A private equity firm demanded controlling interest in exchange for 17% equity
Lily Kanter · Serena & Lily: Serena Dugan and Lily Kanter. They Built a $20M Brand—Then One Investor Almost Destroyed It · Aug 3, 2026 · at 43:49
Lily Kanter, co-founder of Serena & Lily, describes an aggressive term sheet offered by a private equity firm when the founders sought $1.5 million in capital.
0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“They're asking for a controlling interest in your company for a 17% of your equity, you know.”
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 Lily Kanter
A 2X participating preferred term blocked Serena & Lily from raising capital
“One of our other major investor on Sandhill Road came up with the capital. They actually put the money into the company on top of our cap stack, on top of the capital chart, At a very heavy duty preference of a two X preferred participating, very gnarly securi…”
Maveron told Serena & Lily they wouldn't even fund Starbucks in 2008
“In fact, Maveron, who was, you know, came from the money of Starbucks, they told us that if Starbucks had walked in their door right now, they wouldn't fund them.”
Mandatory employment contracts saved founders from board-forced company sale
“Listen, we, the board could have voted to sell the company because they had enough votes around the table that were incentivized to sell the company.
The problem is that the acquisitions were requiring us to sign three year employment contracts.”
Founders used an 'oversold' pretext to secure 50% deposits from wholesale buyers
“So, we're like, hey, why don't we call all of them? And let them know that we are in an oversold situation with our initial production, and if they would like to guarantee their order, they would have to provide us a 50% deposit on their order. And the oversol…”
Serena & Lily direct-to-consumer revenue doubled annually to $20M in year three
“The first year we were direct-to-consumer, we did five million dollars.
The second year we were in direct-to-consumer, we did ten million.
It doubled.
That third year we were in direct to consumer, it went to twenty million.
Like, we had a five, 10, 20 sprint.”
Wendy Bellissimo dropped 600-800 specialty retailers for a Babies 'R' Us exclusive
“Wendy Bellissimo, who had a, probably, 600, possibly 800 independent specialty stores selling her, Beautiful premium crib bedding. Literally faxed down her entire independent channel, thanking them for their amazing patronage for the last X number of years, an…”