Read

Listen

image of The Illusion of Startup Valuations: advice from a VC (with Lu Zhang from Fusion Fund)
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
40:44
minutes

The Illusion of Startup Valuations: advice from a VC (with Lu Zhang from Fusion Fund)

Listen on

Podcast information

Share:

Episode Details

In this episode I’m joined by Lu Zhang, Founder & Managing Partner of Fusion Fund to talk about how to structure your round as a founder, when to raise money and how to assess your company valuation.

Show notes

Your next raise doesn’t have to depend on your runway. If fact, it’s better if it doesn’t. 
Instead, getting to your next milestone is a much stronger reason to structure another round and raise. 

You can tell the right story and show VCs motivation for raising again. 
Compare that with “I’m running out of cash, help” narrative when you have 3-4 months of runway. 


 Here are the main talking points: 
  • How to structure your future financial round
  • When is best time to raise money as a founder
  • How serial entrepreneurs look at valuation & raising money vs first-time founders


About Lu:

Lu Zhang is the Founder and Managing Partner of Fusion Fund, a renowned Silicon Valley based investor, a serial entrepreneur and a Stanford Engineering alumni. Fusion Fund is active in supporting early-stage entrepreneurs who are looking to build globally disruptive companies using innovative technologies to drive systemic change originating from the U.S market. For the past couple of years, Lu leads the Fusion Fund team funnels exits of multiple portfolios’ IPO and M&As.

Lu received the title of 2018 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos). She has also garnered other accolades including the Featured Honoree in VC of Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017), Silicon Valley Women of Influence (2018), Town & Country 50 Modern Swans – Entrepreneurship Influencer (2017) and Top 10 All America Chinese Youth (2018). Prior to starting Fusion Fund, Lu was the Founder and CEO of a medical device company focused on non-invasive technology for the early diagnosis of Type II diabetes (acquired in 2012). 

What is Off the Record with Aram?

Made by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Off the Record is about the journey. It’s about fears, doubts, wins, and devastating losses. It’s about how people kept going no matter what to build their businesses, raise cash and hire the team. Here battle-tested CEOs and VCs share how they jumped out of the airplane and tried to assemble it on the way down.I hope you like it.

Related podcasts

September 8, 2022
28:33 minutes
Koii is a new method to design communications infrastructure and build an internet owned by everyone. In this episode, our co-host Sergey Ross and Koii Network co-founder Al Morris speak about Al’s journey going from teaching career to being a founder of Koii, different hiring challenges, and what privacy looks like ten years in the future.
August 9, 2022
46:51 minutes
Mark Rickmeier, CEO at TXI, and Aram discuss the ugly side of growth. They explore what growth for the sake of growth does to employee and customer retention, why your competitors are worthy rivals that you can teach and learn from, why investing in experience pays you dividends, how being humble allows you to avoid being tunnel visioned, and how to strike a balance between time spent running a business and time spent with loved ones.
June 20, 2022
39:21 minutes
Ron Benegbi, founder and CEO of Uplinq, speaks to our co-host Sergey about what it’s like to grow a startup without unnecessary hiring sprees, inexplicably large teams, and being unintentional with how resources are allocated.
GET IN TOUCH
GET IN TOUCH

Want to learn more?

Let’s start collaborating on your most complex business problems, today.