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Michele Romanow

Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Clearco · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderinvestorexecutiveentertainer@MicheleRomanow ↗LinkedIn ↗clear.co ↗Wikipedia ↗

She is a venture investor on CBC's Dragons' Den and the co-founder of Clearco, an alternative financing platform for e-commerce companies. Prior to Clearco, she launched several ventures including Buytopia.ca and SnapSaves, which was acquired by Groupon in 2014.

17statements → 11claims → 8claims resolved → 25%fully supported → 4.18/5average certainty → 1.94/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 5said about them ↓

2 supported 5 partly supported 1 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 10 assertions · 2 insights · 3 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 8 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Michele argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Banks required Lululemon founder personal guarantees despite $20M in revenue
“He was on his fifth store, already a wildly successful brand, and the bank made him take a personal guarantee to buy at that store when he was at, you know, over twenty million dollars in revenue, and I was just so inspired.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 23:20 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Romanow: Nine U.S. States Received Zero Venture Capital Funding in 2018
“And there was actually nine states in America where there was zero dollars in venture funding. There was no companies that got venture funding.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 18:32 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
57% certainty 4
50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

244 words/min while actually speaking · 0.5 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Michele Romanow: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 12 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,031 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Michele Romanow is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 3/10
setup questions received 55%

Everything Michele Romanow said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Partly supported
Romanow: 40% of venture capital goes directly to Google and Facebook ads
“40% of venture capital dollars that are raised today end up going straight to Google and Facebook ads.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 8:13 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Insight
Romanow: Scalable growth channels should be funded with debt, not equity
“VC is true risk Capital. This, you know, zero to one risk that we describe. If you are building a crazy piece of AI and need 50 engineers or solving a disease, VC is the perfect fit for you. What I'm saying is, ClearBank, we're like, if you know that channels …”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 14:19 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Insight
Romanow: Funding celebrations glorify founders giving up 30% of their companies
“It's actually celebrating founders giving up a piece of their company, often a very large piece, 20 to 30% around, and giving up control of their companies.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 15:47 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Romanow: Alternative financing will enable founders to retain 50% equity at IPO
“You know, I think we win when five years from now, founders are going public, and they're back to owning half their companies again, and there will be no greater source of pride.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 27:25 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Clearbanc funds ad spend cheaper than equity to preserve founder ownership
“We can fund that for way cheaper than equity can, and ultimately that means that founders will be able to keep way more of their companies by the time they go public.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 9:23 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Disclosure
Romanow: Clearbanc Funded Eight Times More Female Founders Than VC Average
“And so, when I pulled our numbers, like, we funded eight times more women than industry average.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 19:08 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Partly supported
Romanow: Major e-commerce brands spend 70% to 90% of capital on CAC
“You look at the big e-commerce brands, they were spending 70, 80, 90% of their dollars on customer acquisition.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 9:00 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Disclosure
Romanow: Clearbanc earns a 6% fee on deployed capital
“I mean, this is a business where I make, you know, six percent when we put out our money, and so we don't have the luxury of a VC fund where you're picking lottery tickets, and one company can really carry a bunch of losses.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 10:04 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Partly supported
Romanow: Lyft Founders Retained Only 3.5% Equity at IPO
“The founders of Lyft went public, and they owned three and a half percent of Lyft”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 16:01 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Contradicted
Romanow: Nine U.S. States Received Zero Venture Capital Funding in 2018
“And there was actually nine states in America where there was zero dollars in venture funding. There was no companies that got venture funding.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 18:32 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Romanow: Clearbanc replaced Stanford MBA analysts with automated data science models
“The only way that we could do this in 20 minutes is we totally had to change the model, and so instead of using smart Stanford MBAs, we had to use data science and technology, and we had to really understand, and the data sources had to be big enough.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 22:05 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
What-if
Romanow: Clearbanc could not have existed three years ago
“To make no mistake, this company could not Three years ago. I mean, the data sources themselves had to be big enough, and then we had to figure out what are the indicators that did matter, and how to assess unit economics, and return on ad spend, and all of th…”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 22:19 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Supported
Banks required Lululemon founder personal guarantees despite $20M in revenue
“He was on his fifth store, already a wildly successful brand, and the bank made him take a personal guarantee to buy at that store when he was at, you know, over twenty million dollars in revenue, and I was just so inspired.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 23:20 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Partly supported
Vinebox doubled its Series A valuation after taking Clearbanc capital
“You know, he took some of our capital last year in Q four, got to raise a series A that was double the valuation.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 14:57 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Disclosure
Clearbanc provided $8M to a 100% founder-owned murder mystery subscription box
“So two years later, this guy has 60,000 subscribers. He has a massive multi-million dollar business that he owns a hundred percent of himself. ClearBank scaled up from 10,000. We've given him out eight million dollars in funding.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 20:05 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Supported
Buytopia raised no venture money and acquired 10 competitors in five years
“In 2010, started an e-commerce company called Bytopia. We couldn't or didn't raise any money, became one of the fastest growing companies in Canada just through low-cost user acquisition, and then over the next five years, bought 10 of our competitors.”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 5:14 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises
Assertion Partly supported
Romanow: Bill Gates Owned 50% of Microsoft at IPO
“When Microsoft went public, Bill Gates owned half of that company”
Michele Romanow May 10, 2019 ▶ 16:08 20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Facebook, How To Create A Financing Mechanism For The Repeatable Parts Of Your Business & Why We Need To Stop Celebrating Fundraises

The other half of the tape: Michele Romanow's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4Santi Subotovsky 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Clearbanc's Michele Romanow on Why 40% of VC $ Raised Today Goes To Google and Faceb May 10, 2019 17m
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