Raising Capital from VC's in Crypto Winter - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2022

good morning guys uh hope everyone has slept well you know uh yeah so uh uh I'm going to talk about the uh what the pain point of most of the uh crypto startups they are going through as well right not only crypto status but every other startups because the market is like uh witnessing a slow down uh because of back to back uh things which are like pandemic the war right and uh the Evergreen inflation right so how to sustain in this market you know how to build the right products and uh impress the VC to get the funding and get going right so without wasting any further time you know I start with my presentation so let me first tell you about what is the amisten amazing capital is basically one of the India's fastest growing fund and now we are going to expand ourselves uh in Southeast Asia okay and what we do is basically we invest in simple and yet powerful consumer facing web 3 projects okay and we are chain and sector agnostic okay we we are like we invest everywhere we don't have like uh any favorite chin or something but you know and these are some of our partners we work very closely with polygon binance Martin tezos you know some exchanges some market makers some cloud service providers and uh payroll service providers as well right this is about portfolio companies okay in the fund one we have invested so far in 25 plus startups and for the fund two uh we averaged around 9 billion dollars and our Focus for that fund will be uh infrastructure and gaming projects you know so that was the quick introduction okay and uh let's let's come to the topic right uh the things you should consider during fundraising in this market first thing is a work on a solid ID and a sustainable business plan right uh this is the time where you can think on you know how you can offer a unique selling point uh in whatever you are doing right because uh what happens in bull market uh the things are so fast that it's very difficult to catch on things right so this is one of the best time like everyone in this in the in the ecosystem you're always telling bear Market is for building right so this is the right time so you have to come with a solid idea right which will actually work in the next uh next cycle or maybe the Cycles to come and what one problem we are seeing in lot of crypto startups is basically they don't have a sustainable business plan you know uh they they run out of money very soon because of uh you know uh the the things that are very expensive like exchange listing and everything but a lot of people don't have a sustainable business plan and once you have a sessional business plan you became like self-sustaining you know and that will actually take you guys forward and the second thing is whatever happens you know even though the funding is not there like like clicking take for example if you are like planning to raise the funds in this quarter itself but due to the reasons outside the conditions outside you are not able to raise it you know one thing you should never stop is keep building you have to keep building whatsoever you know and you have to show continuous growth you know uh from idea stage to MVP from MVP to a beta product from a beta product to Alpha product you know launch it with wall Community but always short growth what happens is basically you show your perseverance and that impresses a lot of VCS right because they see that you are here and despite of all the challenges you know you are you're just building and showing growth okay one of the one of the best hacks which I personally did you know uh is basically collaborating with strategic partners and leveraging their Network right so uh admission Capital also was born in like October uh September 2018 you know one of the uh last bear Market okay so uh we had our own challenges you know raising capital for ourselves and uh taking things forward so I leveraged my network where I worked with I was working with coin dcx India's largest exchange right so I leveraged their Network I partnered with them I partnered with AWS you know so what happens when you partner with such big names you know you build credibility you know you build uh uh good relations okay which will help you to take things forward okay so always look for strategic Partners just don't partner with anyone just for the namesake of it partner with right people who will take you in the right direction that is very very important this is one thing which is missing a lot yeah you know because people just partner for the namesake of partnering just for announcement or something but it doesn't it doesn't uh you know uh transfers into something so look for strategic partners because uh the partner you are going to select now okay if they are sustainable and they are building something for long term they will take you also ahead with you okay and uh one thing is basically you have to stay motivated and optimistic you know stay away from the sound where the mainstream media is shouting that Bitcoin is dead uh the crypto Market is dead you know uh it's the biggest funding uh winter we are witnessing all this kind of you know news articles or something is basically for uh it's basically centralism they just want hits on their website and everything so you have to stay motivated and as a leader as a Founder if you are not optimistic or motivated you will start losing confidence in your team right and your team will maybe move on to some other projects or you know do something else right so it's very very important to stay uh motivated like I can see like it's morning 9am and I can see a lot of people coming in right uh that's that's the spirit you know and uh the second thing is you know build a team who believes in Your Vision uh it's very important because uh let's take an example if uh there is a project coming to me and they are telling that we want to raise funds because uh we want to hire more people you know and uh they are telling that the developers are so expensive the marketing guys are so expensive you know they take so much money and everything so we need to have a good Runway to pay their salaries but uh in this market especially in Bear Market it's very uh because of valuation VC also will ask for a valuation cut so you should also look for employees who are very talented but at the same time who believe in your vision right because if they are not believing in your vision tomorrow some other startup might come up you know or other project might come up and pay them a higher salary and take away from you right so you will always like face this uh Talent problem you know so you have to build a team who believes in Your Vision they understand that the pay may be low right now but but the future is going to be good right so believe like build a team who believes and uh what one problem a lot of startups does in crypto is basically they raise the seed Capital the private capital and the public Capital all at once go uh that might not be a good thing in this market you know because uh fun thing is that you won't be able to uh get a good valuation at each round okay which is possible in bull market at this point of time if you say if you raise like 200 300K or 500k at a c round and like post that if you go for a higher valuation in the next round you know public are going to ask you for a valuation cut okay this is VC's Market they'll ask for Discount okay so what is the best thing to do is start small uh raise a small uh or a pre-seed round at a very low valuation use that money build something then go for the next round again use that money build something and go for the next round so what happens uh the load doesn't come at all at once and you can actually build and raise at the same time right A lot of people don't do it what I have seen uh a common practice is basically uh people will raise some money okay and continue to raise without focusing on the community without focusing the product you know this is this is not a good practice always like have both the things going on right or divide work again among the team right like one can only focus on the fundraising one can focus on the community and the product and all these things okay so go small round by round and one thing uh is basically when I say stay in touch a lot of people do but the problem is let's take example if like someone is pitching the first college done right uh we go through our DD we do our research and everything and we have a second call with our doubts and everything and from that day the founder of the team is basically when when shaft when should I send stuff when should I you know uh uh send you the address for uh sending the money and everything but uh that is of course one way of following up and uh you know getting updates that was happening because you don't want to lose out on the opportunity you have expressed like you have just explained your idea they have expressed interest it's right time you know to raise the capital and everything so in that hariness we always forget that you know uh the communication what you are going to put over there may now not come in a good way so uh whenever basically uh uh you're following with a VC for a shaft or a uh capital or something always go with some updates right show some growth you you can tell them you know that um okay we have partnered with such uh such uh uh such Community or we are partnered with such project you know and this is what what the plan is this is the blog link go through it give Library updates or maybe you know okay uh we just released uh this feature you know check out and once you check out let us know what the feedback is right and um yeah once that communication starts and they will be amazed to see it and then you can plug in the thing that okay uh we are we are actually closing the round soon you know and uh uh we'll uh love to see how it goes further you know so yeah uh as we said that we are already uh funding startups right but uh we have a very strict due distance process you know so uh I and my partners will be around okay we are we are here to uh listen to your Amazing Ideas okay and also like uh give a feedback on it even if you are not uh like not funding it will be always there to help you out so go to market strategies or something we specialize in right so if you see that there's any doubt or something you know please feel free to approach us we'll be around you know see you guys soon thank you