Moonshot

STRATEGIC MARKETING + COMMUNICATIONS

Collaborating with diverse and project teams to shape marketing and communication strategies, leading to the successful launch of 110+ startups, generating thousands of pieces of earned media worth millions of dollars in advertising equivalent.

AWARD WINNING BRAND DEVELOPMENT + MANAGEMENT

Crafting breakthrough categories and strategic narratives, enhancing brand positioning, culminating in prestigious client awards, including "Best State Court Research and Analytics Platform 2023," "Fast Company Innovative By Design 2021,"  and " Central Banking Finnovator of the Year Award 2021".

EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS + THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Devising and implemented marketing and comms plans with project leads, coordinating w/ subject matter experts to drive national and industry-specific media messaging. Successfully prepared an executive client for testimony before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services and Task Force on Financial Technology.

Orchestrating speaker and influencer programs featuring high-profile figures such as Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan.

CREATIVE CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT

Utilizing a range of storytelling mediums (short-form video, image carousels, social audio events, podcasting, and online courses) to engage key audiences and convey compelling project narratives.


Staying ahead of digital and traditional marketing trends, executing integrated marketing initiatives like a street marketing campaign at SXSW involving a 10-person team, and art directing out-of-home advertisements in Times Sq.

Proactively exploring new technologies and trends, venturing into diverse fields such as remote sensing, hyper spectral imaging, agricultural water rights management, and legaltech.

EVENTS AND INFLUENCER PROGRAMS

Masterminding notable events, including the private hedge fund investor summit Compound:Thesis, and a high-profile launch event for 300+ Atrium stakeholders, raising over $35,000 in event sponsorship.

Founder | Global Director of Marketing and Public Relations

First Round Fast Track

Working 1:1 with First Round network founders to identify opportunities to share their stories and build personal and professional brands that deliver on business objectives such as fundraising, recruiting and customer development. First Round Fast Track mentors meet bi-weekly for 12 weeks per cohort.

Mentor - Public Relations 

Alchemist Accelerator

Founder pitch practice, message crafting and PR roundtables with leading technology industry reporters from The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch.

Mentor - Public Relations

StartX.

Empowered early-stage startups with strategic insight into marcomms, effectively positioning their unique stories to reach key audiences, including mainstream media, and key stakeholders. Leveraging my 10+ years of experience in PR, marketing, and branding, I've developed and implemented repeatable frameworks spanning content, social media, and events to elevate early stage founders and teams. My deep understanding of the innovation ecosystem and climate sustainability has resulted in notable brand growth and industry awareness for StartX companies.

500 Startups

Supporting multiple cohorts of portfolio companies with public relations training and hands-on growth communications and go-to-market mentorship  with global early stage founders from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Nigeria Poland Mexico, South Korea, etc.

Mentor - Marketing and Communications 

SparkPR

Senior Communications Manager

Cleantech Law Partners

VP Business Development

Google

Intern, Google News

Viacom

Marketing Intern - MTV

Strategic storyteller and publicist driving scalable marketing outcomes for Silicon Valley executives and brands. I craft category-defining narratives that have helped companies raise $1.5 billion in new investment

Every great company is actually a social movement.

Bring me a highly-technical founder with a muddy storyline, and I will deliver a movement leader with a sparkling new narrative that dominates headlines, and drives business results. 

I’m a media storyteller, community-builder, and thought partner to high-performing executives, investors and visionary founders. 

Together we activate audiences to tackle humanity’s most pressing challenges with ingenuity, passion and deep expertise.  

Everyone says they’re result-driven, but over the past decade I’ve consistently transformed high-growth technology founders into category leaders, launching more than 80 startups that have earned thousands of media features. 

Collectively my clients have raised more than $1.5 billion from the top venture capital funds and private equity groups. 

Leveraging my extensive network of investors, operators and media, I curate unforgettable events that lead to strategic relationships and unlock opportunities that propel my clients to the head of the line. 

I don’t win awards, but my clients do. 

Whether it's being recognized as a Fast Company Most Innovative Company, Central Banking Magazine’s Finnovator of the Year, or receiving the Core77 Design Sustainability Award, the founders I support stand out among their peers year after year.

After 14 years in the heart of Silicon Valley, I remain fired up about technologies that tackle humanity’s greatest challenges, including food security, global warming, and how the rise of artificial intelligence will impact small business owners, knowledge workers, creative professionals and educators.

When I’m not working you can find me coaching my son’s soccer team, nerding out about all things Arsenal Football Club, or exploring San Francisco’s bounty of mysterious nooks and crannies on two legs. 

I’m a lover of spicy food, black coffee and true crime documentaries. 

Lifetime learner.

I only work with clients I know I can help. 

Reach me at: chikodi@moonshotpr.com

Chikodi Chima

Peter Walker

Head of Insights @ Carta | Data Storyteller

Weaving data into brand storytelling for the next generation of company owners.

Startup data delivered directly to your inbox of choice every Thursday morning:
https://carta.com/subscribe/data-newsletter-sign-up/

Senior Director, Insights

This is a model of how startups are built. Question: when along this curve is the right time to raise venture capital?

Is it during the experimentation/pivoting phase, to elongate runway?

Is it as "starts working" happens, to fuel growth?

Is it post-product market fit, to bridge to the next iteration of PMF (which is usually not a single point in time)?

Or does it depend on external factors like competitive environment, market conditions, etc?

Bad advice: don't build startups that touch the real world.

Look, hardware is hard. Biotech is hard. Energy startups are hard! 

There's a reason why "choose bits, not atoms" is a standard line across many VCs who shun physical startups in favor of software ones.

But the tide does seem to be shifting, ever so slowly.

Chart below breaks out capital invested into Carta startups by year. in 2016/2017, software startups took in about 80% of all capital.

In 2025, the share going to software was down to 64%. 

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗪𝗵𝘆

• There has been a resurgence of interest into deep tech categories lately. Maybe some of that is narrative (American Dynamism, defense+aerospace, etc). Maybe some of that is the idea that moats in software are declining in the age of AI.
  
• There has been an increase in the number of companies attempting to pull of software + hardware models.
  
• Hardware itself (especially robotics) is experiencing a real boom.
  
• The number of VC funds has grown immensely and the need to specialize / differentiate as an investor has never been greater. 
  
• Certain deep tech categories like Hardware have pulled ahead of Biotech, which was the old stalwart in the deep tech space. But there are still laggards (Med Device + Energy probably deserve more attention than they receive).
  
• Regulatory concerns play a bigger role in many deep tech sectors than in pure software, but interaction with the government on state and federal levels is getting fractionally easier over time.

Respect to the founders building in the real world!

"Oh, no worries, we'll raise every 18 months or so"  ...good luck!

VC world has changed. The old advice was to raise a venture round every 18-24 months (green zone in the below chart).

That is 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 out of date. 

Median time between rounds (the circles in each range) is now above 2 years for Seed -> A, A -> B, and 
B -> C.

And on the upper end of the scale, founders are having to make do for a lot longer than planned. The 75th percentile for time between rounds is now above 3.5 years for all these stages.

But what about all those headlines of AI-native companies raising every 6 months for wildly increasing valuations?

Sure, they exist. But they make up a tiny fraction of all VC-backed companies. I wouldn't make those outliers the base case for your planning.

Big caveat here — I'm sure in 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 of these cases, the time between rounds is extending because the companies in question don't need to raise. They've got their burn under control, they're growing faster than planned, whatever the reason.

But there's also a lot of the other end. Companies cutting spending they'd rather keep. Companies not hiring to save cash. Companies turning to investors for bridge rounds and extensions.

You'd rather not be in the latter category, all things considered. 

So - how long can you make the money you raise tomorrow last?

The battle is over: SAFEs won.

Doesn't matter where you are in the US, startup founders now use SAFEs as the default way to get initial capital into their companies.

In 2018 and 2019, there was a real fight between SAFEs and Convertible Notes as to which instrument would become the default path for early capital.

But since Q1 2020, the SAFE has gained share in all markets while the Note consistently lost ground.

(Caveat - the only place this has been less true is in Biotech startups, but even there the SAFE is well used).

I've heard 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁 of objections to SAFEs. Some of them are a bit silly ("founders who use SAFEs don't get the market"), some of them are pretty substantial ("what even are SAFEs under the law?").

But none of them have really mattered. 

If you're a founder raising capital, you need to understand the SAFE and how it works. 

Got many explainers for you, ping em in the comments for direct links.

There is actually a "best week" in VC-backed startups.

It's the week of December 15th.

Over 5% of primary venture rounds are signed in that week, significantly higher than any other single week of the year.

Data here is from US startups that use Carta and are raising priced rounds. It's a combined view for all deals raised 2016–2024. We exclude bridge/extension financings.

𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗳𝗳

• Week 51 (starting ~Dec 15th) is always the biggest week for signed deals. Probably a combination of wanting to get in-process deals over the line before the holidays hit + culmination of the fall fundraising season.
  
• Weeks 14 and 18 are almost always big weeks as well in late March and late April respectively.
  
• There are basically no deals signed the last week or the first week of each year.
  
• There's a bit of noise in some summers (and macro conditions matter, very few deals in Q2 2020 for instance) but in general deals get done every week, every year.

Big note - this data is based on when the deals are actually 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱. 

I would not advise starting a fundraise on Dec 15th. You'll probably get swamped in the holiday break and have to restart in January anyway. 

Good luck in this final month or so of 2025 fundraising 🙏

#startups #founders #fundraising

Startups did not go from $1 million -> $1 billion of revenue in 2 years...until now.

Cursor (well actually Anysphere, which is the company name even though everyone knows Cursor) raised a massive round at a nearly $30B valuation. The main reason for that eye-popping headline figure was their growth from $1M to $1B in the 2 years since Cursor launched.

What does this mean for everyone else in startups?

• "Great" growth has been redefined. When the top end of the market experiences such a profound change in a short period of time, the trickle down effect of increased expectations hits everyone.
  
• That redefinition explains a lot of the seemingly odd behavior from venture participants lately. Why are they (and by they I mean big funds, usually) so disinterested in companies that are growing well? Because well is not great, and great is higher now.
  
• There's only so much oxygen in startups across many narratives. When one narrative (like AI code creation) gobbles up oxygen to itself, other narratives and sectors will suffer from disinterest. Is this right? No. Does this happen? Yes.
  
• Revenue expansion at this rate completely overwhelms any concerns about margin, profitability, etc. It really doesn't matter in the moment.
  
• Historic revenue run rates + 12x valuation pops in a single calendar year...and very few IPOs to speak of. This dichotomy explains the frenzy of attention on getting retail (or retail-ish) access to the late stage private markets. See Robinhood's latest fund as a clear example.
  
• Cursor is not the whole market 😁 hang in there, founders.

So you’re raising between $500K and $1M for your startup. What’s the right valuation? 

There isn’t one right answer, but the range depends on where you live. 

Benchmarks taken from 3,370 SAFEs signed from June 2024-Sept 2025.

The ranges in the chart looks at the valuation caps on each of the signed SAFEs. The val cap range goes from the 10th percentile at the left to the 90th percentile on the far right.

𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀

1. Where you raise money matters. The top 25% or so of Bay Area valuation caps for this amount of money basically don't exist anywhere else.
   
2. There is no national market for startups. The deal you get will be based on the available investor pool and the perceived demand for your business.
   
3. Founders in non-major markets do tend to get diluted more heavily at the beginning than founders in the core VC ecosystems.
   
4. Valuation caps are NOT valuations. Many startups will convert at their first priced rounds below the cap (or at it, which again is not what the investors are hoping for).
   
5. You should care about dilution, for sure. But you should not refuse to take in capital you need just because the dilution isn't what you hoped for. Stay alive first!

#startups #founders

New record - 200 startups on Carta were acquired in Q3 2025.

5 things to know about today's M&A environment for startups:

• Clear return to dealmaking after the down period of 2023. There are active buyers in the market now (other startups, Big Tech, and PE shops).
  
• About 50% of acquisitions involve companies in pre-seed or seed stage (so not very far along the journey). Another 25-30% are Series A.
  
• However, Q3 2025 saw a new record for Series B acquisitions as well with 26 companies. So this is not simply an acquihire phenomenon.
  
• Getting acquired 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 that everybody on the cap table made money. 
  
• Yes, AI is playing a bigger role here. At least 30% of acquired companies in 2025 have been AI companies (and the percentage has climbed each quarter).

Good luck on your next deal!

For founders - here's how much equity you'll sell to VCs per round:


Seed: 19.5%
Series A: 18%
Series B: 14%
Series C: 10%
Series D: 7.5%

But of course those medians are just the middle of wide distribution ranges. And this data is for software startups only, deep tech companies typically have to sell a little more in the early stages.

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱

• Dilution is one leg of the 3-leg fundraising stool (dilution, valuation, amount raised). You can't really optimize for all 3 at the same time.
  
• Knowing how much cash you truly need to raise makes everything else much easier. That said, knowing that exact figure is anything but easy.
  
• Excessive dilution matters because a) you as the founder may no longer be incentivized to the right level and b) you may not have enough cap table left for future fundraising needs.
  
• On the other hand, refusing a deal that has slightly high dilution simply because it isn't in the middle of these benchmarks is silly. Above all, don't let the company die.
  
• Deals in major venture markets (SF, NY) will often have more competition on the investor side which can increase leverage for the founder.
  
• Startup valuations are a reflection of the math for dilution and amount raised. They are 𝗻𝗼𝘁 reflections of the actual underlying value of the company in most cases.

Last few weeks for selling equity in 2025 starts now!

Fundraising for AI startups in 2025: real world data from thousands of companies.

The startup world has bifurcated over the past year. Fundraising is slow, grueling, and uncertain — unless you're in the AI sunspot, where the dollars flow freely and the ARR seems to drop from the sky.

Data comes from the aggregated pool of more than 10,000 AI startups using Carta for their cap table platform today. All US companies.

𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗤𝟯 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗼𝗻:

• Total funding
• SAFE dilution
• AI funding share
• Dilution by stage
• Graduation rates
• First hire timelines
• AI funding by stage
• AI funding by sector
• Fundraising timelines
• Seed valuation ranges
• SAFE types and terms
• Founder team dynamics
• Seed valuations by sector
• AI vs non-AI early hire equity
• Series A valuations by sector
• Pre-seed SAFE valuation caps
• Series A / B / C ARR data from Silicon Valley Bank

Data for the founders!

Can share a link to the high-res deck in the comments, shout out for one.

Fundraising for AI Startups

The YC deal: $500,000 for 7% of the startup. Is this a good deal?

And yes, I know there are some technical details with the YC deal, it's actually two separate SAFEs, etc. 

But look at the broader data: in 2025, the median equity sold for $500K is indeed 7%.

Meaning the YC deal is very much in line with the market. 

Data below looks at the expected dilution from startups raising on post-money SAFEs so far this year. 

I say expected because if you're raising on SAFEs, you get the money today and you convert the investor into an equity-holder whenever you raise a priced round — which could be tomorrow or 2 years from now.

Big note: most founders do 𝗻𝗼𝘁 do all of these rounds. Do 1, skip all of them, do your own thing!

𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀

1. Dilution tends to grow as the amount raised gets bigger. Fairly obvious that you'll sell more the company for $1 million than you would for $100,000.
   
2. The median is useful, but the ranges across all of these stages are pretty wide. Deals get done at different prices for different people (and yes, it is about the people rather than the business at this stage, by and large).
   
3. If you're raising $1 million today from US VCs, expect to sell around 10% of your startup.
   
4. The round names are mostly just my guesses, but they do reflect the kind of investor involved. Angels play below $500K, pre-seed funds from $500K-$2M, and seed funds about $2M. Lots of line crossing and blurring though.
   
5. I often get the question - "Is YC a good deal"? Obviously it depends on your business and what you need, but on a purely economic basis it's right in line with dilution from a large angel round. Not bad!

Getting ahead of two objections:

• Yes, this data is heavily influenced by AI startups and SF startups. Why? Because there are lot more deals happening in SF.
  
• Founders should not refuse to take a deal with higher dilution if it's the only path towards capital they need. Make the deals you must to keep the business alive!

Shout in the comments for a link to our fresh State of Pre-Seed report with tons more data on the earliest venture companies.

What percent of Series A startups become 10x winners?

Took a spin through 8,647 US companies on Carta that raised a Series A round from VCs. We split the data by the date of the Series A financing.

Then we looked at valuation. How much has the valuation increased for these companies since they raised that Series A round?

In 50% or so of cases, Series A was about as valuable as they would ever get.

But of course it matters how long they've had to mature into higher valuations. For companies that raised A in 2017, a full 22% of them are at least 10x more valuable today. Pretty solid chunk!

You can also clearly see the impact of the last boom cycle around startups which ended in 2022. So the companies that raised A in 2021 have been much less likely to get to 10x or higher from their (honestly inflated) 2021 valuations.

𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳-𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝘀:
• 15% are now 10x more valuable
• 51% are within 2x of the original A valuation

Across all of these years (as of today), there are:

• 97 companies that have grown at least 50x in valuation
• 44 companies that have grown at least 100x in valuation
• 5 that have grown over 500x in valuation

Doesn't mean they have actually exited and returned liquidity to investors, of course. But the massive outliers are out there!

#startups #SeriesA

No, every startup is NOT raising $5M in their first round at a $50M valuation. 

But a tiny few are. And they get a lot of attention.

Data below shows the valuation cap ranges for first rounds on SAFEs over the past 12 months. 

We looked at post-money SAFEs only (by far the most common kind) and didn't include any startups that had raised priced rounds already.

A couple points stand out:

1. Deals are done at all sorts of prices. There is no "right" valuation cap for a tiny startup raising its first round. 
   
2. The valuation cap is dictated by all sorts of factors, but some of the biggest are "who is the founder" and "how in-demand is this business". Hot companies get higher vals.
   
3. The round names below the round sizes are my own guesses and are up for debate 😁

Yes, if you are not in a core venture market like SF, you'll likely be debating at the lower end of the ranges. 

Yes, if you are building an AI startup the valuation cap tends to be slightly higher.

Fundraising is a three-sided equation: cash raised, valuation cap, dilution. Clear expectations around one of the three sides impacts the outcomes of the rest of the equation.

𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗱 / 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗳𝗳 𝗜'𝗺 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴

• Seed investors are definitely seeing more mega-funds come to play earlier and earlier - and strategies might need to shift to continue winning with high credibility founders.
  
• Pre-seed investors may expect some revenue now. Does that make them not actually pre-seed investors? You decide.
  
• "Founders should pivot and experiment more before trying to raise" - something I hear from VCs fairly often. How much experimentation can you do without the overhang of momentum-driven investors?
  
• Fundraising is both 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘇𝗶𝗲𝗱 and 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁.

Good luck out there 🙏

#startups #preseed #seed #founders

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