How Pre-Seed Investors Think About Startups w/ Sramana Mitra
What you'll learn
- How pre-seed investors think about and evaluate startups.
Requirements
- Recommend my free Bootstrapping Course.
Description
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 pre-seed stage.
What is the difference between pre-seed, post-seed and pre-Series A? This is not so simple anymore to understand. For entrepreneurs who are seeking financing for the first time, it’s not easy to understand where they fit in.
There is a lot of competition to get into some of the deals for Series A (and Series B). If you look at the numbers, there are 50,000 to 70,000 seed stage investments a year versus 1,200 to 1,500 Series A investments. Clearly there is a lot of companies in that pool that are not getting to Series A. Only a percentage of those are really the hot companies. The hot companies, by definition, are few and far between, which is why there is such a competition. There are a lot of companies in the middle.
Then there are the stranded businesses that don’t deserve Series A. That is irrelevant, because there are a lot of companies that do get seed investments and don’t really pan out. They shouldn’t be raising more money. That is not of concern to me because it makes sense that they shouldn’t get to Series A. But still, there is a big number of startups in the middle. They’re not the hottest companies, but they are good solid companies. Many of those are falling in the Series A crunch as well.
To keep up with the evolving nuances of startup financing, this course shares how several of the investors I’ve spoken with define “pre-seed.” You will also learn what kind of validation they are looking for in a startup before getting into a deal during our in-depth conversations.
Who this course is for:
- Technology entrepreneurs interested in learning more about financing their business.
- Startup founders interested in pre-seed financing.
- Aspiring entrepreneurs.
Course content
- Preview01:30
- 01:26How Pre-seed Investors Think About Startups
- Preview10:36
- 02:45Probability of Raising Funds
- 28:28A View into Pre-Seed Funding with Gaurav Jain of Afore Capital
- 26:07Global Startup Acceleration Networks are Growing with Shuly Galili, UpWest Labs
- 35:58Vertical Niche Opportunities in Tech with Clint Chao, Moment Ventures
- 23:48Kara Weber of Brilliant Ventures on Female Founders
- 43:11Nitin Pachisia, Unshackled Ventures, Discusses Pre-Seed and Seed Investing
- 03:11Synthesis
Instructor
![Sramana Mitra](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 2 Reviews
- 1,615 Students
- 22 Courses
Sramana Mitra is Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), a global virtual accelerator that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. Sramana has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2015, Sramana was named one of LinkedIn’s Top 10 Influencers, alongside Bill Gates and Richard Branson.