Akhund: Mercury raised too much in its seed round, causing high dilution
Immad Akhund · 20VC Exclusive: Mercury Founder Launches First $26M Fund with Immad Akhund · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 12, 2025 · at 1:01:49
Immad Akhund is the CEO and founder of Mercury, a business banking platform. He reflects on early fundraising decisions and equity dilution trade-offs.
0:00 / 0:20exact quote · 20.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“It's like we raised too much money in our seed round. Like we raised six million at like a twenty three million valuation. And like, this was because I was like, okay, fintech is hard. Like I want to have so much money that like I can go on for three years without raising again, et cetera. But it was like such a high dilution round for us. Like it's by far the highest dilution thing we've done at Mercury.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Immad Akhund
Akhund: If you get a massive valuation, raise big but don't spend
“I think the mistake is to not raise enough money. Like every now and then someone gets like a, you know, like a million dollar valuation, they raised like fifty million. I think that's a mistake. Like you want to raise enough money at that high valuation. And …”
Akhund: I passed on Scale AI because the founders were too young
“I saw scale AI and I was like, okay, you know, like good idea, but these people are so young. I think they were like 19 and 20 at the time or something. I was like, yeah, this is like, I was like, I think I could run this company better if I was doing it and I…”
Akhund: AI labor-replacement software margins will collapse under market competition
“So yeah, the sell that like VCs get and entrepreneurs are making is, oh, we're replacing your labor costs. Therefore, we should charge a third of that. But the reality is, once you have a competitive market dynamic, like, the actual margins are going to compre…”
Akhund: Avoiding AI Investments as the Sector Is Overhyped and Overvalued
“And, you know, I've ended up especially recently avoiding AI. I think AI is overhyped and overvalued.”
Akhund: Mercury raised Series B at irrational 120x multiple, would do again
“You know, we did our series B at a 120 X, which was not rational. This is 20, 21, but we did it and I would do it again.”
Akhund: At current seed valuations, investors must hunt for decacorns, not unicorns
“What we're really doing as seed investors is unicorn hunting, or I would say even, like, at these current evaluations, like, you're hunting for decacorns, and that doesn't, yeah, even if you're great at picking and you have a great network, et cetera you're no…”