In this video, Akeel Jabbar, investment director and general partner at Horizon Capital, outlines seven distinct avenues for startup founders to raise capital. He begins with an overview of his role and the importance of matching financing sources to a company’s stage and growth profile. The seven methods covered are: (1) Angel investors – high‑net‑worth individuals who provide early equity for a small ownership stake; (2) Venture capital – firms seeking high‑growth, high‑multiple returns and typically investing in later seed to Series rounds; (3) Bootstrapping – using the founder’s own savings to fund gradual, sustainable growth; (4) Customer‑funded growth – reinvesting revenue from paying clients to finance expansion; (5) Crowdfunding – raising small equity contributions from a broad pool of backers; (6) Friends and family loans – personal promissory notes or debt with higher interest expectations; and (7) Traditional bank loans – debt financing that requires a solid business plan, personal guarantees, and skin‑in‑the‑game equity from the founder. For each option, Jabbar discusses suitability, advantages, drawbacks, and practical considerations such as equity dilution, growth expectations, repayment obligations, and the need for collateral. He also highlights Horizon Capital’s network for companies with $1M+ ARR to assist with Series A and beyond. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to engage, share their financing experiences, and subscribe.
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Hey guys, welcome back to another video and here at the SaaS District channel. Today I'm going to be talking about what are 7 different ways where you can raise capital and find money for your startup or your business. So I'll talk about 7 different ways. There's not just one way. There's so many ways you can find that money to help you grow your business. And that's what I'll talk about today. Hey guys, welcome back to another video. My name is Akeel Jabbar. I am the investment director and general partner at Horizon Capital, where we do acquisitions. We partner with startups and help take their SaaS company to the next level through our expertise of growth operations as well as through our financial network. So in today's video, I'll be talking about 7 different ways where you guys can look for to raise capital, right? There's so many different ways to find money these days. To build your business. So many people have a lot of capital to deploy. People are willing to invest in you, into your business, your idea, your vision, and your product. But you have to know what to use for your type of business. So the one way that a lot of people think about these days, it's probably one of the most common ones, is finding an angel investor, right? So I actually talk about this in my other video if you want to know how to find it. I talk about 4 different ways of how to find and approach investors specifically angel investors. And what angel investors are, people who have a high net worth, they have a lot of capital sitting around. They maybe sold a company, they're an executive at a company, and they've probably got a lot of money sitting in their account, and they're willing to take the risk on you, right? They believe in you, your vision, uh, they believe in what you're capable of, and they're willing to put some money into you so that you'll be able to make money on it. And then in return, they get a small percentage or some percentage equity of the company. So you're selling equity and they become a passive investor and you execute on growing the company. So that's the first way, finding an angel investor to invest in you. The second type of capital that you can find out there is venture capital, right? So those are VCs, and this is typically for high-growth startups, right? Don't come to them with a service company. Don't come to them with a, you know, a traditional type of business because VCs are looking for 100x 1,000x return. They're looking for that hockey stick growth. So unless you're able to show, you know, if you're able to show how your company is going to be able to grow at an accelerated pace with that hockey stick kind of projection, VCs are not going to be good for you. But if you have a startup that's high growth and, you know, you're showing traction and you have good results and you're able to show how you're going to IPO, like that's how big they want to see it, right? IPO means going to the public markets. Whereas, you know, if you're just looking to grow nicely, you know, 10%, 30%, 50% year over year, a VC is not the best option for you. But there's a lot of them out there depending on the size you're at, different stage you're at, and that's what we talk about. Pre-seed round, seed round, Series A, B, C, D, all the way until eventually you exit. And that's the whole goal of working with that VC is they're going to put a lot of capital into you, invest, but you're going to have to be able to take that capital and turn it into super fast growth, and that's what they look for. Okay, so that's the second one, finding a VC firm who's willing to invest in you. And you know, us specifically at Horizon Capital, we're not a VC firm, but we have a large network specifically for companies doing over about $1 million in ARR. We work with a lot of VCs, help you raise your Series A round or above to take your business to the next level and fuel your growth. So just so you know, that's something we offer at Horizon Capital. The third way to invest capital into your business. So this is probably the most obvious one. Using your own capital. This is what we call bootstrapping, right? So bootstrapping is using your own capital, not taking external capital, and being able to take that money and invest slowly over time and just growing it sustainably. You don't have to take other people's money. People always think I need other people's money. And that goes into my 4th type of capital that you can use. And I think it's the best type of financing and that's using your clients to fuel your growth. I actually have another video where I talk about the most overlooked and the most effective and best ways to fuel and finance your startup. And I talk about how that's important, how that works, and why you should follow this path, which is using your customers and paying clients to fuel the capital you need to grow your company. So that's number 4, which ties into number 3, using your own money, bootstrapping, and using, using your clients' money that they invest in you, your company, to continue to grow without taking other people's money. And I love that way of growing your company, but everybody has their own style of managing their company and how much capital they're willing to take on and how much they need. But that's one that I love to use personally. Number 5, find crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is another option where you find other equity investors. That means people who are willing to put small amounts of investment into your company and they're going to be allocated a small amount of shares in exchange for the value of your company. Now, so this is kind of different than traditional venture capital because they're looking for the high growth. And this, in this case, they're going to be basing it off your existing idea, your existing product, your existing revenues. You're going to give them a piece of your company in return for the amount of money they put into it and them betting on you. So there's a lot of people who can, you can talk to. It can be friends, be families, it can be people in your network, other entrepreneurs. They can be people who are willing and working in similar spaces as you and they want to be part of your venture as well because they believe in you. So crowdfunding, crowdfunding is another option to raise capital for your startup. So number 6 is through friends and family. You can actually take a promissory note or debt loan from people around you, right? So you can ask your friend, hey, look, I need $50,000. I'm going to pay you back over the next 3 years and I'm going to pay you 10% interest so that I can invest it in my company. So they essentially become the bank for you. When it's personal debt, when there's people who are, you know, don't know you as well, or maybe, you know, they're not the bank, they're going to expect a higher rate of return, right? I'm talking at least typically over 10% interest because they're taking a higher risk and they don't have a lot more capital to deploy like the bank does, right? And you have to maybe have to come up with some collateral. Maybe it's your car, maybe it's, you know, keys to your house. Maybe you have to sign something to make them feel comfortable that in case you don't pay them back, they have something that they can, you know, liquidate and hopefully get their money back. And they always get paid first. Respect your investors. As a debt investor, they always get paid first before any equity investor when it comes to the balance sheet and how your profit and— profit and loss statement works is you're always paying debt investors first before any returns are distributed to investors like your crowdfunding investors or VCs investors. So that's number 6, taking a personal loan from friends and family. Number 7, the last one, which I probably recommend first before going to friends and family, is going to the bank and getting a traditional loan. And there's so many different options here when it comes to talking to banks who do this for a living, but you need to come up with a solid business plan. That's your first thing. Come up with a solid business plan, understand the market, put together projections of your financials, who you are, what's your background, what's your expertise, and you and your team. And then you're going to sell to them, look, this is exactly what I need. This is how much I'm going to put in, and they're going to need that kind of personal guarantee of some sweat equity as well. So maybe they might expect you to come in for 10, 20% of the entire project. So let's say same, same thing. I need $500,000 to build this entire startup for the next year. These are my projections, what I expect to achieve. I'm going to have to come in for, you know, $50,000, $100,000 of my own money. And that's what they want to see is that you actually have some risk and skin in the game. And they're going to be able to fuel the rest. And you most likely will get better terms if you're taking money from the bank. Now you're not giving up equity, right? You still own 100% of the company, which is very similar to, you know, maybe bootstrapping. But now you have to pay back the loan. Now you've got that pressure where you've got to make payments every single month regardless if you're generating money or you lose money or you gain clients or you lose clients. But nobody owns your company. You have full control of it. You get to decide how you want to run it, operate it. And how fast you want to grow it. You don't have that pressure of external investors trying to push you to make decisions that you maybe don't want to do. So that's probably a better decision. Take on debt if you can, if you know you can service it, you can pay it. And then from there, if you really, really need high levels of capital and to really fuel your growth, then you can look at some equity investments as well. So there you have it. There's number 7, getting a loan from a traditional bank to fuel your company. So hope you guys enjoyed. That's seven different ways I shared with you guys on how you can find capital, how you can raise money and finance your startup. Let me know if you guys like this video. Like the button, subscribe, smash the bell button. Comment below. Let me know what financing have you used for your own startup and your own company? What's worked well? What hasn't worked well? And what do you recommend to others? I'd love to hear from you, and I'll see you guys on the next video.
