Fundraising Articles

Building a Deep Tech Company? Most Startup Advice Doesn’t Apply — Read This Instead

Learn from Loyal founder Celine Halioua’s rigorous approach to milestone-based planning, fundraising and multi-product strategy.

Here’s What You Can Really Expect When Pitching Your Seed-Stage Startup at a VC Partner Meeting

There isn't much advice to guide founders on navigating their first VC partner meeting. So First Round Partner and former founder Liz Wessel shares her playbook for seed-stage startups tackling one of fundraising's most opaque processes.

The Not So Cookie-Cutter Approach to Company Building — 8 Lessons from Zapier

Wade Foster, founder and CEO of Zapier, shares his contrarian takes on building a billion-dollar company — from fundraising advice, go-to-market strategy, and hiring mistakes.

AI Hot Takes and Unusual Twitter Fundraising Strategies with Dan Siroker (Rewind AI)

Dan Siroker is the co-founder and CEO at Rewind AI, a personalized AI powered by everything you’ve seen, said, or heard. Dan launched Rewind to an emphatic response on Twitter, and used a public pitch video to fundraise at a $350m valuation.

Step-by-Step Fundraising Tactics from the NYC Legend Who Raised $750M

Kevin Ryan has spent decades on both sides of the fundraising table. Here, he provides secrets seldom shared for getting and keeping VCs interested before closing the deal.

How Zapier Pulled Off Its One-and-Done Approach to Fundraising

Zapier CEO and Co-founder Wade Foster is a fundraising contrarian. But he doesn't think he should be. He shares how it's possible to approach financing as a boost — not a crutch — and ways to approach key business decisions early on to keep the itch to fundraise at bay.

The Fundraising Wisdom That Helped Our Founders Raise Billions in Follow-On Capital

First Round launched its Pitch Assist program to help founders raise follow-on capital. Here are the most important fundraising lessons we share.

AppNexus' First Pitch — Before It Steered Around the Cloud to Win Big in AdTech

AppNexus opens the vault and shares its very first seed funding pitch deck, created before its impressive pivot.

What the Seed Funding Boom Means for Raising a Series A

Josh Kopelman on why raising a Series A is harder than ever, and how startups can adapt to survive the changing investment landscape.

You Aren't Getting the Most Out of Your Investors — This is How to Start

Angel investor Paul Arnold has seen many companies fail to capitalize on the wisdom and resources of their investors. Here's how others have succeeded.

Not Another VC Blog - First Round Review

Introducing The First Round Review, the first VC-run publication providing actionable insights from the top people in technology.

Zach Sims of Codecademy on Lessons in Raising $12.5 Million for the First Time

Codecademy CEO and Co-founder Zach Sims shares what he learned about choosing the right investors for his company.