The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 62 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 5 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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…”
Akhund: Airtable can reach a $50 billion valuation within 15 years
“I'm in it for the game as it was, and I do think, you know, these kind of compounders like Airtable you know, like there's companies I'm in where I'm like, okay, I can see this being a fifty billion dollar company, and if I just stick with it for, you know, ma…”
Akhund: Mercury will employ more software engineers in five years despite AI
“I think we'll have more. Like, I think the maybe I'm contrarian about it a little bit, but to me, if my engineers get more productive, I'm gonna come up with more things to do. Like, I'm gonna have, like, so much stuff that I want to do.”
Akhund claims most seed-stage AI startups lack real traction
“The vast majority of AI at seed out there does not have traction.”
Akhund: Multi-stage venture capital funds will inevitably go public
“It seems inevitable that a few of these multi-stage funds will IPO and be public companies, right? Like we had some stuff about GC doing it. Yeah. I think that's just going to happen.”
Akhund: Founders should reject 'always be raising' because it distracts from building
“I'm like, so out on that statement. I just think it's partly because I don't like fundraising at all. And it's partly because, you know, fundraising is not the objective. It's distracting. There's so much to do at a startup.”
Akhund: Dedicated fintech funds refused to invest in Mercury's seed round
“Even after Andreessen had come in with a lead check, it was so hard to get any fintech fund to invest alongside them because all fintech funds saw was like all the problems. They were like, this doesn't work for this reason and that reason. And I was like, I r…”
Akhund: Seed investments in unicorns can return as low as 8x
“If your entry price is like, 20, 25 mil you know, after you get that dilution you know, unicorn, like, sometimes it's like, I've seen as low as, like, eight X return from, like, a seed stage investment to unicorn”
Mercury Credit Card Outpaces Competitors Among Own Customer Base
“Now Mercury for Mercury customers, Mercury credit card is bigger than all the other kind of corporate credit cards on the platform”
Akhund: Space tech currently has only three functional markets
“There's, like, basically three existing markets in space tech. There's rockets, right? Like, getting things up and down, which obviously SpaceX dominates. There's taking pictures from space and That's actually, like, pretty big market, like, forty billion doll…”
Akhund: Founders still allocate me $150k after hotshot VCs close the round
“I've done rounds recently where the round is fully done with, like, some hotshot VC, and then I still get my one 50 K, and after the round is fully done so winning is, like, Easy right now.”
Akhund: 100% of Mercury's first 30 alpha customers were my angel investments
“You know, actually like the, from the first 30 kind of alpha customers in Mercury, I think a hundred percent of them were like companies I'd invested in.”
Akhund: Mid-sized venture funds will struggle while small and mega funds thrive
“The people like me that are investing kind of smaller checks, like we'll do fine and the multistage ones will do fine. I don't know what happens in the middle. I think the middle will have more of an issue.”
Akhund: Mercury will eventually go public, but delay for five to seven years
“I want Mercury to be like a legacy long-term company. So being public is inevitable, but yeah, why do it today and not five years from now on, six years from now, seven years from now”
Immad Akhund: Thesis-driven funds are inferior to broad investing strategies
“I tend to, for deals I receive, I actually think thesis driven funds are not that great. Like I think it's better to have like a broad, broad investing strategy, but for deals that I receive, I kind of like thesis driven funds because I'm like, okay, they know…”
Akhund: Mercury raised too much in its seed round, causing high dilution
“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 wit…”
Akhund: Traditional banks offer bad products and do not care about customers
“And I just really hate using bad products and they never improve. It never feels like the people at the bank really care about you as a customer.”
Akhund: High-performing employees who lack cultural fit are almost impossible to fire
“I find it very hard to fire people, and most people do, and especially people that are good at what they're doing, but they don't fit the culture. Those people are actually, like, almost impossible to fire.”
Akhund: Startup ideas matter significantly, contrary to Silicon Valley belief
“And then the other thing that we're doing right this time is, I was kind of off the mindset that, like, ideas don't matter back then, and yeah, people go through this, like, Silicon Valley goes through this phase. Sometimes they're like, ideas don't matter, ju…”
Akhund: Startup sustainability requires productivity and leverage, not weekend work
“It's not about working 10% more hours or working the weekends. It's much more about having a sustainable level where everyone's productive, everyone's leveraged.”
Akhund: The startup banking niche alone can support a $10B company
“We're targeting startups, and that is a niche, but the good thing about the startup niche in banking is that it's by itself a ten billion dollar company.”
Akhund: Industry insiders must unlearn ingrained assumptions to innovate
“I think a lot of the lessons that are learned by insider professionals are the things that need to be unlearned. So when you come at it from an outside perspective, you can see that a little easier.”
Akhund: Competitors rarely determine whether a startup succeeds or fails
“I do think at Hazab, there was always a, our previous company, there was always like a villain where it was like, oh, we have to beat this competitor. Like, what are they doing? Oh no, you know, they're better funded than us, all this kind of stuff. And there …”
Akhund: Taking early VC meetings is a distraction, not proof of progress
“Sometimes it's like investors are literally their job is to meet people. Often I hear from an entrepreneur that like, oh, you know, blah, blah, blah. Investor reached out to me or like this VC wants to meet. And like, I'm on a second meeting with them. And lik…”
Akhund: Entrepreneurs Find It Very Hard Not to Chase Highest Valuation
“I think it is very hard as an entrepreneur not to chase the highest valuation.”
Akhund: Strong Investment Bias Toward Serial Founders with Chips on Shoulders
“I mean, I just prefer serial founders. Like I have such a bias towards them. A serial founder with the chip on their shoulder. Oh yeah. A hundred percent.”
Akhund launches first $26M institutional fund with partner Yash Doshi
“Yeah, I finally closed on my first institutional fund. We raised twenty six million dollars. I'm partnering with kind of a friend of mine. Actually he invested in Mercury seven years ago. His name's Yash Doshi. He was at EQ two ventures, EQT ventures.”
Akhund: Rappi hit unicorn status within a year of my seed investment
“Rappi was one of my first investments. Rappi is like a door dash for LADAM. Yeah. I literally invested and they did not talk to me again. Like they were just so busy and they grew that thing like crazy. And it was a unicorn within a year and a half. I invested…”
Akhund: Andreessen Horowitz invested in Mercury's seed round based solely on a deck
“Andreessen Horowitz was our seed investor. So they invested like basically on a deck for Mercury”
Akhund: Sequoia Performed the Most Diligence Out of 20+ Series C Pitchers
“I pitched more than 20 funds as part of the CBC. Sequoia did the most work. Right. So like they did the most diligence with customers. They did the most work in the data room.”
Immad Akhund generated over a 30x return on pre-seed investment in Truebill
“I don't know if I should say the exact multiple, but more than, like, 30 x, ah, it was a great multiple, and it was a short time period, like, 2016 to 20, 21.”
Akhund: Angel investors need at least 20 to 30 investments
“Doing like one or two is not going to make a difference. Like I think, so mostly I say to people, hey, if you have enough money, I mean, we're not talking about a ton of money, but if you have enough money to do at least 20 or 30 investments, that's when you s…”
Akhund: New Fund Will Target 60 Non-Lead Startup Investments
“The idea is to invest into 60 companies and The reason that works is, you know, we're doing these non-lead checks.”
Akhund: I don't invest in biotech because founder claims are hard to evaluate
“I don't personally do bio because, you know, I speak to someone and they're like, we've cured cancer. And I speak to the next person and they're like, we've cured cancer. I'm like, I don't know.”
Immad Akhund predicts full integration of banking and financial software in 10 years
“I think in 10 years time, it'll be obvious that like, oh yeah, your bank is really powerful, and it can do all of these things, and it's all fully integrated. So yeah, that's just a freaking huge opportunity”
Akhund: Mercury grew over 40% month-over-month for its first four months
“And we've in the last four months grown like more than 40% each month, which is really exciting for us.”
Akhund: Using Haskell gives Mercury a competitive advantage in hiring strong engineers
“We use Haskell and there's not an interesting programming language with a lot of good engineers that are interested in the programming language with, you know, surprisingly a lack of companies that use it. So we end up, you know, having that kind of edge or ni…”
Akhund: Ideal market wedge uses same core product for broader market
“I think ideally the wedge is kind of like a market segmentation, but basically the same product works on a much bigger market. I think that's probably ideal way to do it.”
Akhund: True domain expertise requires understanding contradictory views within a market
“I think my level of like where you really get something is when you can understand the contradictory views that exist within the market.”
Akhund: Mercury is the only startup-focused challenger bank in the U.S.
“If you take what we're doing at Mercury, there's no one else really doing a startup focused challenger bank. I would say the zero, which is really good. The only people we're competing against is Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic and Chase.”