Inside Startup Funding

Helena Fogarty
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Inside Startup Funding is a multi-format podcast, content platform, & community— sponsored by Bamboo X and hosted by Fundraising Expert Helena Fogarty —designed to demystify how startup capital really moves, from the first check to the pressures of scale. Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Substack to get notified of new episode drops, monthly events, and special livestreams. Inside Startup Funding is sponsored by Bamboo X, a New York and Bay Area recruiting partner to startups building technical and design teams. Their team of recruiters have supported over 200 startups in building elite teams from mid-level hires through to executive leaders. For more info visit bamboo-x.com

  1. 6d ago

    Why 95% of Founders Fail | Mike Chan, Deep Ventures

    What does an early-stage investor actually need to see before writing a check? Mike Chan, Managing Partner at Deep Ventures, joins Helena Fogarty to break down how he evaluates startups at the earliest stages, including companies that are still pre-product and pre-revenue. Mike explains why founders still need to show proof of demand, how he evaluates founder-market fit and distribution, and why saying you'll start executing once the funding arrives is a major red flag. They also unpack how Deep Ventures operates across both a fund and a 1,300-member syndicate, what Mike learned investing through crypto bear markets, why technical founders often underestimate go-to-market, and how he thinks AI and crypto will increasingly intersect. Plus, Mike shares what he learned from being a founder himself, why founders shouldn't obsess over competitors, what he wants founders to ask prospective investors, and why the strongest fundraising position is one where you aren't desperate to raise. The takeaway: build the proof points first, create optionality, and raise from a position of strength. Follow Inside Startup Funding for more conversations with the founders and early-stage investors shaping how startups get funded.

  2. Aug 18

    Clair Health: Raising $11.6M to Build a Hormone-Aware Wearable

    Jenny Duan, CEO & Co-Founder of Clair Health, and Abhinav Agarwal, CTO & Co-Founder, join Inside the Round to break down how they went from meeting at Stanford to building a hormone-aware wearable and raising $11.6 million in total funding. Clair Health is developing a wrist-worn device designed to track estrogen, progesterone, LH, and FSH. Jenny and Abhinav explain why they saw a gap in existing women's health technology, how advances in sensors and machine learning made their approach possible, and why privacy and FDA clearance are central to the product they're building. Then we get into the fundraising story. They discuss raising their first angel capital shortly after an early technical breakthrough, going through A16Z Speedrun, closing their seed round, and finding investors who believed in the larger opportunity in women's health. Jenny also shares why she didn't understand the phrase "fundraising is a full-time job" until she went through it herself, how relationship-driven the process became, and what it felt like to repeatedly hear women's health described as "niche." She and Abhinav explain how they evaluated investors, divided responsibilities during the raise, and decided who they wanted on their cap table. Topics we cover: Starting Clair Health at StanfordBuilding a new approach to hormone monitoringPrivacy and sensitive health dataPursuing FDA clearanceRaising the first angel roundA16Z Speedrun and preparing for the seed raiseWhy fundraising became a full-time jobInvestor perceptions of women's healthBeing underestimated as a young founderChoosing the right investorsWhat the new capital unlocksAdvice for founders raising pre-seed Follow Inside Startup Funding for more conversations with founders and investors about how startup rounds actually get done.

  3. Aug 11

    The Fundraising Rules Nobody Teaches with Lucia Mari Sanguino of AIVA Tech

    Having a great company and knowing how to raise money are two different skills. Lucia Mari Sanguino, co-founder and CEO of AIVA TECH, joins Inside Startup Funding to break down the strategy behind her $1.5 million pre-seed raise. Lucia shares how she and her co-founder condensed investor meetings to create urgency, built warm introductions through other founders, refined their pitch from investor objections, and divided responsibilities so fundraising did not stop the company from building. She also explains the mid-raise strategy change that transformed how she showed up with investors. Lucia became less accommodating and more direct, created fundraising alter egos with her co-founder, and even prompted Claude to rewrite her emails like a “rich white man.” Her takeaway: “You might be a great player, but if you don’t know the rules and you don’t know the strategies, you will not win the game.” We also get into how Lucia’s experience growing up in Ibiza and working as a hotel GM led to AIVA TECH, the emotional reality of finally closing the round, and why founders should start building relationships long before they need investor introductions. SPONSORS: Aster AI: Aster AI is re-imagining the operating system for recruiting, connecting top Product, Engineering, and Design talent with opportunities through an AI-native recruiting platform.https://www.asterhq.com/ 28th&Park: 28th&Park is a New York-based content and production studio that partners with founders, VCs, artists, and creators to produce podcasts, livestreams, events, and studio salons.https://28thpark.com/

  4. Aug 4

    How Flora Fertility Raised $5M to Build a New Category with Laura McDonald & Dr. Christy Lane

    Laura McDonald and Dr. Christy Lane are the co-founders of Flora Fertility, the first individually owned fertility insurance platform. After raising a pre-seed round in 2024, Flora recently closed a $5M seed round led by Manchester Story Group. In this episode of Inside the Round, Laura and Christy break down what it took to raise capital while building an entirely new category of insurance. They share why relationships and warm introductions became central to their fundraising strategy, how accelerator programs and industry events helped open doors, and why founders shouldn't underestimate the value of simply getting in the room. They also discuss how being second-time founders changed the way they approached investors, how they decided who they actually wanted on their cap table, and one of the most important fundraising lessons they learned: when a VC doesn't get it, know when to move on. Inside the Round, hosted by Helena Fogarty , part of Inside Startup Funding. Sponsored by: Aster AIAster AI is re-imagining the operating system for recruiting, building infrastructure that connects the world's top Product, Engineering, and Design talent with opportunities in the age of intelligent agents. Through an end-to-end AI-native platform they build teams at AI speed with recruiter finesse. 28th&ParkFilmed at 28th&Park in New York City.

  5. May 27

    Mark Volchek on Surviving the Startup Journey

    Mark Volchek, Founding Partner at Las Olas Venture Capital, joins Inside the Fund to talk about the full founder-to-investor journey. Before becoming an investor, Mark co-founded Higher One as a college senior and helped grow the company from three founders in a dorm room to profitability, more than $250M in revenue, 1,000+ employees, and an IPO. But before that outcome, there were moments when the company had less than two weeks of cash in the bank and could barely make one more payroll. In this episode, Mark breaks down raising through the dot-com crash, what going public actually feels like, why an IPO is not always the exit founders imagine, and how his operator experience now shapes the way he evaluates early-stage companies at Las Olas VC. We also get into why investors are often looking for reasons to say no, how inconsistent ARR or revenue numbers can create doubt, what founders should understand about portfolio construction, and why fundraising is ultimately a sales process built on trust. Follow Inside Startup Funding for more conversations with founders, investors, and operators on what it actually takes to raise capital.

  6. May 19

    Cold Emails, Partner Meetings, and the Pitch Mistakes Founders Make | Charlie O’Donnell, VC Coach and Author of Founder Unfriendly

    Charlie O’Donnell, 20-year VC turned VC coach and author of Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won’t Tell You About Getting Funded, joins Helena Fogarty on Inside the Fund to break down how venture capital decisions actually get made. In this conversation, Charlie explains why most cold outreach fails, what makes an investor actually answer, and how founders should think about running a first pitch meeting like a sales conversation. We also get into what really happens when your company gets brought up in a partner meeting, why your idea has to survive the “game of telephone” inside a firm, and the deck mistake that causes founders to bury the most exciting part of their story. One of Charlie’s clearest takeaways: “The narrative aspect of a pitch is something that most people miss. You are trying to convince somebody of something, not just present information objectively.” Charlie O'Donnell https://www.linkedin.com/in/ceonyc/ https://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/ Helena Fogarty https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenafogarty/ Follow Inside Startup Funding for more conversations with founders, investors, and operators on what it really takes to raise capital.

  7. Apr 29

    Building a CPG Brand Beyond Retail | Zoe Jakubowich, VHS Ventures

    In this episode of Inside the Fund, we sit down with Zoe Jakubowich, a fractional Chief of Staff and a member of the investment team at VHS Ventures, to unpack a common misconception in consumer startups: venture capital isn’t the right path for most CPG brands. Zoe explains why founders should only raise if they’re ready to scale, what it actually takes to build traction, and how to think about growth before bringing on institutional capital. We also discuss why retail isn’t a shortcut to success, how to evaluate different funding options, and what investors are really looking for in today’s market. Topics we cover:• Why venture isn’t right for most CPG brands• When founders should consider raising• What real traction looks like vs vanity metrics• Why retail isn’t a silver bullet• Alternative funding options for CPG• How to approach investor conversations• The reality of building as a founder• What VCs misunderstand about CPG• Advice for founders getting started Sponsors:Aster AI — Aster AI is re-imagining the operating system for recruiting, building infrastructure that connects the world's top Product, Engineering, and Design talent with opportunities in the age of intelligent agents.Filmed at 28th and Park — https://www.28thpark.com/

  8. Apr 16

    How Founders Actually Create Leverage in a Fundraise | Andrew Ackerman

    Andrew Ackerman, 2x startup founder, venture capitalist, and author of The Entrepreneur’s Odyssey, joins us on Inside the Fund to talk about valuation, investor psychology, and what founders get wrong about fundraising process. In this episode, Andrew explains why most founders have less leverage on valuation than they think, why competing term sheets matter so much, and why investor FOMO is often the only thing that speeds up a deal. We also get into spray-and-pray outreach, deck mistakes, governance rights, liquidation preferences, and the fundraising process errors founders make over and over again. Andrew also shares lessons from building through the dot-com era, moving into angel investing, helping build industry verticals at Dreamit, and working closely with founders across proptech and construction tech. It’s a practical conversation about credibility, process, and how to raise more effectively in a tougher market. Topics we cover: Why founders usually have less valuation leverage than they thinkThe only real way to improve a term sheetWhy investor FOMO speeds up dealsWhy spray-and-pray outreach hurts credibilityThe sales discipline founders need in fundraisingWhat Andrew looks for when evaluating foundersCommon pitch deck and process mistakesWhat founders should do after receiving a term sheetWhy networking should start long before a raise Andrew Ackerman: http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbackermanhttps://x.com/andrewackermanhttps://www.instagram.com/andrewbackerman/ Links to Andrew's book: https://www.andrewbackerman.comhttps://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurs-Odyssey-Approach-Startup-Success/dp/1032883545/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

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About

Inside Startup Funding is a multi-format podcast, content platform, & community— sponsored by Bamboo X and hosted by Fundraising Expert Helena Fogarty —designed to demystify how startup capital really moves, from the first check to the pressures of scale. Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Substack to get notified of new episode drops, monthly events, and special livestreams. Inside Startup Funding is sponsored by Bamboo X, a New York and Bay Area recruiting partner to startups building technical and design teams. Their team of recruiters have supported over 200 startups in building elite teams from mid-level hires through to executive leaders. For more info visit bamboo-x.com

Information

  • Creator
    Helena Fogarty
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    34
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Helena Fogarty
  • Show Website
    Inside Startup Funding