Drew F.’s Post

Top-tier investors have returned to fintech and ecommerce, according to The Information’s announcement at their Private Capital Conference in New York. #Entrepreneurs and #investors with conviction who are willing to put in the hard work of building real businesses supported by defensible technology barriers and solving real customer problems will find a receptive market for funding. While this news might not be what entrepreneurs want to hear in the short term, it will actually benefit their organizations and investors with success in funding for putting a focus where it needs to be as opposed to social media clicks alone. What are your thoughts on this development? #management #venturecapital #privateequity #capitalmarkets

Ramp, a $7.65 billion corporate credit card and expense company, makes its debut on the Forbes Cloud 100 list, riding the generative AI wave. When Eric Glyman debuted his fintech startup Ramp in February 2020, he expected the usual challenges of starting a new business: long hours, finding talent, marketing an unknown product. What he didn’t expect was for half of his New York City employees to fall mysteriously ill just a week after the company launched. Over the next few weeks, as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred global lockdowns and stalled economies, Glyman found himself hawking Ramp’s take on corporate credit cards into a market where spending suddenly stopped. It was an existential crisis, and he was only a month into the job. “There was never anything like it,” Glyman tells Forbes. “If you go back 100 years, as long as there were modern credit records, you'd never seen an event where half of businesses were forced by law to shut down and revenues went to zero.” As companies around the world went into economic survival mode, Ramp doubled down on the principle Glyman argues sets it apart from other corporate card companies — to save customers money, instead of enticing them to spend more. It was a pitch that worked uniquely well during the pandemic: businesses …

#DataToDecisions #FinancialClarity #EaseMyProcess #Startup #investorreadiness #investor 📈 Founders, are you navigating a maze of numbers? - Key KPIs like sales growth, customer acquisition cost, and profit margins, are your compass. With Ease My Process, transform confusion into clarity and drive your business with data-driven decisions. Ready for a breakthrough? Write us at [email protected] or call us at +91-928-918-2888 to simplify your financial journey.

The Winner Takes It All? Picture this: you're selling your startup, but it’s for less than you’d hoped. Your investors still want their money back, no matter what. So, what do you do? Starting with a Series A round, there’s usually a clause called Liquidation Preferences built into the deal terms with investors. This sets a minimum payout they’re guaranteed after a sale or IPO. Here’s a breakdown of the three main types of liquidation preferences: 1️⃣ Non-participating preference Investors receive: either the amount they invested, or their share of the sale if it’s higher. Example: if your company sells for $30 million, an investor who put in $10 million gets either their $10 million back or their percentage of the sale, whichever is more. 2️⃣ Participating preference Investors get their original investment back first, then take a percentage of whatever’s left. Example: if an investor put in $10 million and owns 10% of the company, in a $100 million sale, they get their $10 million back plus 10% of the remaining $90 million (another $9 million). 3️⃣ Preference with a multiplier In later rounds or bridge financing, preferences can sometimes be multiplied (e.g., by 3x). So, an investor with a $10 million investment and a 3x preference gets $30 million, and whatever’s left is split among shareholders. So, back to the big question: how does the sale money actually get divvied up? It’s simple but kind of a downer. If preferences are high, investors could end up with almost everything, leaving founders and early investors with just a slice. This is why founders or boards often choose smaller investment amounts with more favorable liquidation preferences. 💬 What’s your take on liquidation preferences? Share your thoughts in the comments—would you accept a high-preference deal, or stick to more founder-friendly terms?

In a recent interview with Sharpfin CEO, Markus Alin, we asked him about the growth journey from a startup to a scaleup and learning from mistakes. Read full article: https://lnkd.in/dgMdqA2e Top three highlights from the article: 🔹Strategic growth: Markus shares his insights into Sharpfin's growth journey, emphasizing a commitment to quality and customer satisfaction. Despite a moderate start, Sharpfin expects a more aggressive growth in the coming years, driven by a clear vision and product excellence. 🔹 Learning from mistakes: Markus reflects on the mistakes made during Sharpfin's early development and highlights the importance of balancing market insights with the company's vision to avoid wasting time on unused features or products. 🔹Value of Professional Governance: Markus acknowledges the significance of a proficient board of directors in guiding Sharpfin's development and governance. Reflecting on his journey, he recognizes the importance of assembling a board based on experience rather than just ownership. #WealthManagement #WealthManagementPlatform #Fintech #Startup #Scaleup

Funding. A golden milestone, a celebrated story. Incorrect. Continuing on yesterday's theme, there are a whole bunch of founders out there for whom the operating mentality is "Fund it, then I will Build". I'll suggest switching your thesis to "Build it and they will Fund". The single most attractive feature to investors is traction. It goes as follows: Traction ($$) > Traction (Proof-of-concept) > Work-ex (Strong) > Degree (Harvard MBA etc) > None of these (very very hard to fund) Why do investors value work experience and degrees? Because it tells us two things. 1. You probably know the problem fairly well (Walmart's supply chain head knows the pain points in retail supply chain) 2. You have the network to go-to-market quickly. Speed of execution and growth are sacrosanct to VCs, your alumni network from your MBA and the connects made over the past 15 years in Walmart tells me they probably would be your first customer. Giving you some guidelines on traction for early stages since it tends to be a big question mark. Pre-revenue: In this scenario, funding tends to be from your own bank account, friends and family. If you need external investors here, you'd better have relationships of your own. Without this, go to Antler, 100xvc or other accelerators. Note, go to accelerators that give you money, not take it. If you're pre-revenue and hoping for a $1mn raise, you'd better have the customer pipeline & pedigree to back it up. Why does this matter? I've had a founder reach out to me trying to raise this for their Autonomous Vehicle software. No background in EV. Claimed they had interest from all the big auto manufacturers. Dug a bit deeper, they secured one meeting with zero outcome. Revenue<>Seed: No hard and fast rule here, $0.5 - 1mn for $5mn to $10mn. What drives this would be your traction. By now, I'd expect ~$0.5 - $4mn in annualized topline, with ~$100k+ in revenue Pre-A/A: By now, strong revenue metrics, proven sales and retention model, looking for funding to scale. Numbers here can honestly be anything based on traction and scale. The reason why investors follow these rules (by and large) are because we are fiduciaries, responsible for generating returns for our own investors (LPs) in a very risky, illiquid, information-opaque market. When you reach out as an early stage founder, read up beforehand on what funds expect, there's MORE than enough content out there (whole bunch on my LinkedIn) which will guide you on how to approach funds (without Startup Brokers!) We are literally paid to evaluate what you send us, with KPIs on response times. There's no intention to ghost, it's just when the fifth pre-revenue company shows up asking for a million dollars because they think it's candy, we roll our eyes and spam back "Pass" #funding #fundraising #startups #venturecapital

Payhawk's Ambitious Expansion Plans: Are You Ready for the Future of Corporate Spend Management? Corporate payments startup Payhawk is gearing up for significant growth, planning mergers and acquisitions to expand its footprint and challenge industry giants like SAP. Payhawk aims to acquire early-stage companies, particularly those at the Series A level, to bolster its position in the corporate spend management sector. Hristo Borisov, Payhawk's co-founder and CEO, believes his company has a superior “product-market fit” compared to competitors like Brex and Ramp, which have achieved multibillion-dollar valuations by offering free corporate cards to startups. Payhawk, known for its smart card solutions that help clients’ employees manage expenses, boasts high-profile customers like Decathlon and Vinted. The company has reported remarkable growth, with an 86% increase in global revenue and a 127% surge in U.K. sales in the first quarter. The U.K. market now accounts for 27% of Payhawk's overall revenue, driven by a 58% rise in customers year over year. Looking to build on this momentum, Payhawk sees mergers and acquisitions as crucial to its future growth. “Many businesses that got funded in the last two or three years are now in a position where they’re looking at strategic options,” Borisov said. “This is something we’re actively doing. We’re looking for companies to buy.” Are you ready to embrace the future of corporate spend management with Payhawk's innovative approach? #CorporateFinance #SpendManagement #StartupGrowth #FintechInnovation #BusinessExpansion #MergersAndAcquisitions #SmartCardSolutions #Payhawk #TechLeadership #FutureOfFinance #MarketDisruption #IPOJourney #InvestmentStrategies #BusinessGrowth #CorporateSpend

Hi Guys, Thoughts & Updates of the Day!, Pronoy here. Good news!, We’ve completed the 28th page, "MGC Post-Funding Financial Performance & Projections," out of 32 pages. We initially had 33 pages in our pitch deck but decided to remove one unnecessary page, "Special Q&A," as most of the questions were already answered in previous sections. On page 28, "MGC Financial Overview" we’ve simplified the financials to focus solely on the income statement for clarity. This includes both current status and future projections. We haven’t included the balance sheet or cash flow projections due to the lack of necessary resources and detailed planning at this stage. However, we can provide them post-funding, after setting up HQ, building the team, and completing essential groundwork for our growth phase if required by partners and investors. We will focus on finishing the remaining 4-5 pages of our pitch deck and developing our overall growth-stage game plan soon. Let’s see if we can complete this work by next week. Once finalized, we’ll resume our fundraising efforts, seeking $3M for a 2-year runway. This funding will allow us to build a stronger team (70+), set up our headquarters in Kolkata, execute our go-to-market strategy, and achieve the global revenue and profitability we’ve projected. As most of you know, we at Mohanta Group are on track to become India’s first fintech conglomerate startup, comprising 9 startups across 4 main brands and 5 subsidiaries. Currently self-funded, we aim to transition into a VC-backed growth-stage conglomerate startup. Our subsidiaries will also progress: PMZ Wealth Creator will move to the scale stage, 24x7Websolution Corporation and Maa Saraswati City Education and Career Centre to the growth stages, and PMZ On-Demand and PMZTV Network to the pre-growth stages. We’ll address three universal problems: effective wealth management, improving business efficiency (with a focus on revenue growth), and career development across proprietary, B2C, and B2B models. Four of our subsidiaries are at the MVP stage, while PMZ Wealth Creator is at the PMF stage. We’ve identified 13+ high-potential partners, including VCs and DII candidates, along with new potential investors. We’ll start with those who have shown the most support, aiming to secure 5 investors. We hope they recognize our long-term massive wealth creation potential and help us advance to the growth and scale stage, achieving impactful outcomes over the next decade!. Learn more here https://bit.ly/MGCEmpire. Stay tuned & connect with me on LinkedIn: Pronoy Mohanta for future updates & collaboration opportunities!. Thanks to all.

Hi Guys, Thoughts & Updates of the Day!, Pronoy here. Good news!, We’ve completed the 28th page, "MGC Post-Funding Financial Performance & Projections," out of 32 pages. We initially had 33 pages in our pitch deck but decided to remove one unnecessary page, "Special Q&A," as most of the questions were already answered in previous sections. On page 28, "MGC Financial Overview" we’ve simplified the financials to focus solely on the income statement for clarity. This includes both current status and future projections. We haven’t included the balance sheet or cash flow projections due to the lack of necessary resources and detailed planning at this stage. However, we can provide them post-funding, after setting up HQ, building the team, and completing essential groundwork for our growth phase if required by partners and investors. We will focus on finishing the remaining 4-5 pages of our pitch deck and developing our overall growth-stage game plan soon. Let’s see if we can complete this work by next week. Once finalized, we’ll resume our fundraising efforts, seeking $3M for a 2-year runway. This funding will allow us to build a stronger team (70+), set up our headquarters in Kolkata, execute our go-to-market strategy, and achieve the global revenue and profitability we’ve projected. As most of you know, we at Mohanta Group are on track to become India’s first fintech conglomerate startup, comprising 9 startups across 4 main brands and 5 subsidiaries. Currently self-funded, we aim to transition into a VC-backed growth-stage conglomerate startup. Our subsidiaries will also progress: PMZ Wealth Creator will move to the scale stage, 24x7Websolution Corporation and Maa Saraswati City Education and Career Centre to the growth stages, and PMZ On-Demand and PMZTV Network to the pre-growth stages. We’ll address three universal problems: effective wealth management, improving business efficiency (with a focus on revenue growth), and career development across proprietary, B2C, and B2B models. Four of our subsidiaries are at the MVP stage, while PMZ Wealth Creator is at the PMF stage. We’ve identified 13+ high-potential partners, including VCs and DII candidates, along with new potential investors. We’ll start with those who have shown the most support, aiming to secure 5 investors. We hope they recognize our long-term massive wealth creation potential and help us advance to the growth and scale stage, achieving impactful outcomes over the next decade!. Learn more here https://bit.ly/MGCEmpire. Stay tuned & connect with me on LinkedIn: Pronoy Mohanta for future updates & collaboration opportunities!. Thanks to all.

"Cash is king. You want to give me money, I’ll take it. As long as there are no strings attached. Startups get in trouble when they draw-and-quarter themselves by selling roadmap (i.e., non-existing) features to a diverse set of customers. That’s why you should define strategic revenue (e.g., in the first three ICP rings) vs. opportunistic revenue and then religiously enforce this rule: if it’s oportunistic revenue you have to sell what’s on the truck. Don’t even bother asking for roadmap commitments. Maybe give those sellers lower quotas in return. But don’t let them ruin your future by selling your scarcest resource, R&D capacity, for non-strategic purposes." https://lnkd.in/g3fcSfbJ