I make Pre-Seed to Series B founders successfully fundraise by helping you build your fundraising operating system. | $350m+ raised with founders. | Follow me for tips on fundraising.

I have spent the last 10 years trying to find the "secret" sauce to making you fundraise for your company.

And you know what?

There's no secret. 

It’s just a matter of having: 

- The right preparation & processes
- A clear and concise narrative & storytelling
- Structured relationships built over a long period 

The real "secret", if there's any at all, is that you need to build a system around your fundraise to make sure you do the proper work.

A system means that allows you to: 

- Efficiently build the right relationships with investors and connectors
- Influence investors that YOU are a good bet
- Take them through your process in an efficient manner 

All the while keeping accountability of you doing the boring but important stuff.

During the $400m+ in venture funding I have been a part of, I was able to meet best-in-class  entrepreneurs. 

Some of these entrepreneurs have gone on to raise $100M+ in fundraising each. ​

All of them possessed operating systems for the fundraises. 

I’ve built such a system for fundraising founders. 

And I can help you build yours. 

But as with all things, getting started, maintaining consistency and keeping accountability is easier said than done.

The founders I have helped with their fundraises have gone on to raise $250M+. 

...And I'm doing all of this with a 100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE.

Now, are you serious about building fundraising for your startup? 

Let's make it happen.

(I CAN'T HELP YOU IF YOU HAVE ALREADY STARTED YOUR FUNDRAISE). 

👉🏼 Shoot me a DM, or head over to my featured section & check out our offer.

I'll see you at the top!

Gian Seehra

4 Custom GPTs for fundraising for your startup. 

→ How to get them:

1. Like this post
2. Comment “AI” so I know you're serious

It’s taken me 2 years to structure this the way real fundraises are done. 

To make your fundraise 10x more efficient. 

You’ll get:

1 - GPT that writes your origin story
(Trained on the exact narrative arcs that get investors bought in around your own experiences.)

2 - GPT that builds your pitch deck
(Not just the slides but a story-driven structure that you can use to create an investable deck)

3 - GPT that finds the right investors
(Sourced from hand-built lists, and online so you can find and meet the right investors for you. Bonus: includes warm intro scripts.)

4 - GPT that maps your investor network 
(So you don’t just pitch random people. You build network leverage before you ever ask for a dollar.)

These are for the founders who want to actually prep their fundraise correctly. 

So they don't waste precious time and can actually get the funding they need to successfully build their business.

Raise $1M+ in 90 days with my proven fundraising system. | VC-Backed Founder ($16M) & Tier-1 VC | $400M+ raised with founders. | DM “RAISE” to chat how I can help.

A founder told me to f*ck off when I rejected his Seed startup as a VC. 

(All because I was actually being honest). 

This is what went down. 

I met this founder and we had an intro call. 
At the end of the call I felt it in my gut it was a NO. 

Now here is where I'd do the usual VC thing of: 

"We'll think about it" 
"Sorry we need more traction" 
"You're too early" 

But instead, I decided to be honest. 

I told him that I didn't think he was good enough. 
I tried to be as nice as possible about it. 

(EDIT: I didn't say he 'was not good enough' directly, theres a lot more nuance to what I said, and it was much nicer!)

But he went APESH*T at me. 

Shouting... 
Many swear words... 

Telling me I'm just an idiot. 

He started telling everyone I sucked as a VC. It was going around for a long time. 

I wasn't rude to him at all, just thought I'd be honest. 

Now... 

Here's the problem. 

Every VC who rejects you felt the same way I did about that founder. 

But if they told everyone the truth they'd get a constant line of angry, aggressive founders. 

Just like this founder did to me. 

And I get it... 

And why wouldn't you? 

You are building something every day and know so much about the topic. 

Then: 

• Some random suit spends 30 minutes with you. 
• Doesn't know anything about your industry. 
• Asks stupid questions... 

Only to tell you they think you aren't good enough? 

The optics just don't work. 
So investors resort to fake reasons for why they said no. 

That is the reason you get generic rejections from investors. 

I'm not saying its good. 
But I'm telling you the truth. 

So when you are fundraising make sure investors never feel that. 

Whats the most annoying rejection you got from an investor?

Can I be honest about why those Pre-Seed investors are rejecting you?
 
It’s not traction. No matter how much they say it is.
 
(I know how brutal this sounds, sorry. But it’s the real reason behind the surface reason.)
 
It’s because, in their eyes, you’re not strong enough 𝘺𝘦𝘵 as a founder.
 
Let’s break that down.
 
Over 99% of Pre-Seed investors have funded teams with 𝘯𝘰 traction.  If traction were the gate, most deals wouldn’t exist.
 
Yes, there’s a rare % who do need traction to move. They shouldn't be Pre-Seed investors.

But most of them are just not convinced 𝘆𝗼𝘂 are the one to bet on.
 
Investing into startups is emotions. Gut. "VIBES".

But an investor can't reject you based on "gut feel."
 
So they reach for the fallback excuse: traction.  

Because saying “I didn’t believe in you” sounds cruel.  

Especially when there isn't any evidence at all. 

So its easier to just tell you a white lie. 
 
But the truth is, that same investor who rejected you last week due to you needing "more users/revenue/traction". 

Probably met another founder that same week with 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 traction than you...  

And said yes.  

Because something about 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 felt more inevitable.
 
So please stop getting angry that investors are rejecting you because you need traction. 

And realise its a lie to make it easier on their end.

A founder has NEVER raised a round because of an investor list they got from this platform. 

Please please please stop wasting your time with these. 

You are taking these lists and expecting the world. 

But most of these investors: 

1. Don't invest in your stage or round size
2. Don't invest into your geograp hy
3. Don't invest into your industry
4. Not actively investing

And what makes it even worse... 
You take these lists and think that is "work". 

Patting yourself on the back, telling yourself you've done so much!!

As if you've materially moved your fundraise forward. 

When in fact, you have done NOTHING of benefit. 

The only way to find and meet investor properly is to: 

1. Build an ALIGNED list of investors 
2. Organise your network, then increase it 
3. Map out who are give you warm introductions 
4. Active those introductions at the right time 

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY YOU WILL MEET ENOUGH INVESTORS! 

Period.  

Those 4 steps are the only thing you should be doing everyday if you want to actually fundraise. 

So please stop commenting on someone's AI slop investor lists. 

And do the work that founders who fundraise do. 

What are you finding the hardest when it comes to finding and meeting investors?

The founder of Antrhopic (worth $350BN) setup 22 intros and 21 of them said NO. 

Think about that for a sec... 

A company that is more successful that 99.999% of founders ever will be got rejected by pretty much everyone at the earliest stages.

Yet you think it won't happen to you? 

One of the biggest unlocks for fundraising is understanding that rejection is normal and not necessarily a bad thing. 

You don't need everyone to like you. 

You just need a couple people who believe in your vision.
And you being strongly committed to that vision.

That's how you raise.

But also build something even 1% as successful as Anthropic. 

How do you deal with investor rejections?

Tomorrow, I'm going to jump on with fundraising founders to make sure they ACTUALLY fundraise. 

Wanna join? 

Then comment "WORKSHOP" and I'll send you over the details. 

What's even crazier is its completely free 🤯. 

Come join us! 

P.S. It's getting pretty full already so please sign up quick!

In 2016, I'd failed my 2nd startup due to failing to raise. 
At that point I decided to quit tech all together. 

I then decided to travel to Whistler to become a ski-bum whilst I chose what's next for a "failure like me". 

It wasn't until meeting my future-founders on a gondola did I start my next company. 

Now?

I've raised $16M for two companies I co-founded. 

Helped founders raise over $250M. 

No “manifesting.”
No fake “overnight success.”
Just relentless work.

And the pursuit of finding what makes a fundraise happen. 

People say, “Just wing it”

I call BS.

Everything good thign in life comes when you sit down and actually understand what it takes to do something correctly. 

That preparation is what moves mountains. 

Want to be normal?
Do normal things.

Want to be successful? 
Do what the successful founders do. 

Agree… or is that just insane?

As a VC, the number one question in my head when I opened your deck was simple:

“Do I understand what makes you great?”

If the answer was no, you were finished in under 60 seconds.

Not because I am evil, as much as you want VCs to be. 

In fact, it was because I couldn't build structure in my head that I SHOULD care about. 

So when your deck jumps straight into product on slide 3, it is already dead.

“What if every viewing came with the full picture…”
“What if agents had all of this data…”

Who thef*ck cares? 

I do not know the problem you are really solving.
I do not know why you're better than the rest.
I do not know why you win.

So if you have not made me care before the product, all I see is noise.

And every VC is the same. 

This is a snippet of a roast of a deck I did with a founder. 

Want to get your own deck roasted? 

Comment "ROAST" and I'll send you how to send me your deck to roast myself. 

AND the full video of me roasting this pitch deck.

The biggest problem with pitch decks are that I never know what makes a founder of company great. 

They are generic, one dimensional and lack story. 

So they get put onto the "generic" pile. 

To never be looked at again. 

Below is a snippet of a pitch deck roast I did with a founder last month. 

If you want to get your pitch deck roasted by me, FOR FREE. 

Then comment down below "ROAST" and I'll send you the details. 

P.S. I go very detailed and am VERY direct.

If you uploaded your deck to a VC website and heard nothing back, this is the part no one tells you.

Right now you’re probably telling yourself it’s: 

• The market
• The timing
• That VCs are slow

Maybe they’ll “get to it eventually.” 

That story feels comforting. It’s also wrong.

When you upload a deck into a VC portal, you are not being evaluated neutrally. 

You are walking into the lowest-trust inbox ever. 

When I was a VC, those portals were where the worst decks lived. 

• Wrong stage. 
• Wrong sector. 
• Unfundable ideas. 

Endless nonsense that after opening dozens of those a week, your brain gets trained to expect garbage before you even click.

So when a genuinely good company shows up...
They never got a fair read. 

They inherit the fatigue, the cynicism, and the negative bias created by the last fifty decks.

That’s the part founders don’t want to accept when they upload their deck online. 

You’re not starting from zero.
You’re starting from negative.

And here’s the uncomfortable implication most people avoid saying out loud. 

If your deck is coming through a portal, a VC can immediately tell you don’t have a real network yet.

That signal matters more than your slides.

Uploading a deck to a VC website is not outreach. 

It’s what people do when they don’t know how to access the actual game. 

And once you’ve done it, you’ve already damaged your position without realizing it.

So my blunt advice to you fundraising in 2026.... 

Stop doing it. 

If you’re mid-raise and relying on portals right now, you don’t have a deck problem. 

You have a network and process problem, and pretending otherwise is why you’re stuck.

If this hit a nerve, DM me “NETWORK” and I’ll tell you how to solve this properly.

Most AI tools for fundraising miss the point.

They’re built by people who’ve never actually raised money.

So they focus on surface problems:

• Finding investors
• Writing emails
• Scraping data.

Useful in parts for sure. 
But that's not where fundraises fail. 

The hardest part of fundraising isn’t sourcing names.
Or spamming more investors via cold email. 

It’s building trust in real time.

It’s learning how to: 

1. Lead investor conversations
2. Read subtle signals, and
3. Manage momentum.

And that’s where AI is quietly about to change everything.

For the first time, founders can:

• Practise their pitch against a simulated investor
• Get contextual feedback on tone, pacing and clarity
• Map their structure before a single meeting happens

It’s like running 100 fundraise reps before your first call.

My own AIs are already hitting 80 % of my live sessions. 

Which means founders can now use them between sessions: 

1. To rehearse
2. To refine
3. To rebuild confidence daily

This isn’t about replacing experience.
It’s about compressing it.

The tedious, messy, high-friction parts of fundraising are about to become fast, structured, and learnable.

The human part (trust, emotion, narrative) becomes the main event again.

Would you use this type of AI for your own fundraise if let you use it?

The top 1 hardest part about raising startup funding: 

As a founder you are most likely a domain expert about your industry. 

1. Speaking to customers may seem easy. 
2. Understanding your problem is a given. 
3. Knowing what to do is systemised. 
   
Your founder life is organised and structured to succeed. 

But when it comes to fundraising its the complete opposite. 

And there's a major reason for that. 

You've got to where you are in your founder journey. 
BECAUSE YOU COULD FAIL. 

Those failures made you. 
Sculpted you. 

But with fundraising you don't have that ability. 

You only have one shot at each investor... 
If you fail that shot you fail your raise. 

And because you don't have the ability to fail. 
You have ZERO clue on what you need to do. 

So fundraising feels: 

• Slow 
• Chaotic 
• Unfocused 

You don't have an understand of what matters. 
And what doesn't.

So everything breaks. 

You barely get more than 5-10 investor meetings. 
Those rarely get past the first meetings. 
Your round gets dragged along. 

And suddenly your 6+ months gone... 

Having wasted all this time fundraising with nothing to show for it. 

This is why you need to ACTUALLY understand what you are doing right or wrong in a raise. 

That way you become structured like everything else. 

It's the only way to increase your chances to raise. 

What do you think you're missing in a round?

How many more random people are gonna start posting about how to grow on Linkedin in 2026? 

2025 was crazy how many randos with 2000 followers are doing it. 

For some reason they think they can just copy others and everything will be fine? 

Where's your expertise? 
Where's your love of doing something? 

You just see someone else getting likes so may as well do it as well? 

The scary thing is that I truly think 2026 may just beat it. 

What's your thoughts?

Daniel Markovits

Creators + Community + Sports @ LinkedIn | Venture Scout | I help CEOs, execs, VCs, athletes & brands stand out and build authority

I’m a community builder and strategist obsessed with how people - founders, execs, athletes, creators - show up online and build trust at scale.Today, as CCO at Shake, I help B2B founders turn their ideas, experiences, and point of view into a content engine that drives authority, credibility, and long-term organic demand. We call it founder-led marketing: using the founder’s voice as the most powerful acquisition channel a business has. When done right, it makes sales easier, trust faster, and brand-building more human.Before Shake, I spent years at LinkedIn shaping how top leaders show up on the platform. I worked across editorial, product, and creator partnerships. Onboarding world-class talent like Lewis Hamilton, helping executives communicate with clarity and personality, and launching scaled video programs that grew community engagement across markets. I’ve supported 500+ high-impact members, from CEOs to rising operators, helping them grow their audience, sharpen their story, and build influence that actually moves people.My path has never been linear.. I’ve simply followed what made me curious: how communities form, how stories spread, and how the right piece of content can unlock opportunities for people. That curiosity has taken me from Tel Aviv to London and through roles that mix editorial instinct, product thinking, and deep talent partnership.At the core, my work has stayed the same:I help people communicate with more clarity, more confidence, and more humanity - so they can build the kind of presence that opens doors.If you care about founder-led marketing, storytelling, or the future of how leaders build trust online, we’re already speaking the same language.

Co-Founder

Club created to serve as a continuous bond between the diaspora community and the State of Israel.

• Successful crowdfunding campaign & world wide media coverage
• 150+ players from 25 different countries 
• Currently in Liga Gimel (5th division) of the Israeli Football League

Dani Markovits

LinkedIn just became even more important.

AI systems like ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity now cite LinkedIn as their second most-referenced domain

(right after Reddit and ahead of Wikipedia).

This has huge implications for your business.

When potential clients ask AI: 'Who are the leading experts in (your industry)?' or 'what companies should I trust for (your service)?, the answer is being shaped by LinkedIn content right now.

Discovery is shifting:
➡️ From search → to synthesis
➡️ From ads → to authority
➡️ From brand pages → to people with real track records and opinions

This is especially important/relevant for businesses built on trust: B2B, tech, professional services, finance, cyber, healthcare, and more.

Your thought leadership isn't just building your personal brand anymore. It's training the AI systems that are pre-qualifying you before prospects ever reach your website.

The decision is being made in the AI conversation, not on your homepage.

This is exactly why, at Shake Content, we focus so heavily on helping founders and execs show up with real expertise, real stories, and real perspective.

bottom line: your prospects are having conversations with AI whether you like it or not.

The opportunity? This shift is still early. Most of your competitors aren't thinking this way yet.

s/o to Irina Novoselsky & Becca Chambers for already beating this drum👏

CCO @ Shake Content | Ex LinkedIn | I help CEOs, execs, VCs & brands stand out and build authority on LinkedIn

Had a great catch-up with Jason Jung 정세진 at the Netflix office yesterday. 

We first met when I was at LinkedIn and he was at TikTok. Now he’s at Netflix and I’m building Shake. 

Funny how much changes, and how much doesn’t.

Still talking creators, content and platforms… just with different logos behind us.

Grateful for friends who work at places with great offices and free snacks 😆

It's not just you. More people are actually spending time on LinkedIn now.

And I'm weirdly happy about that.

I spent 4 years at LinkedIn, and a big part of what my team pushed for (even if it was never officially called this) was changing the premise that people only used the platform to look for a job.

And you can see it now. 

People scrolling on the tube/subway. Checking in daily (sometimes just for the games). Athletes sharing opinions, not just sponsorships. Founders talking openly about what's working and what isn't.

The WSJ shared an interesting article this week.

Apparently, inside LinkedIn there were constant debates about whether the platform should allow handles instead of real names.

And according to Gyanda Sachdeva (VP of Product), the question kept coming up: “Should we add handles?”

But the team always came back to the same answer — stick with real identities to protect trust.

And I'm glad they did.

Because when your name and reputation are attached to what you post, you show up differently. You think a bit more. You try to add something useful. 

That’s also why founder-led marketing works so well here.

LinkedIn isn’t perfect, but sticking with real identities might be one of the smartest decisions they ever made.

Full article here (worth the read) - https://lnkd.in/ewZ32kXJ

Everyone keeps asking me:

Should we invest in organic or paid on LinkedIn?

(and I think we're asking the wrong question)

They're not competing strategies, they work together.

Organic is your audition.
Test your messages, angles, and formats with 'zero' risk. See what actually makes people stop scrolling. What gets real comments, not just friendly likes. What people save or share.

If something doesn't work organically, paid won't save it. You'll just pay to help more people ignore it.

Paid is your amplifier.
Once you know what resonates, that's when you invest. Put budget behind what's already proven. Extend its reach. Get it in front of more of the right people.

Now you're not guessing (you are just scaling what works).

Most companies do this backwards. They create something, skip the test, and immediately spend money promoting it. Then they're surprised when it underperforms.

The issue usually isn't the targeting. It's that the message was never validated.

Better approach:
Let your audience tell you what's working first. 

Then amplify it.

Adam Mosseri just dropped 1,000+ words on AI's impact on creators and social media.

The most important line (imo) was:

'The internet already shifted power from institutions to individuals'

He's talking about Instagram - but this shift is already happening on LinkedIn.

CEOs are outperforming their company pages by 10x
Founder posts get more engagement than brand campaigns
Executive voices drive more pipeline than corporate content

As AI makes content easy to produce, what becomes scarce is: perspective

Real stories, real insights from real people.

The question shifts from 'can you create?' to 'can you create something only you could create?'

That's exactly what founder-led content does.

Your career pivots
Your failures
Your 3am decisions.

AI can replicate format but it can’t replicate lived experience.

This is the premise behind our work at Shake Content

Not because it’s trendy.. but because when everything looks the same, who it comes from is what matters.

---

Adam's full post here: OP Here: https://t.co/VGruvVXiSQ

The “who” is becoming more important than the “what”

What you say matters. But who says it now matters more.

This is the biggest shift I am seeing in 2026.

In the age of AI, credibility beats content.

Recent data shows that AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity are now citing LinkedIn 4–6x more than they were just a few months ago. And around 80% of those citations come from content written by real people on LinkedIn (not company pages).

That’s big.

AI isn’t only asking: Is this information relevant? It is asking: Who is saying this, and should I trust them?

LinkedIn makes that easy. Your role. Your experience. Your track record. Your network. All verifiable in seconds.

Which means the internet is shifting from: 
websites as sources → people as sources.

This is becoming one of the most important priorities for our clients, and exactly why, at Shake Content, we focus so heavily on founder and executive voice.

Source: https://lnkd.in/ezWsTazM

More context. Less urgency.

My friend George Mack once shared this take that went viral.. and honestly, it’s pretty bang on.

For a long time, I saw that as a bad thing about LinkedIn.

Boring. 
Too slow.
Always catching up.
Not where new ideas start.

But lately.. I have started to see it differently.

Maybe LinkedIn isn’t where things break first. But it might be the best place to actually make sense of them.

There are plenty of places to spot trends early: Twitter/X, Reddit, TikTok, Discord, group chats, wherever.

We're drowning in real-time takes. Every platform is racing to be first. Everyone is trying to go viral. 

LinkedIn's 'slowness' is starting to feel like the thing we might actually need.

So yeah, George is right. If it's big on LinkedIn, you're definitely late. 

But late to the hype means early to the insight.

We don't talk enough about the work we do with our clients.

So here's what happened when we partnered with shipshape.vc & Daniel Sawko.

Shipshape is an investor search engine that's helped 4,000+ companies raise over £1bn. They aggregate data from 25,000+ global funds and layer in private growth signals to show founders where capital is actually moving.

Their CEO, Daniel, had a strong LinkedIn presence but was frustrated by how much time quality content required. The platform had genuinely differentiated data, but the challenge was making that value immediately clear to both founders raising capital and institutional buyers.

What we focused on:
We stripped away feature-heavy messaging and built founder-led storytelling around:
- Why private growth signals matter in fundraising
- How attribution and precision targeting translate into ROI
- Making complex value propositions instantly understandable

Content became a dual-purpose asset - educating at the top of the funnel while supporting mid-cycle sales conversations.

The results over 4 months:
60% increase in impressions
44% increase in engagements 
13% follower growth 
30% uplift in platform signups vs. the prior period

That last metric is the one that matters. The content didn't just build awareness.. it drove adoption.

As Daniel put it: "We've got relevant insights to share, but finding the time was always challenging. Working with Shake Content has made content easy - we're producing studio-grade video content and tapping into new channels like YouTube."

This is what happens when you turn a technically powerful product into clear, consistent storytelling. Content becomes a growth driver, not just a brand exercise.

Excited to see where Shipshape goes next.

The full case study is here: https://lnkd.in/e-a_uJHZ

Hot take for 2026:

Your company shouldn’t act like a corporate page.
It should operate like ESPN.

ESPN doesn’t just run one show announcing scores. They have:
1/ First Take (debate and hot takes)
2/ SportsCenter (news + highlights)
3/ 30 for 30 (deep storytelling)
4/ Around the Horn (rotating expert panels)

Each show has distinct personalities. People tune in for Stephen A. Smith not 'ESPN Corporate Communications'

So why is your LinkedIn strategy just one bland corporate feed?

📺 Here’s the play for 2026
- Your VP of Product should be breaking down roadmap decisions like they're analyzing draft picks

- Your Lead Designer should be showing works-in-progress and debating design philosophy like it's film study

- Your Customer Success team should be sharing war stories from the trenches (not just case studies)

- Your Data Scientist should be dropping insights that make people stop scrolling

One corporate voice = changing the channel
Multiple expert voices = must-watch content

Give your experts their own shows. Let them have a point of view. Let them disagree with each other sometimes. Let them be interesting.

Nobody remembers the NBA's official press releases.

But everyone remembers the analysts who had something real to say about the game.

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The Battle

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