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How Seed VCs Think About Deep Tech Startups | Sramana Mitra
Rating: 4.2 out of 5(23 ratings)
114 students

How Seed VCs Think About Deep Tech Startups | Sramana Mitra

Case Studies of Deep Tech Seed Investors (Angels and Venture Capitalists) on Venture Capital Fund Raising
Created bySramana Mitra
Last updated 2/2025
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • Through in-depth interviews with prominent investors, gain insights on how investors analyze deep tech startups.
  • When Venture Capitalists are likely to fund deep tech startups.
  • What investor-entrepreneur fit is and how to achieve it.
  • Why 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected by VCs.
  • What some of the key considerations are for investors when they evaluate startups.
  • How entrepreneurs can position themselves for success.
  • What are some of the common mistakes that entrepreneurs make when pitching their startups to VCs.
  • The fastest way to find the relevant sources of funding while building deep tech startups.

Course content

2 sections • 14 lectures • 4h 59m total length

  • Introduction1:22

    Discover how seed investors think about deep tech startups and seed financing, with real-world investor perspectives from a global virtual accelerator for tech entrepreneurs.

  • How Seed Investors Think About Deep Tech Investing6:20

    Value domain knowledge and world-class deep-tech expertise to attract seed investors, who favor serial entrepreneurs but back credible first-timers with proven concepts, data access, patentable strategies, and acqui hire considerations.

  • Entrepreneur - Investor Fit10:36

    Explore how seed venture capitalists evaluate entrepreneurs and how to position for unicorns or capital-efficient exits. It highlights rejection statistics, investor networks, and the crucial investor-entrepreneur fit.

  • Don’t Eat Too Much Candy with Ashmeet Sidana, Engineering Capital30:57

    Ashmeet Sidana is Founder of Engineering Capital, a seed-stage venture fund focusing on infrastructure technology. He has a lot of insights to offer, and delivers one particular piece of wisdom that is close to my heart. He says, “Funding is like candy. Don’t eat too much candy. Whole wheat bread and proteins are customers and revenues. That’s what you should focus on.” Brilliant analogy, don’t you think?

  • Market Size Matters with Ashmeet Sidana, Engineering Capital29:53

    Ashmeet Sidana, Chief Engineer at Engineering Capital, shares a wonderful presentation on Market Sizing.

  • How to Build Platform Startups with Ashmeet Sidana, Engineering Capital35:05

    Ashmeet Sidana, Chief Engineer at Engineering Capital, is the founder of a small venture firm that we have a great deal of respect for, and a personal friend. This is a wonderful conversation.

  • Funding Fat Startups with Asheem Chandna, Greylock Ventures28:21

    Asheem Chandna, General Partner at Greylock Ventures, discusses the topic of funding fat startups, something Asheem has done routinely and one of the very few VCs still doing so. Very interesting discussion.

  • Deep Tech Investing with Karthee Madasamy, Mobile Foundation Ventures32:10

    Karthee Madasamy is Founder and Managing Partner at Mobile Foundation Ventures. We discuss the nuances of Deep Tech investing.

  • The Widening Series A Gap with Rajeev Madhavan, Clear Ventures36:45

    Rajeev Madhavan, Founder and General Partner at Clear Ventures, was first a highly successful serial entrepreneur, and brings to the VC game an entrepreneur’s view of the world. Rajeev highlights the Series A gap in a big way.

  • Seed-stage Deep Tech Investing with Rajeev Madhavan, Clear Ventures28:34

    Rajeev Madhavan is Founder and General Partner at Clear Ventures, a firm focused on seed-stage deep tech investing.

  • More Discussion on Non-Unicorn Chasing Investor Philosophy25:35

    Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner and Founder at Ideaspring Capital, adds to our thesis on great investment opportunities within the sub $100 million exit space.

  • Early Stage Startups are NOT About Keeping All Options Open with Eric Benhamou30:11

    Eric Benhamou is Founder and General Partner, Benhamou Global Ventures.

Requirements

  • The only requirement for this course is an open mind and a willingness to learn.

Description

Raising money is a low probability game. You need to understand how investors think to be able to raise money successfully for your startup.

During this course, I will be teaching how seed investors think about and analyze deep tech startups. We will have in-depth conversations around startups with several real world investors.

Designed for tech entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs interested in building deep tech startups, this course provides insights into the minds of several seed investors operating in this space for many years in their own words.

As you may have already learned in my courses, the early stage investment ecosystem has fragmented, it’s no longer just seed and Series A. The seed part has fragmented to friends and family financing, pre-seed, seed, post-seed, small Series A, and large Series A.

In this course, we will do a deep dive into the seed stage of deep tech startups

If you want introductions to Angels and VCs, a fundable and validated business is a must.

A fundable business with warm introductions is the fastest way to get funded. We can introduce you to angels and VCs, if your idea is fundable and validated. Sadly, less than 1% of businesses are fundable. What that means is more than 99% of the entrepreneurs waste their energy on pitching their unfundable businesses to investors. Hugely unproductive and unhealthy.

There is a reason why savvy entrepreneurs have been using the Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later strategy.

However, deep tech is often an expensive startup category to build. How do you do it? How do investors consider funding concept-stage deep tech?

This course is designed to help deep tech entrepreneurs understand the thought process of seed investors.

The 1Mby1M courses are all heavily based on interview-based case studies on Innovation, Business Models, Go To Market Strategies, Validation Principles, and various other nuances of an entrepreneur's journey. We offer extensive opportunities for entrepreneurs to learn the lessons from the trenches from successful entrepreneurs who have done it before and Investors who support their ambition.


Who this course is for:

  • Ambitious entrepreneurs who want to pursue deep-tech ideas for which they have both passion and expertise.
  • Engineers who want to turn their deep tech knowledge into multi-million dollar revenue businesses by becoming startup founders rather than remain employees.
  • Aspiring founders who want to increase their chances of getting accepted into a top startup accelerator such as Y Combinator, Techstars, or 500 Startups.
  • Any entrepreneur who wants to learn from successful entrepreneurs who have done it before and from investors who have supported them.
  • Professors teaching technology entrepreneurship courses anywhere in the world.

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