Oct 11 2024 31 mins
This episode is going to piss you off. Most founders struggle to raise their first few million. Many have to bootstrap for years. Even once there's revenue, many get rejected because they're "too early".
Dan had dozens of VCs asking to invest before he even quit his job. He raised his first $5M with no deck, no story, and no product idea. All it took was two founders who wanted to build something in the security space. To add fuel to the fire, 6 months after he incorporated, he raised a $50M round from Sequoia... with no revenue!
He didn't pitch dozens of VCs. He didn't create a deck. He just spoke to a partner at Sequoia and had a term sheet in 3 days. The reasons are part macro, part team, part market... and part just the insanity that sometimes happens in Startup Land.
It's hard to beleive and makes little sense from the outside. But it often works. Chainguard just closed $140M Series C, has 100s of customers and does 8 figures in ARR.
Here's how it happened.
Why you should listen:
- Why launching multiple products at once worked for Dan.
- How to raise from a position of strength to get favourable terms.
- Why identifying the right markets can be such an important step.
- Why time to value and leads to fast growth and high close rates.
Keywords
startup, fundraising, product market fit, Sequoia, security, open source, venture capital, entrepreneurship, growth strategies, technology, innovation