Demystifying First-Check Fundraising with First-Check Investors

Yashad Kulkarni28min

Speaker 1

00:07

But music never gets old. Hi everyone, I'm Natasha Mascarenhas. Today we're going to talk about raising money and how to navigate that. Because sometimes, figuring out what kind of capital to go for can be the hardest part of the fundraising process, especially in a world of rolling funds, angels, debt, financing, all the things. And to help me talk about all the things, we have three of the best in the business. Thank you all so much for joining me, this should be fun. So I wanted to start with aspirin, you are a co founder of Zebras Unite. And I wanted you to kind of start by telling me and the audience about your capital arm and how what you do in your view is different and supports founders differently than traditional venture capital. I can't hear you too well.

Speaker 2

01:12

Hi, all. So there we go. year two of the pandemic, I suppose for now, thanks again for having me. And it's a pleasure to be sharing the stage with some of our favorite people. I am the odd one out on this panel. And not just because I'm holding up the German immigrant quota on this panel. Also, because we in fact, do not yet have a fund. So Zebras Unite, and I'm pronouncing it the international way because we are an international movement of founders and investors building capital community and culture for the next economy. businesses. And the our approach to capitalists is multifold, we thought initially, maybe we would stand up a fund right from the get go. And instead, what we have been learning from a capital innovators, like Brian, and others all over the places, that capital is best designed in close collaboration with the community. And so we are taking a deliberate approach to designing new financing mechanisms and instruments in collaboration with specific sectors, geographies, and demographics. And so we're actually using, basically, what we're doing is we're unpacking the fun design process that typically takes place behind closed doors, and turning that into an open participatory process, where we have LPs and other key stakeholders at the table to identify what's needed in a particular industry. So for example, we're just finishing up the first phase of what we're calling a future economy lab in the education space. Secondly, we also are working on creating a sort of a matchmaking ecosystem, if you will, for zebra aligned, founders and investors. And we're doing this through things like partnering with a bunch of folks who have identified themselves and building a little bit of a prototype for how we can match them up in the community. And then we're also working with platforms like we fund our thirdly to make direct investments into businesses where crowd investing is a good opportunity. And so we have a partnership, we fund our and building partnerships with equivalent platforms, platforms and other countries.

Speaker 1

03:23

Got it? And I'm really curious to before I throw over to the traditional VCs in the room on if you, you know, actively chose to stay away from the idea of exchanging money for ownership, if that's teams that you still choose to work with? Or if you kind of stay away from finding partners that are doing that kind of approach?

Speaker 2

03:43

Oh, no, not at all. I mean, there's a great deal of need for it. So I like to joke at the risk of offending the actual VCs on the panel, right? I mean, there's sort of two extremes as well, right? Like, we have the VC end of the capital spectrum, which Garner's a lot of attention, but in the big scheme of things, really is just a tiny drop in the large capital pool of capital that's out there. And then on the other extreme, you have band of bank loans. That may or may not be accessible to startup founders, especially if they're from certain demographics. In this country. Of course, we have a massive racial wealth, gap and access to capital. And so to me, that sounds just like two flavors of capital, right, vanilla and chocolate. It's not interesting. If that was an ice cream store. It's just not very interesting. So Zebras Unite, we're looking to increase the diversity of capital, as well as the diversity of managers off capital. So we're very interested in revenue based financing mechanisms. We're very interested in non dilutive early stage forms of support to entrepreneurs who don't have friends and family wealth, right. So to tell them go raise your friends and family round is really obnoxious and offensive. We were looking at new sort of character based lending instruments and a bunch of blended approaches and so there's there's just more room on the Capitol spectrum to color in than just the two the two ends of the spectrum. And yes, we like we like aligned with these folks on the on the panel.

Speaker 1

05:13

No, that's great. Um, I'll throw it to Cincinnati, Brian, you are the person behind lightship capital which most recently closed on 22 million and I hear is also kind of already planning out its second fund. Walk me through how you guys support early stage founders. And, and kind of why you chose to take this approach.

Speaker 3

05:37

I am as described as true said like boring VC standard will take the chocolate side of that equation.

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