction bar, the process, and the step up from seed expectations.
1h 6m
Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins recounts pitching for three years and being rejected by more than 100 investors before closing Canva's first round, including how she reworked the pitch around each objection. She details the kitesurfing-with-investors period in Silicon Valley and how rejection shaped the company's strategy.
1h 26m
Long-form conversation with Upfront Ventures' Mark Suster on how to pitch VCs, why he dislikes demo days, what separates the best founders, and how Series A decisions really get made inside a firm.
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.
8 min
Sendbird CEO John Kim on why most startup CEOs fail, drawing on his own near-death fundraising moments and what actually earned investor conviction.
51 min
Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake at Stanford ETL on building the company through investor skepticism about women's retail, raising less than peers, and going public anyway.
21 min
Front CEO Mathilde Collin discusses her famously fast Series A and B processes, including the transparent metrics emails she sent investors and how she created competitive dynamics.
25 min
ICEYE co-founder Rafal Modrzewski on raising for a satellite company in Europe: convincing investors to fund hardware with long timelines, and how each round's story evolved.
23 min
A female founder and her investor jointly recount going from seed to Series A during the pandemic: both sides of the same deal, including what the VC saw internally.
56 min
Chemistry's Mark Goldberg (ex-Index) on why decision-making is broken inside large VC firms: politics, consensus damage, and what that means for founders pitching them.
53 min
Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson in a long-form TWiST conversation on how USV picks investments, his views on founder-investor relationships, and stories from Twitter/Tumblr-era deals.
1 min
Reid Hoffman on setting fundraising goals and choosing investors as fundamental partners rather than money sources.
1h 7m
Mark Suster returns to TWiST on the ANGEL podcast: alignment between founders and investors, setting reality with your board, and raising in down markets.
33 min
Founders at YC's Female Founders Conference compare fundraising experiences: rejection patterns, investor bias, and tactics that worked, with disagreement between panelists on the right approach.
22 min
Wilson Sonsini partner Becki DeGraw walks TWiST through negotiating a term sheet: which terms actually matter, market norms, and where founders should spend negotiating capital.
24 min
TWiST legal-basics episode on board seats: why you effectively can't fire a VC from your board, and the cautionary situations that produces.
53 min
Classic Stanford GSB session walking through a venture term sheet clause by clause with the negotiating dynamics behind each term.
58 min
Aaron Harris's deep guide to raising a Series A: metrics thresholds, building investor relationships pre-raise, running the process, and partner-meeting dynamics.
46 min
Aaron Harris on fundraising in the AI era: how AI company valuations diverge from SaaS norms, what investors currently over- and under-weight, and process implications.
Jason Lemkin's fundraising workshop on what it takes to get funded now: real conversion rates from pitch to check, and what SaaS metrics clear the bar.
Point Nine's Christoph Janz presents the five metrics that matter when raising a SaaS Series A and B, with the benchmark ranges his fund actually uses.
24 min
Jason Lemkin and Founders Fund's Sam Blond on raising in the late-2022 downturn: what changed in diligence, pricing, and which companies could still raise.
55 min
TechCrunch Live pairs a founder with the VC who led their Series A to reconstruct the deal: first contact, diligence, the partner meeting, and the close.
30 min
TechCrunch session on building a later-stage investor network before you need it: mapping funds, nurturing relationships between rounds, and sequencing outreach.
19 min
TK Kader's structured walkthrough of preparing for a Series A after seed: milestone planning, narrative building, and process timing.
53 min
Stanford CS183F Startup School session on how to raise money and succeed long-term, connecting fundraising decisions to company outcomes years later.
24 min
Kruze Consulting's Scott Orn on writing investor updates that work: cadence, structure, the ask section, and how updates set up the next round.
2 min
Mark Suster on qualifying which VCs are actually right for your startup: stage fit, check size, partner-level fit, and portfolio conflicts.
9 min
NFX on why VCs now expect founders to move dramatically faster, and how speed itself became the core fundraising signal in the AI era.
52 min
Stanford GSB's Building Momentum session on diversity in venture fundraising: data on funding gaps plus firsthand founder and investor accounts.
24 min
Slush session on raising rounds above $10M in Europe: which funds can lead, transatlantic dynamics, and how European growth rounds differ from US ones.
26 min
Dash0 founder Mirko Novakovic (previously Instana) on raising a Series A as a repeat founder: how his second-time process differed and what investors preloaded.
28 min
Flagship's David Berry on fundraising for deep tech: milestone-based financing, syndicate construction, and communicating scientific risk to generalist investors.
23 min
Web Summit panel on finding the right VC match: founders and investors debate how much fit matters versus just taking the money.
18 min
Web Summit session on managing the investor-founder relationship after the round: boards, conflict, and keeping investors useful.
15 min
Web Summit talk on winning funds and influencing investors: pitch psychology and meeting dynamics from the investor's chair.
58 min
Startup Grind London panel on the snakes and ladders of fundraising: founders trade stories of near-misses, lucky breaks, and process disasters with investor commentary.
26 min
Startup Grind breakout on fundraising and valuation for AI startups: how AI valuations are being set in the current market and what justifies premium pricing.
29 min
Stella & Dot founder Jessica Herrin and Jenny Lefcourt — co-founders together in the 90s — compare notes across founder and investor seats on what raising money really takes.