Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

What is Lightspeed Partner Mercedes Bent's recommendation for founders raising in 2023?

5 Mar 2023 · 1 min

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In a brief interview, Lightspeed partner Mercedes Bent discusses the fundraising environment for startups in 2023. She notes that seed‑stage financing remains relatively accessible, with a decent flow of capital, but that later rounds—Series A, B, and especially C and D—have become significantly tougher, with very little activity. Bent advises founders to focus on demonstrating clear traction and early signs of product‑market fit, presenting concrete metrics, and articulating a timely "why now" narrative that leverages regulatory shifts or technical innovations. She also stresses the importance of market awareness: founders should understand prior attempts in their industry and develop a thesis explaining why those efforts succeeded or failed. This combination of traction, timing, and market insight is presented as the core strategy for successfully raising seed capital in the current turbulent market.

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I also am curious to hear more about like what your recommendation for founders raising in this like 2023 tumultuous market would be.
Okay, the good thing is for seed, it's not that bad right now. Like you can still fund raise. Like seeds are actually seeing a decent amount of inflow. It gets worse the later you go on, like Series A, Series B. By the time you're getting to like Series C and D, it's like crickets. And so my main advice is just like have some traction, have some numbers to show about like, uh, early signs of product-market fit, have a really timely why now, like a regulatory trend or a technical innovation, or even— and then also have like the thing I often see a lot of seed stage founders maybe not having enough of is like market awareness in terms of what's been tried before already, like in your industry, and having a thesis on why it did or didn't work.