The Art and Science of Fundraising | DECODE Conference 2024
Speakers:
Shuo Chen, General Partner at IOVC; Faculty at UC Berkeley
Christopher Lien, Founder & CEO at Marin Software (NASDAQ: MRIN)
DROdio, Co-Founder & CEO at Storytell.ai
Moderator: Sam Angus, Partner at Fenwick and West
In this comprehensive session, Shuo, Chris, and DROdio shares invaluable insights on 'The Art and Science of Fundraising,' focusing on practical tips for startups. The discussion offers five top tips for first-time fundraisers, emphasizing the importance of relationship-building with investors, understanding different funding stages, and personalizing outreach efforts. From leveraging warm introductions to navigating valuation and deal terms, this session is packed with advice from experienced founders and investors. Ideal for aspiring entrepreneurs and founders, the insights aim to prepare you for the challenges of securing your first funding round.
Stay connected with us!
DECODE : https://decode.build/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/decodesv
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to the Panel and Fundraising
01:19 Building Relationships Before Fundraising
02:47 Importance of Warm Intros
07:09 Setting Fundraising Milestones
10:36 Effective Fundraising Strategies
12:49 Navigating VC Relationships
23:32 Understanding Fundraising Terms and Valuations
32:53 Final Thoughts and Audience Q&A
Speaker Bios:
Shuo Chen is a General Partner at IOVC, where she invests in early stage startups in Silicon Valley with a focus on future of work and enterprise/SaaS. She also teaches entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley and Stanford. In her venture role, Shuo has invested in companies now acquired by Goldman Sachs, Ford, Caterpillar, Binance and Dialpad, as well as now unicorns including Boom, Checkr, Grubmarket, Instacart and Rescale. Outside of venture, Shuo is appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to serve as 1 of 14 voting members on California's Mental Health Commission, which includes overseeing ~$10 billion annually in state budget and advising the Governor or the Legislature on mental health policy.
Chris is Marin’s founder and Chairman of the Board, and rejoined the Company as Chief Executive Officer in August 2016. From September 2015 to August 2016, Chris has served on boards of private companies as well as Marin Software. From May 2014 until September 2015, Chris served as executive chairman of Marin Software, and from the founding of the Company in 2006 to May 2014, he served as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. Chris has been a member of the Board since 2006. Previously, Chris served as Chief Operating Officer of Adteractive, Inc., an online performance marketing company, from 2004 to 2005. In 2001, Chris co-founded and served as Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Sugar Media, Inc., a broadband services platform, until its acquisition in 2003 by 2Wire, Inc., a leading supplier of DSL equipment and services, which was subsequently acquired by Pace plc in 2010.
DROdio is the co-founder & CEO at Storytell.ai. He was the founding CEO of Armory, a devops startup that enabled digital transformation for Global 2,000 enterprises. Armory's customers included JPMorgan Chase, Autodesk and Snap and used Armory’s software delivery platform to execute their public & hybrid cloud strategic initiatives. Armory raised $83M from incredible investors including Y Combinator, Javelin, Crosslink, Insight and B Capital and was acquired by Harness in 2024. Before Armory, I was the CEO of Socialize, which was acquired in 2013. Previous to that, I was the CEO of AppMakr, PointAbout and RebateReps, all startups that were acquired over the past decade.