Funding
I believe crowd funding to be best way to raise money for something. As compared to raising venture capital even though VC can open many doors through connections. Nowadays if product is good and you sell the vision well, you can crowd fund enough to keep you going and not be on whim of absurd growth numbers.
Fundraising Lore is great read. Party Round is nice tool for crowd funding.
Minimum Viable Finance is a great read.
Nice Funding pitches
VC
Accelerators
Nice rewards
- Veronika Romashkina
- TheLatestKate
- Max Howell
- TJ Holowaychuk
- Rakhim D.
- Kitze
- Tatiana Mac
- Benedek Rozemberczki
- Tuist org
- Deno
- Alex Ellis - Get newsletter as reward.
- uberdosis
- Dmitrii Kovanikov
Thanks pages
Angel Investors
Pitches
Notes
- Preparing to raise capital? Do not start with the deck. Start with an FAQ. Write down the answers to ALL questions investors can possibly ask you.
- Raising a round from strategic angels is only helpful if you actually know how to leverage them. I am seeing some founders really lean into this and turn their investors into a community.
- When you raise capital, you're typically raising to get to key metrics to be able to raise more capital. Knowing that, tell me what KPIs you plan to hit with your raise.
- A great investment deck takes, at least, 30 days of full-time work. Anything less than that, and, trust me you don't have a great deck.
- Most common advice I share with very early-stage founders on fundraising: For the most part, assume you can’t educate investors. Go back to your list and qualify, qualify, qualify. Don’t talk to pagans. Your job is to preach to the converted.
- If you're good at building products, you have all the leverage. Don't let investors, exchanges, or people promising "partnerships" take advantage of you.
- I pitched hundreds of institutions and thousands of angels. One by one we started winning over early believers. Three years later, I had a hundred checks from a hundred angels (roughly $10m). And that’s how we capitalized the first three years of Peloton.
- Dilution really adds up. Avoid rounds completely or do them at <10% dilution if you can.
- How to win term sheets consistently: 1. Be nice and don't ghost people. 2. Run a fast process and make an offer quickly. 3. Establish a reputation for being helpful after you invest. 4. Offer a 3x higher valuation than every other VC.
Links
- Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break (2017)
- Tiny - We start, buy, and invest in wonderful internet businesses.
- AngelList accelerators
- Signal - The fundraising CRM for startup founders.
- Shopify Capital lends a hand to small businesses with starter loans (2020)
- Pioneer - Fully remote accelerator. (Leaderboard) (Daniel Gross on gamifying the startup process)
- YC Seed Deck Template (2018)
- 30 Questions Investors Ask During Fundraising (2016)
- How to run a Series A fundraising process (2020)
- Writing Grant Applications (HN)
- Fund My Project - Directory of verified programs that offer grants + funding towards side projects/startups.
- How to raise money before launch
- Incubator List - Curated list of 350+ best startup incubators and accelerators.
- Liberapay - Recurrent donations platform. (HN) (Code)
- Funding models and progress (2020) (HN)
- On Deck - Builds community around a cohort of experienced founders in the formative stages of starting a company. (Angels)
- Indiegogo - Crowdfund Innovations & Support Entrepreneurs.
- fosspay - Donation collection for FOSS groups and individuals.
- Coil - Experience web monetized content in your browser while supporting sites you love in real time. (GitHub)
- Ask HN: Are there any incubators for nonprofit startups? (2020)
- What growth stage funds typically ask to see for diligence of early stage SaaS companies (2020)
- NLnet Foundation - Supports organizations and people that contribute to an open information society.
- Startup-Investor Matching Tool
- The perfect investor deck for raising a seed round (2015)
- Fundraising? Don’t Say These Things to Investors (2020)
- Sales Pitches For Startup Founders (2020)
- Understand Seed Round(s) Dynamics in Silicon Valley (2020) (HN)
- Steward Ownership Resources
- Unlocking the Commons - Practical introduction to funding models for open creative work.
- The ideal round
- How to Build a Fund Custodian (2020)
- How to Raise a Rolling Fund (2020)
- Tips for generating an elevator pitch (2020)
- EU funding options (2020)
- OpenDeck - 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding. (HN)
- How to Build a Great Series A Pitch and Deck (2020) (HN)
- How founders are finding new ways to grab investor attention (2020)
- Ulule - Crowdfunding platform empowering thousands of creators, entrepreneurs and makers all over the world.
- How to Pitch to Investors: Preparation & Execution
- Notion Fundraising Template for Startups
- VenturesList - Startup Investment Library.
- Leave Design - Get your Pitch Deck updated instantly by a professional designer.
- Floodgate - Backs the top .1% founders.
- How to raise a seed round (2020)
- Open Collective - Make your community sustainable. Collect and spend money transparently. (Issues)
- Investor Pitch Training - Nail your next investor pitch! Just answer the questions for yourself.
- Always Tell Investors Exactly Why They Shouldn’t Invest In Your Company
- The Non-Obvious Guide to Fundraising
- Reflecting on what it takes to raise $20M from A16Z (2021)
- Tips for pitching your startup to investors (2021)
- Roll Up Vehicles - Way for founders to efficiently raise from up to 250 angels with a single line on the cap table.
- What would Y-Combinator look like if it was created today? (2021)
- The Deck We Used to Raise Our Seed with Accel in 13 Days (2021) (HN)
- Raising a VC Fund in Public (2021)
- Wefunder - Invest in Startups You Love - Equity Crowdfunding.
- Travis Kalanick on Fundraising (2009)
- Announcing investor syndicates like Coachella posters
- Guide to Non-Dilutive Funding For SaaS Companies (2021)
- Some Notes on Fundraising (2021)
- Earl Grey Capital - Rolling fund by Alex MacCaw and Amit Vasudev.
- Collaborative Fund
- Todd and Rahul's Angel Fund (Tweet)
- Chemistry Capital
- Backbone Angels
- Software that makes fund closing process go smooth (2021)
- Tiny Acquisitions - Removing the friction from buying and selling small web based projects built by creators.
- The 23 Rules of Storytelling For Fundraising
- Ask HN: Collection of Pitch Decks? (2021)
- Free fundraising resources (2021)
- Retroactive Public Goods Funding (2021) (Tweet)
- Startup Fundraising Resources
- Angel Match - Database of 90,000+ investors to raise your capital.
- TeQatlas - All-in-one fundraising tool.
- Use Pixar's story formula to win over investors (2021) (HN)
- How to Raise Investment (2021) (HN)
- Taking part in Y Combinator from Europe: is it worth it? (2021) (HN)
- Funding public goods in identity-free systems (2021) (Tweet)
- Advice on doing a fund raise (2021)
- AngelList Stack - Create a fundraising-ready startup. (HN)
- VAUBAN - Pool & deploy capital in clicks. (Tweet)
- How to use story telling to get funding (2021)
- Grants/funding sources for individuals (2021)
- Juicebox - Community funding for people and projects.
- A pitch that is music to the ears (HN)
- Party Round - Automated fundraising tool for founders. (Twitter)
- Introducing Calm Company Scouts | Calm Company Fund (2021)
- Moth Minds - Fund individuals doing work you believe in. (Twitter) (HN)
- YC Founders Made These Fundraising Mistakes (2021) (HN)
- Rhetoric - Pitch feedback for founders.
- Hyperscale - Fast funding for early blockchain projects. (Code)
- The Mirrortable (2021) - How we can combine web2 and web3 tools to automate the mess of angel investing. (Tweet)
- Active angel investors in developer tools
- OpenFare - Funding mechanism which is deployable with one commit.
- Ask HN: Why is there no Kickstarter for startups yet? (2022)
- “Y Combinator is not worth it” (2022) (HN)
- So You Want To Run A Microgrants Program (2022)
- Many of VC's contact details
- Abcum
- What a $500k grant proposal looks like (2022) (HN)
- Sponsorhello - Fund the projects you love. (Code)
- Fairmint - Tap Into Your Community Capital. (Twitter)
- Nice funding pitch thread by Maybe
- Web3: a VC-funded gig economy of securities fraud (2022)
- Future Funding List - 65 future-oriented funding sources. (Tweet)
- Open Grants - List of grants that are openly available on the web. (Code)
- Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market? (2022)
- Dune: Started From The Bottom - from nobody to unicorn in 3 years (2022)
- How TrialPay raised funds without growth (2022)
- Everything I wish I had known about raising a seed round (2022) (HN)
- Ask HN: Learning about fundraising as first-time tech founders (2022)
- 13 investor databases for seed stage Founders looking to raise money
- Fundraising Lore - Guide to help founder CEOs successfully raise early-stage VC financing from Silicon Valley investors. (Code)
- Fundraising with Capital app
- Top fundraising advice to rising founders (2023)
- Festina - Investment fund by Jorn van Dijk and Koen Bok from Framer.