Funded | How They Raised Millions

Jack Alton was a startup vet before he was recruited to join Neuro-ID as its CEO in 2016. His requirements to join included headquartering the company in Montana and building a remote first culture. Back then those pursuits were not only rare but considered flaws. 5 years later, they would be come major reasons for Canapi Ventures to preempt Neuro-ID's Series B round. ---------- If you're looking...

In 2016, Guy Friedman was a successful startup founder with an exit. Most would think that would make raising money for his next company SteadyMD a breeze. Instead, none of his prior investors decided to back him and he was on a familiar grind to getting funding. Fast forward to 2020 and Guy was steadily growing his core business when a wave hit in the form of acceleration towards telemedicine. Al...

Our most popular Funded interview from Season 1 was an incredible 2-part episode where Sam Corcos, the CEO of levels talked about his scientific approach to fundraising. As more people ask about Sam and our episode, we decided to remix the 2 episodes into a single episode and add a fun new debrief to the update you all on how the episode content holds up nearly a year later. Read on... Much like t...

Parker Treacy created his first successful company in the United States without raising ventures capital. For his second company, he would need to learn two completely foreign languages to be successful as he set out to launch a company in Brazil and fundraise. Eventually, Parker became fluent in both Portuguese and the language of venture capital as he built his business Cobli and raised over $40...

Erin Carpenter grew up focused on becoming an entertainer with classical training as a ballerina. Along the way, an embarrassing uniform mishap as a young dancer and continued frustrations throughout her career drove her to embrace an entrepreneurial fire that led to starting Nude Barre. For this professional dancer, learning the fundraising dance was a struggle. After 10 years of bootstrapping an...

Nicole Emrani Green's journey from the rambunctious daughter of Persian immigrants to venture-backed CEO has had many twists and turns. Surprisingly, her first career in psychotherapy gave her some of the tools to help advance herself as a leader and successfully close a $4MM Seed round for her company Givingli. Listen to the story as she describes the way she's learned the startup ropes as an out...

Matt Pohlson, co-founder and CEO of Omaze, has had one of the most death defying startup journeys ever. Time and time again, his company has been on the brink of death, only to be saved by Matt’s persistence and never-quit attitude. While most involved nearly running out of funds, one experience involved his own near death experience as he flatlined on an ER bed with his family surrounding him. Pe...

Zach Bruhnke, co-founder and CEO of HMBradley, had a shot at startup glory with his first fintech company Spout. After investor skepticism caused him to throw in the towel, he vowed not to have his own convictions be swayed in future companies. Zach shares how a crazy commitment to the vision with HMBradley as well as a natural approach to building relationships led to both company and fundraising...

For the three years between her graduation from Y-Combinator to her splashy $50MM Series A raise from Sequoia, Christina Cacioppo and her company Vanta kept a low profile. Back in 2018, they had been working in a space few people were talking about around Silicon Valley. SOC2 compliance for startups hardly got people excited. Then, almost out of nowhere, came the announcement that Vanta had raised...

Kameale Terry never wanted to be an entrepreneur, but eventually a problem she saw first hand in the electric vehicle industry drew her into starting ChargerHelp! From the beginning, she was less concerned with the hype cycle of startup trends and more focused on what she describes as “good business.” This allowed her to weather the storm of confusing and sometimes conflicting startup advice and t...

Funded Season 2 launches on July 27, 2021. Listen for a sneak preview into what to expect in this exciting new season.

Before starting Yac, Justin Mitchell had zero network in venture capital, didn’t know the insider terms, and was based out of small town Florida. None of this would point to someday raising a Series A round of funding from a top venture capital firm, but that’s what he did. The key he tells us was focusing on meeting the right people, building great product, and leaning on his thespian roots. Reme...

Laura Del Beccaro, the Founder of Sora, looks like the most VC-backable, first time founder ever. She went to a top university, was a software engineer at a scaled startup, and even did a stint at a top VC firm. But after pulling together an all-star pre-seed round fairly quickly, Laura found out how difficult fundraising can be when you’re no longer a “hot deal” as she tried to raise her subseque...

This is Funded's first ever Friends & Family Round! With so many listeners asking questions about things they hear in episodes or about the fundraising market in general, we decided to launch this sister show to give more insights with a little help from our friends. In this episode, Russ Heddleston the CEO of DocSend gives us a very unique view into 2020 trends via his company's recently released...

From the start of our conversation with Sam Corcos from Levels, it was obvious there was too much sauce for just one episode. In this second half of our 2-part series, Sam begins by sharing details around a large key to his success - his very large cap table. Afterwards, we discuss specifics around his approach to attracting a $12MM seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz and how newcomers to the sp...

Much like the "secret master plan" for his company Levels, Sam Corcos openly talks about what he was able to decipher when it comes to the science of fundraising. This is exciting because fundraising approaches have traditionally been shared with tribal knowledge, feel-based language. In this conversation, Sam talks about how how he decided to follow his training as a scientist rather than rely on...

Have you ever heard the advice “dress for the job you want not the one you have”? For Topper Luciani, that was tough advice to follow because it meant wearing an old t-shirt from Goodwill even while asking fancy venture capitalists for millions of dollars. In this episode, we hear how Topper learned the importance of being your authentic self while raising money and how he somehow managed to save...

Lindsay McCormick, founder of Bite Toothpaste Bits, wants you to know there are alternatives to taking venture capital. She created a multimillion dollar business and funded its growth almost entirely through customer purchases. This show is an honest discussion about the alternatives to venture capital. You’ll learn why even though Lindsay’s email inbox is full of investment offers, up till now s...

Anthemos Georgiades, founder of Zumper, perfected his pitch the way most founders do: through trial and error. This show is about storytelling and all the elements that go into telling the perfect fundraising story. Anthemos deals with a difficult start to his tale having to manage “signaling risk” as well missteps with his deck and an overall lack of focus on the way to raising over $140 million...

Investors like patterns. They’re either explicitly or subconsciously motivated to back businesses that look, sound, or feel familiar and comfortable. That’s why Isharna Walsh, founder of sexual wellness app Coral, had such a daunting task. For her, raising venture capital meant guiding investors through the uncomfortable task of talking about their sex lives and convincing them to back an unfamili...

Coming this December, Funded features some of the entrepreneurs you’ve always admired telling a story you haven’t heard before — how they raised millions in venture capital. Host Jason Yeh talks to Silicon Valley’s stars about how they got strangers to bet on their grand visions.