Unlocking Success: Fundraising Secrets for Taking Your Organization to the Next Level! Okta's COO

Name: Unlocking Success: Fundraising Secrets for Taking Your Organization to the Next Level! Okta's COO
Uploaded: 2023-12-07T15:15:02+00:00
Duration: 53 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: Okta's COO shares how the company raised $2.7 billion across venture and debt rounds. He argues that seed size matters less than hiring senior talent…

7 Dec 2023 · 1 min

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Okta's COO shares how the company raised $2.7 billion across venture and debt rounds. He argues that seed size matters less than hiring senior talent, and that fundraising works better through storytelling than pitch decks. Start with a compelling subject line, not bland titles like 'sales statistics update.'

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We had all these things where I got to be comfortable saying, you know what? It means now I've been able to hire someone who is a professional, who is going to be able to take our organization to the next level. And you got to love that. You got to embrace that. All right. Fundraising. Over the course of Okta's history, we have raised $2.7 billion. I raised 7 rounds of private venture capital from Sequoia, Andreessen, Greylock, and Khosla to the tune of $230 million. We've raised $2.3 billion of debt in the public markets. Over the last 5 years. Okay. Number one thing that matters in fundraising. I don't care if it was our seed round, which was $1 million. I know people are like, what? My pre-seed is $10 million. And they're all like, yeah, yeah, we like you, but not that much. We're like, what's going on? I have an idea. Let's just throw away the deck and tell a story. But we had to go through a lot of pain for that. If you are going to write a deck, start with the subject line. And, you know, sales statistics update is a bad title.