Three startups, two of them failures. Then I raised $16M myself as a VC-backed founder. Then three years on the other side, deciding who got funded, as a VC at Octopus Ventures. Now I coach founders through the raise I got wrong twice.
My first startup got zero investor meetings. My second got about five. Both died, and at the time I thought that was about the product.
My third raised $16M, because I finally understood what I was actually supposed to be doing. Then I went to Octopus Ventures, one of Europe's largest funds, and sat in the partner meetings where the decisions get made.
That's where it clicked. It was never the deck. It's psychology and process: how conviction builds inside a fund, and how decisions really get made once you leave the room.
I backed AllPlants, Skin+Me, Pelago, Elvie, Big Health and Depop, which exited to Etsy for $1.6B. Then I left to coach the founders I used to sit across from.