Pontine Paus

When NinjaOne announced their $500M Series C at a $5B valuation, one point stood out from the press release: "NinjaOne has no debt and remains a founder-led and controlled business after the Series C extensions. Co-founders Sal Sferlazza and Chris Matarese remain the biggest equity holders in the company, have majority control of the Board of Directors, and hold a majority of the company's voting power." Sal Sferlazza knows exactly why that matters. When you're selling to enterprise customers, they ask one critical question: "Will this company keep innovating?" His answer: "So I think for good or for bad, our customers and our employees are stuck with me and Chris." We had Sal on Unicorn Builders to break down why founder control became their competitive advantage in a market with deeply entrenched competitors. We also cover: → Why enterprise buyers fear startups will pivot or get acquired mid-contract → How spending 25 hours/week on product as CEO signals long-term commitment → The accidental discovery that doubled their addressable market overnight → Why throttling growth built more trust than racing to scale → How consensus-based leadership creates better products than founder ego → Why homogeneous tech stacks beat "best of breed" acquisitions → The "spy network" management style that prevents product issues Full ep: https://lnkd.in/eN9QQAKt

190

2 Comments

🚨🚨Zepto to raise $500 million from General Catalyst, Avenir and others in fresh round at $7 billion valuation Zepto, the quick commerce startup that raised a whopping $1.35 billion last year, is back in the market and is now in advanced stages to raise another $450-500 million in primary capital from existing investors in a fresh round that values the company at $7 billion post-money, sources told Moneycontrol. The fresh valuation of $7 billion is a 40 percent increase from $5 billion that Zepto commanded during its fundraise last year. Existing investors General Catalyst and Avenir Growth will put in a large chunk of the $450-500 million, along with participation from existing investors who will infuse capital on a pro rata basis. Moneycontrol was first to report, on June 4, that General Catalyst and Avenir Growth are looking to anchor Zepto's latest round as the timeline to go public has moved by a few weeks. With Tushar Goenka https://lnkd.in/gxZN73er

169

2 Comments

Interesting pattern I’ve seen: CEOs who take themselves off the front lines of sales tend to have a much harder time fundraising. It’s true that fundraising takes focus, but it’s important to remember that investors don’t invest in your dreams - they invest in the value your business creates. When you’re in a sales call, you get a direct view into how valuable your product is to a customer, and why they value it the way they do. Those calls inspire new offers, products, and strategies based on the deep insight you get into your market on both a micro and macro level. When you take yourself out of sales completely, you risk stopping the flow of insights that could seriously alter the trajectory of your business. And even worse, if you only focus on fundraising, you risk making changes to your business based on what investors want rather than what your customers want. Your customers know what your customers want better than investors do. So make sure the conversation between you and them is always ongoing – both your monthly sales and your funding round depend on it. #startups #venture #tech #fundraising #pitching #venture #VC #founders

80

37 Comments

Investors often talk a lot about product market fit, but we often overlook the other half of the equation: FOUNDER MARKET FIT When the founder is deeply connected to the problem, be it through lived experience, domain knowledge, or genuine obsession, they make better decisions, handle setbacks, and build stronger bonds with the people they serve Founders should avoid chasing just a big market. They should choose the one they are uniquely built to serve.

46

5 Comments

.......'VC's are dying, you can use multiple tools now to build software - you don't need the money like you used to'...... The majority of VC cash is deployed on scaling go to market, not on building early product. Case in point, Lovable is software that literally builds software, just raised $200m.

51

20 Comments

What happened in mental health this week? ⏺️ Ash by Slingshot AI launched their AI-powered therapy service Ash, and closed an extension of their Series A funding round, bringing their total raise to $93M. ⏺️ AbsoluteCare raised $135M to fund their market expansion. The company provides integrated care, including physical, behavioural and social care and has a strong emphasis on value-based payment models. ⏺️ Kooth Digital Health released their half-year trading and operational update, including progress on their California contract, which appears set to meet registration targets. ⏺️ Coinbase Co-Founder Fred Ehrsam raised $100M for a BCI neurotech startup called Nudge. ⏺️ Talkspace partnered with Tia Health to integrate mental health care services into primary care for women, expanding Talkspace's specialised women's health services. ⏺️ Elon Musk's Grok launched two new AI 'companions', including a sexualized anime bot that is available for users as young as 12. Just what we needed… ⏺️ Headstream Innovation announced their 2025 Accelerator cohort of early-stage founders building tech to support young people's mental well-being. I know a few of the businesses in this cohort and think they have a lot of potential. I will be following this cohort closely. ⏺️ In the UK, NICE recommended Limbic and Wysa's Digital Referral Assistant as digital 'front door' technologies for NHS Talking Therapies assessments for anxiety and depression. ⏺️ Clerkenwell Health, the site for the UK's first sponsored LSD trial, announced that they screened the first participant for MindMed's Phase 3 study of MM120. ⏺️ Ember Mental Health announced their 2025-26 cohort, selecting 15 community-based mental health initiatives which they will support. The program received over 1,800 applications, which is wild, and frankly, I love seeing support being provided to community initiatives like these. ⏺️ Winslow Strong announced The Consciousness Foundation, a public charity aimed at advancing scientific understanding of consciousness and fostering consciousness development, including awakening, healing, and inner development. This is very relevant to our recent post on Spirit Tech - the space seems to be gaining some momentum. ⏺️ Penda Health's real-world study found that their LLM clinical copilot reduced diagnostic errors by 16% and treatment errors by 13% across 39,849 live patient visits at 15 clinics. Whilst this was focused on primary care, it points to the kind of impact that may exist when these kinds of LLMs are applied to mental health. __ 📩 Like this? I send it as a weekly email (including links and even sometimes irrelevant personal stories about my life) to thousands of mental health operators. Sign up for free here > https://lnkd.in/g9xgMW4r 👉 Follow me Steve Duke, for more insights on the #mentalhealth industry.

83

11 Comments

I've sat in thousands of founder meetings over the years. The fastest way to truly understand who a founder is and how they think is not via a pitch deck. It's in asking the right questions. In the latest Re:VITALIZE newsletter, I share 5 questions I would ask any founder of an early-stage startup. These questions are designed to move past the surface-level items like "what is the problem and solution?" to more meaty insights such as "what specific goals do you want to achieve and how are you planning to get there?" Link to read my post is in the comments. ✨

40

6 Comments

Who reviews your deck? Several years ago, on joining VC, I put together a quick no-holds bar email for my old colleagues and friends who were now out fundraising. The aim was to share my observations on how deals were reviewed by VCs, in practice, to help them fundraise. First crucial question. What does your startup do? The reality is: ➡️ Your deck will be skim read ➡️ Probably by an analyst ➡️ With dozens of other decks ➡️ The more generalist the fund, the less specific expertise the reader will have ➡️ That analyst will have to scrape together information to explain to the investment team why they are passing or not ‼️ But if it's read by someone more senior?? Don't even have to justify why they're passing. And will probably skim read it even faster. So I would invite you to review your deck. FAST. Like 5 minutes. No, 30 seconds. Is it exceptionally clear to everyone what your startup does? I mean, could someone skim this in 5 minutes and relay to colleagues what your startup does, in plain English? If you are not 100% sure that's the case. You need to rewrite your deck. If you can't explain what your startup does in plain English, why would an overworked analyst fare any better? #VentureCapital #Startups #Fundraising #PitchDeck #Entrepreneurship

50

25 Comments