---
title: Fundraising & Venture Capital
description: Fundraising and venture capital cover the methods startups use to secure external investment. Learners will understand the differences between funding rounds, how venture capitalists evaluate deals, how to structure term sheets, and how to manage investor relations.
category: business-entrepreneurship
subcategory: entrepreneurship
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/fundraising-venture-capital
---

# Fundraising & Venture Capital

Fundraising and venture capital cover the methods startups use to secure external investment. Learners will understand the differences between funding rounds, how venture capitalists evaluate deals, how to structure term sheets, and how to manage investor relations.

## Available Resources

1 Books • 4 Websites • 1 Papers

## Podcasts

### 1. The Pitch

**Author:** Josh Muccio

Podcast in which startup founders pitch real venture investors, followed by the negotiations, term discussions and funding outcomes. Host Josh Muccio shows listeners how investors evaluate companies, what makes a pitch persuasive, and how early-stage deals come together.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.thepitch.show

**Tags:** startup-pitching, fundraising, venture-capital, term-sheets, angel-investing

## Papers

### 1. How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?

**Author:** Paul Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan, Ilya A. Strebulaev

Survey of 885 institutional venture capitalists at 681 firms reporting how they source deals, select investments, set valuations, structure terms, add value after investing, exit, and manage limited partner relationships, with distributions rather than anecdotes.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.nber.org/papers/w22587

**Tags:** venture-capital, investment-decisions, startup-valuation, deal-sourcing, limited-partners

## Websites

### 1. The Post-Money SAFE and User Guide

Y Combinator's post-money SAFE templates with the accompanying user guide: valuation cap, discount and uncapped MFN variants, pro rata side letters, international versions, and worked examples showing exactly how each converts and dilutes founders.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.ycombinator.com/documents

**Tags:** safe, seed-funding, convertible-securities, valuation-cap, dilution

### 2. NVCA Model Legal Documents

Free template financing documents from the National Venture Capital Association — term sheet, stock purchase agreement, investors' rights agreement, voting agreement, right of first refusal and certificate of incorporation — used as the reference standard for priced US venture rounds.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://nvca.org/model-legal-documents/

**Tags:** venture-capital, term-sheets, legal-documents, priced-rounds, startup-law

### 3. How to Raise Money

**Author:** Paul Graham

Paul Graham's 2013 essay on the psychology and process of a raise: getting the first commitment, running investors in parallel breadth-first, avoiding optimizing terms over closing, and treating fundraising as a mode separate from building.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://paulgraham.com/fr.html

**Tags:** startup-fundraising, angel-investors, seed-funding, founder-strategy

### 4. A Guide to Seed Fundraising

**Author:** Geoff Ralston

Y Combinator's written guide to the seed round: deciding how much to raise, choosing between convertible notes, SAFEs and priced equity, setting valuation caps, finding and meeting investors, and closing the round.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4A-a-guide-to-seed-fundraising

**Tags:** seed-funding, startup-fundraising, safe, convertible-notes, valuation-cap

## Books

### 1. Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist (4th Edition)

**Author:** Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson

Feld and Mendelson work clause by clause through a venture term sheet — valuation, liquidation preference, option pool, control and protective provisions, drag-along — alongside how VC funds are structured, how negotiations run, and what letters of intent contain.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119594820?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** venture-capital, term-sheets, liquidation-preference, startup-fundraising, negotiation

---

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