Prosper’s Post

One of the most important milestones in the 0-to-1 entrepreneurial journal is finding product-market fit. But, how do you know if you've found it? Edwin Maganjo, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, has worked in several start-ups to accelerate product-market fit using great questions and great data and shares a few thoughts here -- one key word: repeatability. https://lnkd.in/gjQj2kPC

A founder told me today they wanted to bootstrap their business to keep control. I laughed so hard I almost spilled my almond latte. I told them, Control is for people who fail to raise funding. Give us 30% of your company and 100% of your dignity, and maybe we’ll talk. I don’t invest in ideas. I invest in founders who can look a room full of grown adults in the eye and say with a straight face, This is the next Uber, but for hedgehogs. Our best founder last year pitched a subscription box for emotional support to AIs. It never launched, but they’re now a managing partner at a top VC fund. ____________ ⭕️ Get it? Want more? Well, lucky for you, there’s more where that came from. https://shorturl.at/1oiJR #startup #founder #tech #vc #valuation #ai #fundinground #investment

3 major fundraising this week in the 🇫🇷 fintech ecosystem: 1/ Payflows raised €25m A Series A to accelerate the deployment of their solution in France and to expand into the US and the UK. Ribbit Capital, Balderton Capital, Headline, 20VC, Motier Ventures, Exponent Founders Capital participated in the round. 2/ Upflow raised $5m A Series A extension to bring Payments by Upflow to market. The funding was led by Lorimer Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Y Combinator, Hexa, and Hedosophia. 3/ RockFi raised €3m Their mission? To revolutionize private wealth management. The round was led by Varsity. This confirms 3 major trends in the ecosystem: financial management software, B2B Payment, wealth. PS: You can discover my discussions with Payflows and Upflow CEOs in my newsletter 👀 (link on my profile).

How to Navigate a Stalled Pre-Seed Fundraising Commitment? Answers: https://lnkd.in/gzWyxUgh #Fintech #StartupFunding #InvestorRelations #FundraisingTips Hey everyone! 😊 I’m in a pretty interesting spot right now with my fintech startup—got about $100k in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)—and I’ve been working hard on our pre-seed funding. So, here’s the scoop: after a full year of hustle, we practically closed on a $500k pre-seed round at a $4 million pre-money valuation, all via a convertible note! 🎉 Just today, we finally sealed the deal with our lead VC for $100k after a 5-month wait, plus we picked up a couple of angel investors to fill out $300k of the round. Great news, right? But here’s the catch: I still have a $200k piece promised by another angel, and... crickets. I haven’t heard back from him yet. Why Does This Happen? 🤔 Delayed Communication: Sometimes investors get busy or lose interest, which can lead to silent commitments. It’s super common in the startup world. Investor Priorities Change: Their situation might change, leading them to reconsider their initial interest. Overlooked Commitments: Even when an investor gives a written commitment, r...

Who's getting funded in Canadian Fintech? 👇 Financeit, Canada’s largest home improvement lender increased their securitization warehouse with Goldman Sachs by $200m to $700m. Goldman Sachs became the majority owner of Financeit in 2017 before selling the company to InterVest capital partners in 2022. Mave, a Toronto based AI assistant for real estate agents & brokers, raised $2m led by N49P Ventures and Relay Ventures. Boardy, a professional networking startup with a voice interface, raised $4m. Part of the founding team also founded Clearco, the businesses financing company. Parachute, a subprime consumer lender, raised $1.5m from Adrenaline Fund and Highline Beta. MyFO, a Vancouver based back office platform for family offices, raised $4.8m led by Rhino Ventures. -- Want more? Subscribe to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter in the comments below 👇

I am so proud to share with the world that Belong is now live and open to the public! And we are global pioneers of a compelling new concept in wealth-building. To understand what Belong is, let's first discuss "The Paradox of Wealth": To build sustainable, long-term wealth we need two things: time and money -  because we need that money to compound over time. But, the fact is that most of us seldom have these two things at once - when we're young we have a lot of time ahead of us, but less capital, and when we’re older the reverse is true. Plus, our research shows that young people struggle with a barrage of emotional, behavioral, financial understanding, and technical blockers that prove detrimental to our long-term financial security and resiliency. We’re on a mission to crack this! Belong is a wealth-building app, focused on addressing blockers and correcting this Paradox by encouraging people to start earlier with more. We are the first platform to offer customers an optional loan to scale up a long-term investment in equities. Check out our website (www.be-long.co) for more on our mission and to join the waitlist! We’ll be sending out invitations to download the app on a first-come, first-serve basis. A special shout out of deep and sincere gratitude and admiration to the Belong team - lean but formidable! And Samantha Rosenberg, Belong’s co-founder. Anyone who’s been an entrepreneur and builder knows how I feel about these people today. There are simply no words, so I won’t force it. As you could probably imagine, this was not an easy concept to design, structure, build and test. We’ve been in private beta for well over a year and have amassed an early group of customers who are full of energy, love, pride (and ideas!). One of my all-time favourite quotes is the African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We’ve had a lot of “togetherness” on this journey, with some exceptionally wise and talented people investing, advising, cheerleading, and backing us to make Belong a massive success. Octopus Ventures Zihao Xu Brandon Mhangami Connect Ventures Rory Stirling Viola FinTech Tomer Michaeli Daniel Tsiddon Portage Hélène FALCHIER Victoire de Lavigne January Ventures Maren Bannon Jennifer Keiser Neundorfer Nancy Hungerford Ricky Knox Michael Treskow Gautham R. Edwina Johnson Tayo Oviosu William Todd Michael Kent Tommy Chia Julia Stiglitz Wander Rutgers Joseph Lassen Ayesha Ofori Ruth Bryson Koen van Boggelen Crystal Gray Rebecca Schapiro Tomás Pueyo Rafat Kapadia Ian Macdonald FCA Frederick Towfigh Somesh Dash Okan Ozaltin Karol Dołęga Zakrzewski *As with all investing, your capital is at risk.

Check out the article highlighting the launch of BELONG a wealth building platform targeting millennials Many congratulations to my sister Avion Gray and her team for this milestone and the years of dedication to the mission to make financial market-based wealth building accessible to young people!  

You're out there looking for specific investors and those specific investors are out there looing for your specific type of deal, you just haven't found each other yet! How do you start if you're out searching for those investors? Start with who they are and utilize the proper securities exemption. If you're looking for customers to be investors, you want to start with a REG CF as most of your customers may be non accredited investors. If you're looking for VC's and institutional investors, you probably want to go with a 506c to go find them. If you are only offering perks/rewards and no equity or debt, rewards based crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter is where you go. Either way, you're going to have to market and advertise as they don't just magically show up when your offering goes live. This takes a plan, a budget, a team and time.

How to Navigate a Stalled Pre-Seed Fundraising Commitment? Answers: https://lnkd.in/gb7yDSDr #Fintech #StartupFunding #InvestorRelations #FundraisingTips Hey everyone! 😊 I’m in a pretty interesting spot right now with my fintech startup—got about $100k in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)—and I’ve been working hard on our pre-seed funding. So, here’s the scoop: after a full year of hustle, we practically closed on a $500k pre-seed round at a $4 million pre-money valuation, all via a convertible note! 🎉 Just today, we finally sealed the deal with our lead VC for $100k after a 5-month wait, plus we picked up a couple of angel investors to fill out $300k of the round. Great news, right? But here’s the catch: I still have a $200k piece promised by another angel, and... crickets. I haven’t heard back from him yet. Why Does This Happen? 🤔 Delayed Communication: Sometimes investors get busy or lose interest, which can lead to silent commitments. It’s super common in the startup world. Investor Priorities Change: Their situation might change, leading them to reconsider their initial interest. Overlooked Commitments: Even when an investor gives a written commitment, r...

Big news: Upvest has raised €100 million in a Series C funding round! 🚀 Upvest, a leading investment infrastructure provider, is revolutionizing the way fintechs, banks, and wealth managers empower their end-users to invest. With clients like Revolut, N26 Group, Raisin, and bunq, Upvest’s Investment API already supports over 50 million users across Europe and facilitates more than 1 million trades per week—a testament to its impact and scalability. This new funding, led by Hedosophia and joined by Sapphire Ventures is expected to propel Upvest into its next phase of growth. The focus will be on expanding into the UK, extending their product suite, and advancing their mission to empower 100 million people to invest. As Martin Kassing, CEO and Co-Founder of Upvest, says: “We are on a mission to make investing as easy as spending money. With this capital, we’ll conquer new markets, accelerate product development, and help our clients deliver investment solutions to millions of end-users.” At Motive Ventures, we’re proud to support visionary companies like Upvest that are shaping the future of financial services. Here’s to Upvest’s continued success in redefining investment infrastructure and empowering a new generation of investors. 🌍 Read the full press release under the link in the comments. #motiveventures #upvest #funding #fintech #saas