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Raiser's Edge
Some entrepreneurs fly through fundraising; sailing through VC meetings, converting at high rates, getting to term sheets quickly and successfully. Other founders struggle; wading through hundreds of meetings and calls, reading thousands of online pitch guides, and still only producing a mediocre fundraising round. The very best founders seem to know cheat codes that the rest of the herd just lack, and this quickly creates capital advantage for their companies, allowing them to own their markets and achieve dominance in their industries. So what are these secrets that separate the best from the rest?
It turns out a lot of what these top raisers do is replicable - it’s just not easy to find on the internet or by asking advice from average peers. Raiser’s Edge bridges that very gap, sharing the strategies and philosophies that have separated industry leaders from the pack in order to transform mediocre raisers to excellent ones. Through interviews with outstanding founders who have themselves succeeded in the VC fundraising process, not only will listeners learn how to successfully fund their start-ups, but they will also learn how to raise strong rounds even in down markets, take advantage of VC funding and tailwinds, and impress investors in order to earn outsize capital. Most importantly, listeners will find out how the most skillful CEOs make it through the biggest challenges so that they can increase their own chances of surviving the challenges to come.
Each episode of Raiser’s Edge will interview a founder about the critical fundraising junctures in their company’s growth stage, highlighting stories in which they navigated investor concerns, challenging timelines, and emerging obstacles to raise and deploy funds successfully. By taking a closer look at these entrepreneurs’ paths to success, we’ll also shed a light on their moments of near-failure, self-doubt, and tough calls, and the way these challenges have transformed them into stronger leaders and fundraisers along the way. Through an entertaining, easy-to-follow interview format, this podcast hopes to demystify the fundraising process and serve as an intimate glimpse into the secrets of today’s business all-stars in order to inspire and teach the all-stars to come.
Raiser's Edge
Charisma, Curiosity, and Fine-Tuned Calibration with Sujal Patel
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Sujal Patel raised $500M+ across two companies by treating curiosity as a fundraising system, not a personality trait.
Sujal Patel is co-founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology (Nasdaq: NAUT). He previously founded Isilon Systems, the storage company he took public before EMC acquired it for $2.25 billion in 2010. In this episode of Raiser's Edge, he walks through the "dumb questions of the day" habit that got him fluent in an entirely new scientific field, how he closed a $76 million Series B in six weeks during the first months of COVID lockdowns, and why he still reads competitors' SEC filings every day, a decade into running a public company.
In this episode:
- How Sujal packaged a thin resume into a fundable story at 26 years old
- Why he takes a dozen "throwaway" investor meetings before the ones that matter
- How curiosity, not charisma, built his reputation as a "dancing bear" in pitch meetings
- What changed inside his term sheet negotiation during the first weeks of COVID
- How to reframe a vague total addressable market question without guessing at numbers
- Why every CEO needs a peer group, because your board can't be your sounding board
00:00 Intro: Why Sujal Is a Top Fundraiser
01:07 Lightning Round: EQ, IQ, and Bold Bets
05:36 Isilon to Nautilus: The Fundraising Resume
09:32 The First Raise: 50 VC Meetings in 2001
16:45 The Dumb Questions of the Day List
17:53 Raising a Series B in the First Weeks of COVID
23:44 The Dancing Bear Routine, Explained
34:18 Public vs. Private Investors, and CEO Loneliness
38:14 Closing Advice: How to Actually Get Better
About Sujal Patel:
Sujal Patel is co-founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology (Nasdaq: NAUT), a company building a next-generation platform for protein analysis. He previously founded Isilon Systems, a data storage company he took public before EMC acquired it for $2.25 billion in 2010. Across both companies, he has raised more than $500 million in venture and public capital.
About Raiser's Edge:
Raiser's Edge is a podcast for founders and the VCs who back them, hosted by Ben Elowitz. Each episode features an experienced founder sharing hard-won, tactical lessons on raising venture capital, drawn from decades of watching what actually works across hundreds of founders and raises.
Connect:
Sujal Patel — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patelsujal
Nautilus Biotechnology: nautilus.bio
Subscribe to Raiser's Edge wherever you get your podcasts, and for Ben's behind the scenes takes on every episode, find us on Substack at www.raisersedgepod.com.