Feb 4, 2021 · 33m · saastr
How To Raise Your Next Round: What Does it Take to Really Raise Capital | Point Nine Capital
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital presents the 2021 SaaS Funding Napkin, breaking down updated benchmarks across pre-seed to Series C rounds and providing founders with strategic guidance on navigating modern venture capital fundraising.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 0.0 Guest teaching 0.0 Guest disagreement 0.0 Jason pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 26:40 Challenging conventional stage definitions
Janz contrarianly reframes standard stage metrics by arguing that round labels have completely shifted one column to the right.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 30:20 Pushback against preemptive roundsJanz warns founders against accepting preemptive investor interest, arguing it serves VC interests rather than the founders'.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:50 Debunking the $1M ARR Series A rule of thumbJanz educates the audience with data showing that modern Series A companies must reach significantly higher ARR thresholds than historical guidance.
Jason holds their own ▶ 31:00 Systematic fundraising process doctrineJanz demonstrates deep operational mastery by mapping founder fundraising directly onto pipeline qualification and sales mechanics.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origins and Methodology of the SaaS Funding Napkin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Christoph Janz delivers a solo presentation detailing the origins of Point Nine's SaaS Funding Napkin and the survey methodology behind the 2021 dataset. There is no host involvement or disagreement during this monologue segment. | |
| Pre-Seed Funding Benchmarks and Founder Requirements | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz breaks down pre-seed valuation ranges, round sizes, and what investors look for in founding teams before product-market fit. As a solo presentation, there is no host interaction. | |
| Seed Stage Dynamics and Early Product-Market Fit | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz presents benchmark shifts in seed round sizes and valuations while explaining early signals of product-market fit. This is a purely informational solo address. | |
| Series A Expectations and Extended Runway Impact | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz analyzes Series A expectations, explaining how larger early rounds have raised the ARR bar above traditional benchmarks. The dynamic remains an uninterrupted presentation. | |
| Series B Shifts and Quantitative Due Diligence | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz explores Series B metrics, highlighting the transition toward rigorous quantitative due diligence such as cohort analysis and CAC/LTV ratios. The delivery is educational and one-sided. | |
| Series C Expansion and Mega-Round Trends | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz examines Series C round expansions and the emergence of multi-billion dollar valuations. The segment is a solo slide walkthrough with no dialogue exchange. | |
| Strategic Takeaways: Stage Relabeling and Outlier Companies | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz synthesizes key takeaways, explaining the one-step relabeling of funding stages and how outlier companies bypass standard rules. There is zero host participation. | |
| Best Practices for Running a Structured Fundraising Process | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Janz provides actionable fundraising advice, drawing direct parallels between running a structured investor round and running an enterprise sales funnel. The session concludes without direct dialogue. |
Statements from this episode (11)
Janz: Pre-seed round valuations and sizes doubled or tripled since 2016
“You can see that the valuations as well as the amounts typically raised in a pre-seed financing have pretty much doubled, maybe almost, almost tripled here which is quite quite a dramatic change.”
Janz: Pre-seed fundraising depends on team, idea, and storytelling over revenue
“What does it take to raise a pre-seed round? It's mostly about the team and the idea. Usually there is either nothing yet in terms of revenue or very little. It's usually pre-product market fit. So what investors really want to know at this very early stage is…”
Point Nine examines pre-launch research when evaluating pre-seed founders
“When we look at companies at these early stages and knowing that There is very little in terms of validation from the market. We always want to know how much work did the founders do before they decided to pursue this idea and not another idea. So this is what…”
Janz: Typical SaaS Seed Valuations Have More Than Tripled Since 2016
“Valuations we originally mentioned or noted the range as being two to six million and now it's eight to 17. So that's basically more than triple the valuation at a typical seed round.”
Janz: Half of 2021 SaaS Series B rounds exceeded $200M valuations
“And our takeaway from this data is that the round sizes are typically in the 18 to fifty million dollar rate range for the pre-money valuation. The range, as you can see, is Very, very wide, and I think that's, that is quite remarkable, and something which we …”
Janz: Investor due diligence becomes predominantly quantitative by Series B and C
“In comparison to a pre-seed or seed end series A just gets more and more quantitative at the series B and series C because the everything that you're doing tends to show up in the numbers.”
Janz: 2021 SaaS Series C Valuations Spanned $100M to $900M
“So you can see that the range for a Series C was thirty-five million to a hundred twenty million, and that valuation range was a hundred million to as much as Nine hundred million.”
Janz: Venture round definitions have shifted upward by an entire stage
“Like what used to be called a seed is now a pre-seed, what used to be called a series A is now a seed, what used to be called a series B is now a series A, and what used to be called
A series C is now a series B.
So you can almost shift the columns one step if…”
Janz: Series A investors now expect over $1M ARR from large-seed startups
“If you've raised a million dollar in pre-seed,
And five million dollar in, in seed as an example, then Series A investors will usually look for more than the million dollars in ARR, which previously we considered to be a rule of thumb.
So as we saw when we loo…”
Janz: The top 20% of SaaS startups defy standard funding benchmarks
“The best or the hottest, if you will, 10 to 20% of the companies, they kind of defy all rules.
So we've seen companies
Raising at really very, very remarkable terms in the last in the last years, but even, even more so, or especially in the last 12 months.
if…”
Janz: Preemptive VC Discussions Benefit Investors, Not Founders
“Investors will often try to pull you into preemptive fundraising discussions. I think that's mostly good for them, not necessarily good for the founders, and I think in almost all cases you are better off if you decide when you go out fundraising, and then you…”