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Altman: In-House Fundraiser Post-Series B Beats Bankers and Halves Dilution

Sam Altman · Later Stage Advice with Sam Altman (How to Start a Startup 2014: Lecture 20) · Y Combinator · May 1, 2017 · at 25:10

Sam Altman advises founders in a Stanford lecture to hire an internal dedicated fundraiser post-Series B instead of hiring investment bankers.

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“Another thing that I think is worth hiring earlier that almost no one does, is a full-time fundraiser. Let's say you hire someone like really, really great, and their full-time job is to raise money for the company. You hire them after your B round, and you say, you know what, by the time we raise our C round, we want the valuation to be double what it would have been otherwise. You almost certainly get better results than if you hire an investment banker or someone else, if it's just someone internal to the company, and you end up paying way less money and take like literally half the dilution.”

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