Raising $100M at inception stage

The benefits of no capital constraints

by Michael Morgenstern

Happy Tuesday Brex community,

I've often advised founders to look for investors who aren't bound by rigid capital constraints on a per-company basis. Obviously it isn't a one-size-fits-all scenario - fundraising looks different for everyone. But, certain companies inherently require massive initial funding rounds. Take biotech, for example; the hefty R&D costs mean they need substantial capital just to get off the ground. Similarly, we're seeing a trend where second-time founders in the cloud and AI spaces, or those who've led large business units at places like Amazon, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Tesla, or Alphabet, are attracting significant resources upfront. These folks have managed big P&Ls before, and investors are betting they can do it again, but faster and on a larger scale.

So, when you're thinking about fundraising, think hard about your options and consider the benefits of scale - large multi-stage players can finance you from inception to IPO and beyond. These investors have the capacity to support you through every growth phase, eliminating the need to seek new funding sources at each stage. It's about aligning with those who not only share your vision but also have the resources to back it fully throughout your journey. In today's environment, where speed and scale can make all the difference, partnering with a big player who can go the distance with you isn't just convenient—it can be very strategic.

Growing together, Michael Morgenstern

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Will Bright and Arnold Gold are the co-founders of Saferide

Saferide is making cars not crash. Their vision-based system brings Automatic Braking, Adaptive Cruise, and Lane Centering to over 200m vehicles on US roads. They’re on a mission to eliminate 4,500,000+ avoidable car accidents annually while increasing dealership profit per vehicle by 300%. 

Ambassadors Perspective: Saferide is the fastest path to a future where nobody dies in a car or crossing the road. There are 300,000,000 cars on US roads and only 1000 Waymos in operation. Any "future of mobility" that relies on replacing existing vehicles has a 20-30 year timeline; Saferide's solution works with all existing vehicles. Combine Saferide's universal platform with distribution through car dealers where 45,000,000 vehicles change hands every year and suddenly the "future of mobility" is here in five years, not 25.  

Ed Sim is the Founder of boldstart ventures 

Ed is true believer and partner from Inception for bold founders reinventing the enterprise stack. He loves working with engineering-driven founders with bold ideas and laser-sharp focus on product well before writing their first lines of code.

He is currently on the boards of Snyk, BigID, Blockdaemon, Protect AI, Env0, and a number of other cybersecurity and infrastructure startups. Other notable inception investments include Kustomer where he was on the board until exiting to Meta, Superhuman, Security Scorecard, and Front. Ed also co-founded MState in 2017, an enterprise blockchain lab in partnership with IBM, where seed investments include Fireblocks.

Ed has been recognized as a Top 10 investor on the Forbes Midas Seed List for the last 3 years (profiled here) and also as the No.1 seed investor in the Business Insider Seed 100 for 2023 and 2024. Ed also writes a widely followed weekly newsletter, What’s in Enterprise IT/VC, covering the latest in venture capital, enterprise tech, and building startups.

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