When it comes to financing a startup, the most important — and hardest — check to land is the very first one.
The growth of accelerators, rolling funds, community funds, hungry angels and institutional investors has given founders more options than ever before, but for women and people of color, access to funding continues to be a struggle.
On Tuesday, November 10 at 11:00 a.m. PT/2:00 p.m. ET, we’re bringing venture capitalist Soraya Darabi of TMV to the Extra Crunch Live stage to talk about how to get that first “yes” as an early-stage company and which founder mistakes often lead her to say “no.” We’ll walk through her theses, which range from future work and edtech, and double-click into what she needs to see in terms of metrics and product upon first pitch.
Darabi founded TMV, formerly Trail Mix Ventures, in 2016, and has built a portfolio that is majority women and minority-owned, including employee wellness platform Bravely, holistic healthcare company Parsley Health and waste reduction upstart Ridwell. TMV is often the first institutional check that a company might raise.
Before TMV, Darabi spent time at The New York Times as the manager of digital partnerships and social media marketing. She also was the co-founder of two companies: Zady, which helps with sustainable fashion manufacturing, and Foodspotting, a visual guide that helps locals find dishes near them that was acquired by OpenTable.
There’s an excess of capital in startupland, which could look remarkably different in the coming months. Join us to learn more about how a venture capitalist is thinking about the next few months, and dare we say, the end of 2020.
Details after the jump:
