What happens in the room decides the round. These videos show how to run a first meeting, what VCs are really evaluating, and the mistakes that quietly end conversations.
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.
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.
58 min
Hustle Fund GP Elizabeth Yin takes live pitches from real founders and gives unfiltered feedback in real time, explaining her actual investment thought process as she reacts to each pitch.
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.
47 min
Michael Seibel's SaaStr session on pitching a seed-stage startup: the exact structure of a two-minute pitch, the most common ways founders confuse investors, and live Q&A with founders in the room.
22 min
Rella co-founder Natalie Barbu documents exactly how she closed a $1M pre-seed round as a first-time founder: her investor pipeline, the number of meetings, how she handled passes, and the close.
21 min
A young founder gives a step-by-step retrospective of raising $5M: sourcing investors, sequencing meetings, creating urgency, and closing, with real artifacts from the raise.
47 min
Ex-YC founder Diego Rojas (Shieldbase AI) shares fundraising lessons across YC and post-YC rounds, including what worked in investor conversations for an AI startup and what he'd do differently.
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.
23 min
sennder co-founder David Nothacker walks through his company's first fundraise at Slush's founder school: what worked in the process, mistakes made, and how they picked investors.
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.
1h 28m
Sequoia's Julien Bek takes 20VC inside the firm's investment committee: how the SpaceX and Citadel deals actually went down, how memos are argued, and what kills deals at partnership.
9 min
Angel investor Alicia Syrett catalogs the real reasons angels and VCs say no — most of which founders never hear — drawn from hundreds of her own pitch meetings.
10 min
Elizabeth Yin's three concrete tips for raising a Silicon Valley seed round as an outsider, from her experience as both a funded founder and a fund GP.
53 min
Jenny Lefcourt walks through her 'ultimate pitch' framework slide by slide, showing exactly what a seed VC wants in each part of the deck and the meeting.
YC's Aaron Harris on how to get meetings with investors and run them: intro paths, meeting stagecraft, reading interest honestly, and converting interest into checks.
6 min
Seibel contrasts pitching investors with pitching customers: investors buy the upside story and the market, customers buy the solution — and mixing the two kills both.
27 min
YC's Kevin Hale on pitch construction: clarity, the 'legible, obvious, conductive' framework, and live rewrites of muddled startup one-liners.
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.
27 min
Founders pitch live at Startup Summit and get immediate teardown feedback from a founder-turned-GP, covering deck structure, delivery, and fundability.
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.
56 min
Startup Boston bootcamp on raising a seed round: process design, materials, investor targeting, and Q&A with local founders and investors.
23 min
Seedcamp's Carlos Espinal teaches raising capital at Slush's founder school, drawing on his book 'Fundraising Field Guide' and hundreds of Seedcamp deals.
27 min
Pear VC's Pepe Agell at Slush on raising your first round: readiness signals, meeting dynamics, and how Pear decides on pre-seed companies.
15 min
Web Summit talk on winning funds and influencing investors: pitch psychology and meeting dynamics from the investor's chair.