My name is Dori Yona. I'm the Co-founder of SimpleClosure.

We've built a platform to help automate and streamline the process of shutting down companies. 

I've been an entrepreneur and founder for the majority of the last decade. SimpleClosure is the third company I've started.

We've been around for a bit over a year. Over that year we've done 2 rounds of funding: a pre-seed and a seed. 

We raised a $1.5M pre-seed round. About 6 months later, we did a $4M seed round. Our total amount raised to date is $5.5M.

We had started the company without raising any money. We already had initial customers on the platform so we were generating revenue from day one. 

But as I was continuing to build out the company and the product and the team, I felt like we could continue to bootstrap and build the business. 

But given this was early to mid 2023, there was a lot of talk in the market about how there would be an increase in companies shutting down.

We wanted to make sure that we were primed and set up to be able to handle the growth and scale of that and capitalize on the situation. 

So we ended up raising some capital to kick things off so we could have a platform up and running in 3 months instead of a year. That was the thinking behind the fundraising.

We weren’t initially looking for funding. The opportunity fell in our lap. 

I was at a FinTech conference in Vegas catching up with colleagues and ran into a friend that I hadn't seen in quite a few years. 

He was at a growth stage fund and asked me what I was working on. 

I shared the premise of SimpleClosure and he thought it was super interesting. He wanted me to meet a friend of his who was a partner at an early-stage fund. 

I met the partner and we totally hit it off. I shared with him what we were building and I had a term sheet the next day.

We ended up getting a lot of interest quickly after that term sheet came in. The decisions I use to choose investors are a combination of a few factors.

Firstly, do I enjoy spending time with this person? Do I want them to be a partner with me in the company? Do I want to get a beer with them? Do I want to go out to dinner with them? 

Second is how much value they will be adding to the company beyond the capital. 

The third factor I use to make my decision is relying heavily on previous founder feedback. I talk to founders that have worked with those investors and I ask a series of questions.

Everyone says investors are great, so I don't solely ask, “were they a good investor?” I try to ask more strategic questions to get to the core of how they were good and how it was working with them.

I’ll ask for founder references from the investor’s portfolio, but then I'll also backchannel myself to people they haven't recommended because there’s an obvious bias to the people they recommend. 

You should also check the ones that maybe didn't have a good experience or weren't necessarily recommended. This is just as valuable.

As mentioned, we met the pre-seed lead at a conference. The investor that wrote the first check was really excited about the investment and they wanted their colleagues to join the round.

They immediately introduced me to a few other very close firms that they work with and that they appreciate. 

I took a few of those meetings and then decided on who would fill the remainder of the round. So most of the interactions came from the lead plus a few others that I had in my network.

The majority of outreach I did for the pre-seed was to the angels that I wanted to have join the company. 

I wanted to allocate a certain amount of money for strategic angels that could help the business. 

Typically the process with angels only takes one call. They're making a decision of investing anywhere between $5-$50k or not. They don't have time to do multiple meetings. 

The things that we emphasized in the pitch were the vision, how big the opportunity was, and why the team could execute on this vision.

For the pre-seed we didn't need capital as we were already generating revenue from day one. We were raising out of opportunity rather than out of necessity.

I gave investors about a week and told them that we were going to close and make a decision quickly.

The biggest challenge is choosing the right people. It takes time to interview 2 to 4 portfolio founders for every VC we are considering.

And if you’re considering multiple VCs to fill the round, it takes exponentially more time. 

You're coordinating and scheduling meetings with 10 to 15 founders so it ends up taking a ton of time.

You're always raising, but you're never actually saying you're raising. 

Raise when you can and not when you need to. This obviously changes the entire dynamics of the round. 

It's also really helpful to come prepared to fundraise. Having all your documents in order will make the company and the team look a lot more prepared. It will also expedite the process. 

I'm going to name all of them because each one is special in their own way. 

We have Infinity Ventures, Rex from Cambrian Ventures, Vera Equity, and Foxe Capital. 

We're very fortunate to have all 4 of those as lead investors in the company.

One is called The Mom Test. It's a great one when thinking about building the initial product. It’s also great for vouching for your idea and being able to vet if you're really building the right thing.

Another book that I really appreciated reading was Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

Another one that stands out is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Every no you get is actually one step closer to a yes. Don’t get discouraged, there's an investor out there that will believe in you and the team.

A guru fundraiser taught me once that if you have a meeting with a firm and they don't follow up within 24 hours, it's dead. Don't spend another minute on it.