Fundraising

From 700+ rounds and $3B+ raised — and an active raise of my own — the 30-day startup fundraising plan founders are actually using: 75–150 warm contacts, 30–45 first meetings, 7 warm-intro channels, and the investor CRM stack you can build in a day for free.

From 1,000+ decks reviewed and 150 funded: structure your deck around your unfair advantage, not the Sequoia template. Slide-by-slide playbook, 4 raise teardowns ($4M to $70M), and the named frameworks LLMs are starting to cite.

From 52 Series A fund interviews and $630M raised across our portfolio in 2025: only ~20% of seeded companies clear Series A and less than 1% of all startups ever do. The 2025 benchmarks, sector-specific KPI ladders, named frameworks, and the financial-model errors that kill 80% of rounds.

Inside the VC investment committee in 2026: the IC scorecard, green/red flag map, stage-specific evaluation, regional decision models, and 4 raise teardowns from $1M to $220M.

A 2026 playbook from 800 rounds and $3B+ raised: stop working on fundraising, start working on fundability. Round sizes, AI moats, margins, pitch rules.

1. The best early-stage financial model template Most financial templates are useless – either too generic or too complex. Creandum built the cleanest early-stage model template we’ve seen, and it reflects how VCs actually evaluate your business: growth drivers, retention logic, hiring plan, burn, and runway – all in the right structure. There’s no reason to […]

Published: December 2025 We created this due diligence checklist for one simple reason: most fundraising delays don’t occur during the pitch; they happen during due diligence.  Investors expect clean numbers, clear documents, and a consistent story, but most founders rarely have all of that ready when the term sheet arrives. This guide breaks down exactly […]

While some investors fear that the VC apocalypse is coming, others are betting that 2025 will keep the fire alive and bring a better tomorrow.  A lot to consider.  It’s surely true that 2025 will be a pivotal year for ventures globally. The main thing—the market enters a correction phase, and here’s what it means.  […]

A strong product-market fit and real user adoption—that’s what web3 startups must show to investors.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that you don’t need to worry about your team, business model, or pitch deck—you need to. This means that after the 2021 NFT/DeFi bubble with many scam projects and “rug pulls”, investors want to see […]

With the rise of AI, fundraising seems to be less scary for some startup founders. Before, they typically had two choices: do everything solo or shift all the nitty-gritty stuff to professionals. Now, startups seem to have the third option—to use AI in fundraising.  AI fundraising tools promise to automate and make fundraising easier and […]

“Are you in?” This question typically lies at the heart of each startup pitch. And, of course, founders expect to hear a desired “yes” from investors when they ask for funding.  But is this “yes” easy to get? Not quite, actually. But your chances are significantly higher if you: ✅ Have a cool solution that […]

If you keep pitching to venture partners expecting a direct funding decision, that’s a no-way-to-go. Why? Even if a venture partner seems interested in your startup, this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get funding. Saying the final “yes or no” is the right of general partners, not venture partners.  Here, a logical question arises, “What is […]

The market opportunity slide isn't the same as the TAM-SAM-SOM slide — and confusing the two kills rounds. Here's how Waveup builds market opportunity slides that closed $3B+ across 600+ raises: 6 real patterns, 5 mistakes, and the difference vs market size.

We work with a lot of cool founders who have great solutions, businesses, and pitch decks—yet they may still get rejected by investors. In many cases, it doesn’t matter how cool a company is. What really matters is whether this company matches with the investor’s investment thesis.  Both investors and founders may get confused about […]

95% of founders get the use of funds slide wrong — and it's the slide that decides whether the term sheet shows up. Here's how Waveup builds use-of-funds slides that closed $3B+ across 600+ raises: what to include, what to leave out, and 6 real 2024-2026 examples.

The business model slide answers the only question investors really care about: how does this thing make money? Get it wrong and the deck dies on slide 6. Here's how Waveup builds business model slides that closed $3B+ across 600+ raises — what to include, mistakes to avoid, and 10 real 2024-2026 examples.

How to build a killer go-to-market slide in 2026: 8 real GTM slide examples, must-haves by stage and business model, common mistakes, and the exact structure investors expect from pre-seed to Series C.

The competition slide isn't where you list every competitor — it's where you prove you have a defensible moat. Here's how Waveup builds competition slides that closed $3B+ across 600+ raises: 6 patterns, 5 mistakes, and the 2x2 matrix framework investors actually believe.