The Founder Hour’s Post

Vinod Khosla is considered as one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists ever. He's an indian-american billionaire founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, with investments like Square, Stripe, DoorDash, Instacart and more. Here are 2 of the best resouces for entrepreneurs created by Khosla: 1. Pitch the way VCs think: https://lnkd.in/dVQ95uc5 2. How to solve the Pitch Problem: https://lnkd.in/dFKdTABy

Kevin Hartz raises its second oversubscribed funds in three years for A* Capital A* Capital, co-founded by former Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz, former Coatue partner Bennett Siegel, and former Opendoor and Uber operator Gautam Gupta, has successfully raised $315 million for its second oversubscribed fund in just three years. Despite a challenging fundraising environment for many emerging managers, A* Capital's strong track record and name recognition have propelled them to this achievement. A* Capital was founded by three industry veterans. Kevin Hartz is known for founding and scaling Eventbrite and Xoom, A PayPal Service, and for his angel investments in companies like Gusto, Pinterest, and Reddit, Inc.. Bennett Siegel, a former investor at Coatue, has notable investments in Peloton Interactive, Instacart, and DoorDash. Gautam Gupta was the former head of finance at Uber and COO and CFO at Opendoor. For its second fund, A* Capital has attracted institutional investors, a shift from the first fund which included prominent names like Max Levchin, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, Tony Xu, and Eric Wu. A* Capital will continue its focus on leading seed rounds and supporting portfolio companies at the Series A stage, with select investments at the Series B stage. The firm maintains a generalist approach, investing across various industries, with current interests in AI and consumer tech. The successful raising of Fund II amidst a tough market underscores A* Capital's strong reputation and strategic focus. The firm has made notable investments including Series B and beyond in companies like Ramp (fintech), Notion (workflow tool), and Faire (wholesale marketplace). It has also led seed rounds for companies like EyeTell, Inc. (AI startup), Paraform (recruiting marketplace), and Aligned Marketplace (primary care startup). By partnering with founders from the inception stage and providing continued support, A* Capital aims to help startups navigate from "zero to one," transforming new, unproven concepts into thriving businesses. The firm’s unique approach and experienced team make it a standout in the competitive seed market. The article on TechCrunch in the first comment. Want to stay up to date with the market? Here my newsletter: - Linkedin: https://t.ly/s541W   - Substack: https://lnkd.in/dzfGJzmW

When Max Levchin was putting together PayPal's founding team, he hesitated to suggest Luke Nosek because of a past flop. Luke's previous venture, SmartCal, had tanked, losing all the money Peter Thiel had invested. Given the loss, Max wasn't sure how Peter would take the idea of teaming up with Luke again. Max was surprised by Peter's positive reaction. "Oh, of course. I should've thought of that myself," Peter said, showing no hard feelings towards Luke. He recognized Luke's brilliance over the failed investment. Peter personally recruited Luke to the PayPal team, while Max rounded up the rest. Later, Luke joined Peter's Founders Fund, showing that their professional relationship continued strong. This story teaches us that failure isn't the end. Most startups don't make it on their first try, and the journey is valued over the destination. The best investors understand the risks and recognize the potential in people, regardless of past setbacks. -------------------------------------- If you like this, share ♻️ with others and subscribe to our Newsletter. Link in the Comments! #startup #startupecosystem

Did you know that April is Stress Awareness Month? 😟 At FinFlare, we take the stress out of finance to help founders grow and scale their business. Let us help you thrive. Contact our team today 📞 #StressAwareness #FinFlare #CFO #Startup

🚨 *dealflow* ATTN SEED STAGE FOUNDERS, VCS, ANGELS 👼 I get a lot of very talented early stage founders in my DMs wanting introductions to investors and angels. I know how hard it is breaking into the VC ecosystem - ESPECIALLY for underrepresented founders. To try and help solve this - I'm starting ⭐️ THE LIST ⭐️ - an email list where I'll pass on the deals and make introductions. Drop me a comment if you're FOUNDER and want your start up featured or a FUNDER and want to receive the list. #startup #dealflow #funders #founders

The REAL Investors = always bring in a Dollar+ Value into the business Money = Commodity, & smart founders will always be able to raise rounds, but bringing the ‘Right Investors’ who add $+ Value is THE GAME. Back in 2021 when we were just getting started - Huddle Ventures was one of our earliest believers. From crazy brainstorming to > customer access > preparing our 1st pitch & eventually > raising our first round — we had a lot of fun building our 0-1 with the folks at Huddle (they were an accelerator back then) They’re out with their Fund II now & will be backing the next generation of entrepreneurs. If you’re a founder building an early-stage venture - feel free to reachout to them at Huddle Ventures or email them on [email protected] 🚀 Sanil Sachar | Ishaan Khosla | Sarthak Rastogi

Today, the 8th of March, is a significant day for two reasons. It marks International Women's Day, and it's the Founder Anniversary (plus one day) with my co-founder Joyce Medeiros! This year, the United Nations has chosen the theme "Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress." (Scroll to the end of this post to learn more.) Most importantly, I want to celebrate Joyce, who is the epitome of determination, hard work, and is a true inspiration. Her passion and energy for helping people move forward financially is contagious. I'm excited to continue building Investrio together. I'd like to also celebrate and give a shout-out to my great friend and ex-colleague from Outlier Ventures, Hanan N., who does an extraordinary job of supporting exceptional female entrepreneurs in securing funding. You Rock and I'm your fan. 💡Did you know that if women entrepreneurs were given the same investment as their male counterparts, it could boost the global economy by up to $5 trillion annually? A report by BCG suggests that creating more opportunities for investing in women matters a great deal. However, the reality is far from ideal as companies founded solely by women received only 2% of all venture capital. Furthermore, only about 15% of all VC investors are women. #InvestInWomen #IWD #Startuplife #Womenintech #Womeninvc #fintechs #womeninfintech

Today in our weekly bootstrapped series: craigslist ➡️ Market value: $1 billion ➡️ Founded in 1995 ➡️ Founded by Craig Newmark 1. Founded by a programmer named Craig 25 years ago, Craigslist, a simple and no-frills platform for people to buy and sell stuff online, is one of the internet’s giants, with an annual revenue of over $1 billion. 2. Despite facing criticism for its moderation policies, craigslist has remained committed to its original mission of helping people connect with each other (and also committed to its design, which hasn’t experienced an important makeover since…forever). 💅 3. Simplicity, putting the user first, and the love of vintage aesthetics is craigslist's superpower. What's the weirdest thing you have ever seen on craigslist? Let us know in the comments 👇 #boostrapped #startups

Ok, this post took off like a rocket 🚀 Many thanks to all those who have added comments - 1,500 and counting which greatly enrich the conversation Most answer the question - how should founders who don't have the pedigree to raise venture capital at the early stages fund their startups? Here's a TLDR; 1️⃣ Startup competitions: most ecosystems have competitions & contests based on what the sponsors care about 2️⃣ Grants: consider government grants & subsidies. Most govts in developed countries offer all sorts of funding to help startups get off the ground 3️⃣ Accelerators: I used to think YC and other top accelerators are places to learn. In reality, they 1) give you cash 2) give you credibility to ease your future fundraising 4️⃣ Bootstrapping: yes, it is valid. Offer a service that gets you instant monetisation We've curated a page on Caena where you can see some of these current opportunities See details in comments 👇

📢We’re thrilled to be partnering with Pitchflix to bring you 2024's biggest consumer VCs and founders event on Wednesday, May 22 at Level39, Canary Wharf in London https://lnkd.in/d2anmADY Pitching to VCs takes a chunk of time and loads of energy, and every rejection takes a little chip out of the soul. The last 18 months have proven difficult for founders, particularly for consumer startups, so as an entrepreneur, you'd better be pitching to the right investors! 🎉 That’s why we’re bringing you rev London Consumer Investors Pitch Event to deliver fast, efficient insights to make the best use of founders' and investors' time. To do that, we’re flipping the script on the traditional pitch! 💰 Join us to listen to 15 groundbreaking pitches from the industry's leading consumer VCs and CVCs. Each investor will have 5 minutes to pitch, followed by a Q&A session with founders, and concluding with networking opportunities. 🙋♂️ You will also have the chance to meet 100+ consumer founders and strategists in one place. So, if you are a consumer-focused Seed-Series B B2C startups and B2B enablers looking to fundraise in the next 6-9 months, register here: https://lnkd.in/d2anmADY If you’re an investor interested in pitching at that rev London Consumer Investors Pitch Event, get in touch with Diana Florescu via LinkedIn. We have a limited number of investor-speaking slots. Five Seasons Ventures | The Craftory | Piper | Btomorrow Ventures | RIANTA CAPITAL LIMITED | GRWTH Club. | Funderbeam (VentureBeam) | VGC Partners | True. | Financial Times FT Ventures | EdenBase | Beringea | DSW Ventures | Praetura Ventures Valerie | Lizzie | Lukasz | Geordie | Nico | Camille | Isabella | Christopher | Piotr | Emma | Michael | Shane | Elcid | Maria | Gehad | Amy | Nadina | Helen | Oli #mediacapital #mediaforgrowth #getfunded #mfgdealhub