Gili Raanan: Over-Capitalizing Founders Is Not a Risk for VCs
Gili Raanan · Why Margins Don't Matter for Early-Stage Startups | Gili Raanan · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 28, 2026 · at 26:06
Gili Raanan, founder of cybersecurity seed fund Cyberstarts, responds to Harry Stebbings' question about whether flooding fast-growing startups with excessive capital ('foie gras-ing') distracts founders.
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“I'm not in a business of babysitting founders. And for me, this is like babysitting the founder. If we trust them to build, in my case, an important cybersecurity company that's critical to all the major banks in the US, and you put in their hands the safety of our nation's most sensitive information, and then you tell them, okay, and you can't handle the idea that you have some extra cushion in a bank, and you are going to get sloppy and lazy. Okay, I don't buy into that.”
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