Gonzalo Busnadiego

Startup fundraising requirements have gone up... Here are 3 key takeaways and actionable steps you can take: Takeaways from Carta's report: 1️⃣ Lower Valuation Multiples – Series A startup valuation multiples have dropped from 4.9x in 2022 to 2.8x, indicating more cautious investor sentiment. 2️⃣ Extended Fundraising Cycles – Startups are now waiting over 100 days longer between rounds, reflecting slower deal flow. 3️⃣ New Opportunities – Larger seed rounds and technological advancements, such as AI, provide startups with ways to grow without relying as heavily on traditional VC funding. So, what can you do about it? If you’ve already raised pre-seed or seed funding, your primary focus should now be on generating revenue. There’s no way around that. If you haven't raised yet but plan to start a company, here are some strategies to consider: 1️⃣ Write Openly on LinkedIn - Share your thesis and gather feedback before you build. - Pay attention to what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t. 2️⃣ Talk to as Many People as Possible - Use tools like Dripify Lead Conversations to automate LinkedIn connections. - Cold email your ideal customer profile (ICP). - This will help refine your thesis and shape your vision. 3️⃣ Build a Network of VCs and Founders - Many VCs and founders are open to talking with aspiring entrepreneurs. - Use ChatGPT to refine your thesis and identify the best VC matches. - Reach out via concise emails or LinkedIn DMs. Bonus Tip – Be Patient - Once you raise capital, the clock starts ticking and pressure builds. - Consider developing a strong thesis and influence through writing before raising funds. This will give you conviction as you move forward. After all, you’re likely in this for the next 10+ years. #startup #fundraising #vc #entrepreneurship 

5

Startups live on the edge of two sharp cliffs: One called ambition, and the other called runway. As founders, we dream big, but the harsh reality is simple: without enough cash to keep the wheels turning, dreams don’t matter. Let’s talk about two critical milestones: securing your runway and reaching break-even. 👉 The Runway Reality Fundraising isn’t just about getting money; it’s about buying time. Time to learn. Time to adapt. Time to survive. 1- Why 18-24 Months? Investors know this is the sweet spot. It’s enough time to test hypotheses, refine your product, and uncover what works. 2- Stretching Every Dollar: In the early stages, every dollar spent must lead to an insight. Marketing experiments, product tweaks, customer feedback loops—everything should be about learning, not just scaling. 3- Avoiding the Burnout Cliff: Running out of cash forces desperate decisions. That’s why managing a runway is about staying calm under pressure while maximizing every opportunity to prove your concept. 👉 Break-Even: The Calm After the Storm Reaching break-even is a game-changer for startups. It’s the moment when the business sustains itself—when survival is no longer tied to fundraising. 1- Why It Matters: Break-even provides stability, allowing founders to focus on growth, innovation, and strategic decisions instead of survival. Your investment burn rate is close to Zero. It means every dollar you spend - you spend on the scaling hypothesis. 2- How It Shapes Decision-Making: Once you’re break-even, you gain the flexibility to take calculated risks and experiment without fear of sinking the ship. 3- The Psychological Win: For founders, reaching break-even isn’t just a financial milestone. Before Business was on Founder/s back. Now it’s the reassurance that the business can stand on its own two feet. Does it mean that challenges are over? Hell no. ⏰ Balancing the Two The real challenge? Knowing when to push for aggressive growth versus when to conserve resources for the long haul. ✅ Smart Spending: Fundraising shouldn’t just be about hitting vanity metrics. It’s about finding product-market fit, refining operations, and scaling sustainably. ✅ Saying No to Pressure: Investors might want to see exponential growth, but founders need to stay grounded. Remember: revenue without sustainability is a house of cards. As founders, our biggest battle isn’t just building the product or convincing investors—it’s managing time and resources wisely. What are your strategies for balancing ambition with financial discipline? Let’s exchange the biggest lessons in it. #Startups #Fundraising #BreakEven #RunwayManagement #Entrepreneurship

10

3 comentarios

Here's a look back on some of our favorite flips of 2024 funded by Copa Capital Partners

5

 Is the World on the Verge of Its Second Hectocorn Startup? With OpenAI in talks to raise $6.5B in funding, its valuation could jump to $150B, making it only the second hectocorn in history—right after SpaceX. For founders, this is a reminder that groundbreaking innovation—paired with visionary leadership—can completely reshape industries and attract massive investor interest. For investors, this deal is a wake-up call: the next wave of tech giants will be built on AI, and those who miss the boat may find themselves outpaced. With OpenAI leading the charge, VCs are positioning themselves for what could be the most lucrative revolution since the internet. Startups, now is the time to align with technologies that have world-changing potential—the payoff, as OpenAI is showing, could be enormous. Follow Impactful Pitch® for more information! -----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----* I support founders' fundraising journeys and provide VCs with real-time insights into the startup ecosystem. If you're looking to expedite your fundraising process, feel free to contact me. I can help you fast-track your path to securing funds. #impactful #startup #swiggy #india #startups #investments #funding #fundraising #venturecapitalist #venturecapital #impact #global #pitchdeck #business #ai #generativeai #entrepreneures #entrepreneurship #scalingbusinesses #impactfulpitch #angelinvestors #angelinvesting #fund

10

Blockpay App 2.0 is now available on the App Store and Google Play, offering a seamless way to manage your funds while retaining full ownership of your assets at all times. Users can connect their Web3 wallets, top up their Blockpay cards, and make SPEI transfers to any Mexican bank account without the need for a traditional bank account. Managing your assets is as easy and familiar as using traditional banking apps. Whether you're handling your Blockpay card balance or conducting crypto-to-fiat transactions, Blockpay App 2.0 simplifies the process, removing the hassle of converting between cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and fiat currencies. #BlockpayApp #SelfCustody

3

Do you understand #ETH's layers and the role they play? Proud to speak with Ambito Financiero to help break down layers 1 through 3 and their importance! 🧾 https://lnkd.in/gsdqGhEs #crypto #blockchain #ethereum #news #opinion #bingx BingX

10

2 comentarios

Thank you for the feature OpenLP! ✨ Download our VC Fund Deck Template to enhance your fundraising efforts. 🚀

3

Curious about the 100x+ economic gain behind AI vs humans? Read on. Vela AI agents are at least 100x cheaper, 5x faster and same quality as a venture capitalist (VC). Let's walk through the VC math. 1) Highly paid knowledge workers such as VCs in the Bay Area costs at least $120 an hour. 2) High-quality startup analysis typically takes 5-20 minutes per lead. This analysis is required to decide if a VC should take the first meeting. So, the cost per analyzing qualified lead ranges between $10 and $40. Let's skew towards cheaper and pick $20. Now, let's look into the AI agent math. 1) It takes 0.5-3 minutes to analyze a company, depending on the model's capabilities. 2) It costs $5-$20 an hour to run a LLM, depending on the infrastructure's sophistication and length of text. It costs $0.04 to $1 for AI agents to analyze a single startup. Let's skew towards more expensive and pick 20 cents. This gets interesting at scale. Humans get bored if they analyze more than 30 companies a week in-depth (at least I do!). These AI agents never get bored, works non-stop and even work on Saturday nights. When you run these models on 1M startups a year continuously, you end up paying $200K a year. I've never met an expert human or army of expert humans who can analyze 1M companies in a year, in which their quality is continuously increasing and the cost is continuously going down. This is a super power. Now imagine what other industries and businesses can use these 100x. If you have not deployed AI agents in your line of knowledge work, please drop whatever you're doing right now. Whatever that is, I can assure you that it won't matter in a few years. If you're a student or someone thinking about next steps, please stop what you're doing. This subject is the only thing matters for your career. Prioritize building, deploying and managing AI agents.

86

28 comentarios

We’re thrilled to announce that our new Blockpay cards now come with SPEI enabled, available directly through the Blockpay App. This means you can seamlessly transfer funds to any bank account in Mexico, making it easier than ever to spend your crypto. With SPEI, you can: 1️⃣ Instantly convert crypto to MXN. 2️⃣ Transfer funds directly to local bank accounts. 3️⃣ Enjoy fast and secure transactions. This is just another way Blockpay is bridging the gap between crypto and the real world. Empower your financial freedom and make the most of your crypto assets with Blockpay, where innovation meets practicality. #BlockpayCard #AvalancheL1

5

1 comentario

I agree with Gabriel Jarrosson's observations about SF bay area startup advantages, AND I agree with the dissenting opinions. Frankly, I could argue either side. But what cannot be debated is the empirical evidence to date. Every serious data analysis I've ever seen, including the ones I have done, always shows a material performance advantage for startups based in the SF bay area. This is true across a number of success objective functions (eg, probability of raising a specific amount of additional capital, becoming a Unicorn, and ultimate cash-on-cash returns) and has remained true for the last three decades. It's not that a great company can't be built anywhere; it's just that the odds are materially better in the SF bay area.

12

2 comentarios

There is a lot in common between growing an early stage startup, and endurance sports. 1. The self-talk. During an ultra you always talk yourself into pushing one more mile, one more step, one more summit. You don’t know what’s after it, and how much more you are able to endure. But this is what startups and sports about - not knowing if you can make it, but still pushing, because fuck it, I can. 2. A guaranteed fuck-up. You will absolutely positively fuck something up. Will eat something wrong and stick with nausea for couple of hours. Will forget to change socks and end up with huge blisters. Forget the food you need. Will run out of water in the middle of nowhere. Startups are the same. You will fuck up a lot of things, and there’s no need to try not to. You will, and the idea is to solve problems on the go, to fix the plane in the middle of a flight. 3. Readiness to DNF. Did Not Finish — a fear of every runner. Startups are the same — you can DNF at some point, and odds are against you, so just be prepared. 4. Multitasking. You think about different things at the same time: route, water, food, your energy, physical feed, emotional state, weather, time. If you loose track of something — chances are you will have a problem with that in the future. The same goes with startups: product updates, testing, feedbacks, new leads, retention, fundraising, cashflow, support — everything is a priority, you don't have enough cash to delegate, but still have to do everything. So just stick to it as long as possible. I can add a lot more, but you got the point. Every time I run 50-60-70K trails, I think about this stuff, and it helps me figure out how to approach startup problems. Will see what it takes to run 100 miles. Maybe it's like growing to Series A.

20

1 comentario

Huge News!! - Microlaunch.net officially has MRR 🤩 While the primary goal is still growth, monetizing matters at least to have cash to reinvest into marketing/Ads📈 Two Monetization streams - sponsors (weekly/monthly) - premium products for those willing to get more exposure features during their launch🔥 Big big thanks to our sponsor this week: Aidbase.ai by Simon Hoiberg - excellent product helping with quality AI support for your Saas Soon - Product Deals - simple concepts: curated deals, small fee - we make sure to bring quality traffic - both organic + paid Ads traffic to them - we measure and see what works📊 - affiliates coming (both B2B + B2C) Let's help you guys make more revenue while providing quality to folks interested in tech products✨

19

12 comentarios

Don’t Miss Our Next Webinar • The Role of Stablecoins in Revolutionizing Latin American Markets. 🚀 Learn about the relevance of stablecoins in Latin America and how to facilitate cross-border payments using stablecoins, directly from our specialists: Emiliano Rodriguez our Head of Strategic Alliances, and Álvaro Sierra our Business Development Lead, partnering with Marco Mahrus, Head of Revenue at Bridge. Discover the success case of Bridge - one of the most prominent stablecoin-backed payment platforms - and how it has harnessed their potential to offer faster, more secure, and cost-effective international transfers with Bitso Business. Join the webinar and find out firsthand what stablecoins can do for your business. Register Now - https://lnkd.in/d6Z-WrYx

57

2 comentarios

Building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and testing the foundational hypotheses is crucial, and 90% of the time you will iterate. Do you think a business plan is necessary for a startup? #startup #fintech

6

ClouFan www.cloufan.com BusinessFi Media Platform ClouFan payment system allows you to make your earnings or expenses with Block Chain technologies. DEfi offers a decentralized infrastructure. The Cripto assets you earn are stored in your wallet. Many companies are looking for Corporate Promotional videos and video product support on ClouFan. ClouFan is live on web, mobile and SmartTv. Additionally, our Broadcast services are designed to be broadcast from our HBBTV services on National and Local Television Channels. Take your place. Complete your verified transactions. Firsts are always ahead and ahead. You can apply for jobs by creating your corporate profile or support projects as a freelancer. On the platform where many experts from the business world take part. There are many needs and requirements such as SEO, digital marketing, social marketing, video marketing. #promo #socialmediaadvertising #mediamonitoring #blockchain #seo #business #infrastructure #marketing #business #video #digitalmarketing #broadcast #television #media #projects #hbbtv #blog #biolink #crypto Cloud - Payment Gateway. We are accelerating our work to connect our ClouFan users' wallets to all international banking and crypto networks. Clou Payment gateway is now available for ClouFan use. Create your account Define your approval processes. Let's start your wallet creation. When you create your account, ClouPAY identifies your activations in all Banking and Crypto networks. You will be able to receive many services from your banking systems to your stock market transactions. You will be able to organize your visa procedures, holiday and tourism definitions very soon. You can sell your products with your personal account. You can define as many Companies as you want and receive job applications. You can create fundraising campaigns and generate income for your projects. You can collect your product promotions and offers from your company page. You can create your secure video, voice and text messages with ClouFan. Create your own network and take your place in our International BusinessFi network.

1