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Gian Seehra
Making Pre-Seed to Series A founders successfully fundraise | Ex-Tier-1 VC & VC-Backed Founder ($16m) | $400m+ raised with founders. | Follow me for tips on fundraising.
Gian Seehra is a founder and advisor who specializes in helping tech startups raise venture capital funding.1 He has extensive experience in the startup and investment world, having been involved in over $400 million worth of investments as a founder, investor, and advisor.13
Key points about Gian Seehra:
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Current role: Founder of his own advisory firm since February 2021, focused on assisting Pre-Seed to Series B tech founders with fundraising.1
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Previous experience:
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Expertise: Seehra has developed a "Fundraising Operating System" to help founders successfully raise capital.23
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Services: He offers deep-dive digital courses, a newsletter with fundraising tips, and 1:1 coaching for startup founders.3
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Education: Bachelor of Science in Industrial Economics from the University of Nottingham.1
Seehra's approach emphasizes building relationships with investors, crafting compelling narratives, and implementing structured fundraising processes.23 He aims to help founders not only raise money but also attract investors who can contribute to their startup's growth and success.4
Highlights
I’ve had 100s of sessions with founders raising money.
One mistake I see over and over again?
Worrying about tactics without a clear strategy.
A lot of the questions I get from people are about specific tactics.
❓ Who should I speak to? ❓ How do I reach investors? ❓ Should I start a founder brand? ❓ What should I put in my pitch deck? ❓ What metrics should I show investors?
And the thing is, there really isn’t a right or wrong answer.
Because every one of these things requires context.
I need to understand:
• Your own unique industry • Your network • Yourself Before I can help you on what the best way to do it is.
Like:
✅ Leveraging a founder brand depends on your timeline. ✅ The right metrics depend on your stage and model. ✅ Reaching investors depends on your network. ✅ Who you speak to depends on your company. ✅ Your pitch deck should tell your story best.
Before you dive into tactics, there are 5 strategic questions you need to answer.
- How organised is your network?
- What makes you and your team great?
- Why is your opportunity a cut above the rest?
- How prepared are you for your fundraising launch?
- Do you know why you need the $$$ and how much?
Answer these and build out a real strategy for how you fundraise.
Then you can start to think about the tactics.
P.S. Just got into Singapore for 3 weeks. Rainy rainy Singapore, but loving it!
-- Now it’s time for me to sell
You have 2 options here:
1 - Read this post, get a dopamine hit, move on with your life on LinkedIn and fail to fundraise for your start-up.
2 - Decide you want to stop fluffing around on here and actually complete an effective fundraise in the future.
If you are interested, DM me "Raise".
PS - The minimum price of this is $3k. I want to be upfront about it for you.
As a VC, I lied about 90% of the time to founders.
All when rejecting them.
Why was this you ask?
Because there wasn't enough time in the day to reject every founder I met.
My day-to-day activities involved:
- Buying a new patagonia vest
- Seeing 100+ companies a week
- Meeting 5-20 companies a week
- Helping the portfolio on the board
- Working on potential new investments
- Meetings every day on internal matters
- General day-to-day admin (usually after the day is finished!)
And then deciding if I wanted to buy a second patagonia vest!
So...
Whilst I loved meeting founders.
I knew I didn't have the time to invest into all of you.
But even worse...
I didn't have the time to give proper rejections to EVERY founder I met.
You see…
When a VC rejects you its less about your company.
And always about their subjective feelings.
It’s pretty hard to tell a founder you’ve barely met that you don’t think THEY are good enough.
In fact, the few times I did be honest about it being about the founder, I was told I was:
- Cold
- Rude
- Dumb
🤷🏾
This was a potential reputation loss.
Something I knew I couldn't take a chance on.
So whilst I’m not happy about it...
I did a lot of “maybes” or soft rejections...
𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻:
Every investor goes through the same thing!
They start off wanting to give proper rejections to everyone.
But then realise they can't.
They’ve all been through this exact journey and end up the same.
So you need to focus on two things after being rejected:
- Realise that the investor didn’t like you, or
- Push them for a real “no”
Here’s 4 ways to push for a real reason an investor rejected you:
- Do pipeline reviews
- Don’t take the no’s personally
- Create urgency in your comms
- Always focus on getting that next meeting
This will save you time, and more importantly mental capacity for the investors who do care.
