The AFT podcast: At the Forefront of Transactions | Payments | Fintech | Pay-tech | Banking

Phil Nadel, Founder and Managing Director at Forefront Venture Partners (formerly Barbara Corcoran Venture Partners), talks about the major instrument used for raising money - SAFEs or SAFE notes. We talked about the major misunderstandings about this instrument, who should use it and when is it time to price your round instead of using a SAFE note.

Phil's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philnadel/

Forefront Venture Partners: https://www.forefrontvp.com/

Forefront Venture Partners on AngelList: https://angel.co/company/forefront-venture-partners

Fill out this form to get connected to investors and mentors: https://form.typeform.com/to/vT8gVQDG

Victor Zhou, Ex Founder & CEO of Sentinel Tec that was acquired by DT talks about how he managed to grow his company in China and why that happened. We also looked into who should try to look abroad while being based in the US and how your startup can prosper in another country.

Victor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vzhehao/

Fill out this form to get connected to investors and mentors: https://form.typeform.com/to/vT8gVQDG

Alex Eckelberry is a technology CEO with an extensive background in senior technology leadership, with private, venture/PE backed, and publicly-traded companies. Alex was most recently President and COO of AutoLoop, a SaaS disrupter in the automotive technology space, now merged with Affinitiv

Alex's linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexeck/

Affinitiv Inc: https://www.affinitiv.com/

Stefanie R. Yu, Partnerships, Strategic Lead at IndiegoGo talks about reward-based crowdfunding and what kind of startup should try to pursue it. We talked about the major steps founders should take while preparing for it and the major mistakes founders make while raising money through this source.

Links mentioned in the episode: 

Wade Fletcher, Founder at ScoreTwoMedia that was acquired in 2020 and currently the Founder of UndercoverVC, talks about constructing scout networks and how a high school student can grow a small startup. We've also discussed how can startup founders take advantage of such scout networks and how do they work.

UndercoverVC: https://undercover.vc/

OnePagerVC by Open Scout: https://onepager.vc/

Fill out this form to get connected to investors and mentors: https://form.typeform.com/to/vT8gVQDG

Daniel McCarthy, Director and Co-Founder of Theta Equity Partners and Co-Founder and Chief Statistician of Zodiac acquired by Nike, talks about building and selling companies, how some funds invest based on stats only and how he personally approaches fundraising and investing.

Daniel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcc/

Pipe - get access to your annual cashflow today (funds based on stats only): https://www.pipe.com/

Wareclouds: https://www.wareclouds.com/

Jason Myers, Partner at CopyPro.ai and Chairman of Various and Guerrilla Marketing Global, talks about how he grew multiple businesses into cash-generating machines and how he managed to get through the very first stages. We also discuss Guerrilla marketing and how it works and other customer acquisition channels.

Guerrilla Marketing Global: https://www.gmarketing.com/

Fill out this form to get connected to investors and mentors: https://form.typeform.com/to/vT8gVQDG

Andrew Christodoulides, Founder & CEO of Moro that has raised one round through equity crowdfunding and is planning to raise the second one through equity crowdfunding again talks about the major lessons he learned in the previous round. We also talked about how his strategy will change in the upcoming fundraise and why did he decide to choose equity crowdfunding again.

Moro: https://moro.com/

Republic: https://republic.co/

Scott Schwab, Co-Founder at Bottega, Managing Partner at Aethos Ventures and Partner at Mett Corp talks about his first fundraising experience and how his approach to fundraising changed since then. We also discuss how startups can survive and prosper in heavily saturated markets. 

Scott's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-schwab-8306713/

Mett Corp: https://mett.com/

Non-Profit that Scott runs - Success in Education: https://sieutah.org/

Skip Sanzeri, currently the founder and partner at Multiverse Capital and founder at QuSecure and Quantum Thought, previously the founder with several exits and failures. In this episode we talk about creating advisory boards - how to compensate advisors, what kind of contract should you have with an advisor, how to chose the right advisors and much more.

Multiverse Capital: https://www.multiversecap.com/

QuSecure: https://www.qusecure.com/

Episode on deep tech investing and AI: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/how-ai-field-reacted-to-the-pandemic-and-how-founders-in-this-field-should-raise-now-by-caroline-duffy/