I make Pre-Seed to Series B founders successfully fundraise by helping you build your fundraising operating system. | $350m+ raised with founders. | Follow me for tips on fundraising.

I have spent the last 10 years trying to find the "secret" sauce to making you fundraise for your company.

And you know what?

There's no secret. 

It’s just a matter of having: 

- The right preparation & processes
- A clear and concise narrative & storytelling
- Structured relationships built over a long period 

The real "secret", if there's any at all, is that you need to build a system around your fundraise to make sure you do the proper work.

A system means that allows you to: 

- Efficiently build the right relationships with investors and connectors
- Influence investors that YOU are a good bet
- Take them through your process in an efficient manner 

All the while keeping accountability of you doing the boring but important stuff.

During the $400m+ in venture funding I have been a part of, I was able to meet best-in-class  entrepreneurs. 

Some of these entrepreneurs have gone on to raise $100M+ in fundraising each. ​

All of them possessed operating systems for the fundraises. 

I’ve built such a system for fundraising founders. 

And I can help you build yours. 

But as with all things, getting started, maintaining consistency and keeping accountability is easier said than done.

The founders I have helped with their fundraises have gone on to raise $250M+. 

...And I'm doing all of this with a 100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE.

Now, are you serious about building fundraising for your startup? 

Let's make it happen.

(I CAN'T HELP YOU IF YOU HAVE ALREADY STARTED YOUR FUNDRAISE). 

👉🏼 Shoot me a DM, or head over to my featured section & check out our offer.

I'll see you at the top!

Gian Seehra

4 Custom GPTs for fundraising for your startup. 

→ How to get them:

1. Like this post
2. Comment “AI” so I know you're serious

It’s taken me 2 years to structure this the way real fundraises are done. 

To make your fundraise 10x more efficient. 

You’ll get:

1 - GPT that writes your origin story
(Trained on the exact narrative arcs that get investors bought in around your own experiences.)

2 - GPT that builds your pitch deck
(Not just the slides but a story-driven structure that you can use to create an investable deck)

3 - GPT that finds the right investors
(Sourced from hand-built lists, and online so you can find and meet the right investors for you. Bonus: includes warm intro scripts.)

4 - GPT that maps your investor network 
(So you don’t just pitch random people. You build network leverage before you ever ask for a dollar.)

These are for the founders who want to actually prep their fundraise correctly. 

So they don't waste precious time and can actually get the funding they need to successfully build their business.

Raise $1M+ in 90 days with my proven fundraising system. | VC-Backed Founder ($16M) & Tier-1 VC | $400M+ raised with founders. | DM “RAISE” to chat how I can help.

A founder told me to f*ck off when I rejected his Seed startup as a VC. 

(All because I was actually being honest). 

This is what went down. 

I met this founder and we had an intro call. 
At the end of the call I felt it in my gut it was a NO. 

Now here is where I'd do the usual VC thing of: 

"We'll think about it" 
"Sorry we need more traction" 
"You're too early" 

But instead, I decided to be honest. 

I told him that I didn't think he was good enough. 
I tried to be as nice as possible about it. 

(EDIT: I didn't say he 'was not good enough' directly, theres a lot more nuance to what I said, and it was much nicer!)

But he went APESH*T at me. 

Shouting... 
Many swear words... 

Telling me I'm just an idiot. 

He started telling everyone I sucked as a VC. It was going around for a long time. 

I wasn't rude to him at all, just thought I'd be honest. 

Now... 

Here's the problem. 

Every VC who rejects you felt the same way I did about that founder. 

But if they told everyone the truth they'd get a constant line of angry, aggressive founders. 

Just like this founder did to me. 

And I get it... 

And why wouldn't you? 

You are building something every day and know so much about the topic. 

Then: 

• Some random suit spends 30 minutes with you. 
• Doesn't know anything about your industry. 
• Asks stupid questions... 

Only to tell you they think you aren't good enough? 

The optics just don't work. 
So investors resort to fake reasons for why they said no. 

That is the reason you get generic rejections from investors. 

I'm not saying its good. 
But I'm telling you the truth. 

So when you are fundraising make sure investors never feel that. 

Whats the most annoying rejection you got from an investor?

Can I be honest about why those Pre-Seed investors are rejecting you?
 
It’s not traction. No matter how much they say it is.
 
(I know how brutal this sounds, sorry. But it’s the real reason behind the surface reason.)
 
It’s because, in their eyes, you’re not strong enough 𝘺𝘦𝘵 as a founder.
 
Let’s break that down.
 
Over 99% of Pre-Seed investors have funded teams with 𝘯𝘰 traction.  If traction were the gate, most deals wouldn’t exist.
 
Yes, there’s a rare % who do need traction to move. They shouldn't be Pre-Seed investors.

But most of them are just not convinced 𝘆𝗼𝘂 are the one to bet on.
 
Investing into startups is emotions. Gut. "VIBES".

But an investor can't reject you based on "gut feel."
 
So they reach for the fallback excuse: traction.  

Because saying “I didn’t believe in you” sounds cruel.  

Especially when there isn't any evidence at all. 

So its easier to just tell you a white lie. 
 
But the truth is, that same investor who rejected you last week due to you needing "more users/revenue/traction". 

Probably met another founder that same week with 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 traction than you...  

And said yes.  

Because something about 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 felt more inevitable.
 
So please stop getting angry that investors are rejecting you because you need traction. 

And realise its a lie to make it easier on their end.

A founder has NEVER raised a round because of an investor list they got from this platform. 

Please please please stop wasting your time with these. 

You are taking these lists and expecting the world. 

But most of these investors: 

1. Don't invest in your stage or round size
2. Don't invest into your geograp hy
3. Don't invest into your industry
4. Not actively investing

And what makes it even worse... 
You take these lists and think that is "work". 

Patting yourself on the back, telling yourself you've done so much!!

As if you've materially moved your fundraise forward. 

When in fact, you have done NOTHING of benefit. 

The only way to find and meet investor properly is to: 

1. Build an ALIGNED list of investors 
2. Organise your network, then increase it 
3. Map out who are give you warm introductions 
4. Active those introductions at the right time 

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY YOU WILL MEET ENOUGH INVESTORS! 

Period.  

Those 4 steps are the only thing you should be doing everyday if you want to actually fundraise. 

So please stop commenting on someone's AI slop investor lists. 

And do the work that founders who fundraise do. 

What are you finding the hardest when it comes to finding and meeting investors?

The founder of Antrhopic (worth $350BN) setup 22 intros and 21 of them said NO. 

Think about that for a sec... 

A company that is more successful that 99.999% of founders ever will be got rejected by pretty much everyone at the earliest stages.

Yet you think it won't happen to you? 

One of the biggest unlocks for fundraising is understanding that rejection is normal and not necessarily a bad thing. 

You don't need everyone to like you. 

You just need a couple people who believe in your vision.
And you being strongly committed to that vision.

That's how you raise.

But also build something even 1% as successful as Anthropic. 

How do you deal with investor rejections?

Tomorrow, I'm going to jump on with fundraising founders to make sure they ACTUALLY fundraise. 

Wanna join? 

Then comment "WORKSHOP" and I'll send you over the details. 

What's even crazier is its completely free 🤯. 

Come join us! 

P.S. It's getting pretty full already so please sign up quick!

In 2016, I'd failed my 2nd startup due to failing to raise. 
At that point I decided to quit tech all together. 

I then decided to travel to Whistler to become a ski-bum whilst I chose what's next for a "failure like me". 

It wasn't until meeting my future-founders on a gondola did I start my next company. 

Now?

I've raised $16M for two companies I co-founded. 

Helped founders raise over $250M. 

No “manifesting.”
No fake “overnight success.”
Just relentless work.

And the pursuit of finding what makes a fundraise happen. 

People say, “Just wing it”

I call BS.

Everything good thign in life comes when you sit down and actually understand what it takes to do something correctly. 

That preparation is what moves mountains. 

Want to be normal?
Do normal things.

Want to be successful? 
Do what the successful founders do. 

Agree… or is that just insane?

As a VC, the number one question in my head when I opened your deck was simple:

“Do I understand what makes you great?”

If the answer was no, you were finished in under 60 seconds.

Not because I am evil, as much as you want VCs to be. 

In fact, it was because I couldn't build structure in my head that I SHOULD care about. 

So when your deck jumps straight into product on slide 3, it is already dead.

“What if every viewing came with the full picture…”
“What if agents had all of this data…”

Who thef*ck cares? 

I do not know the problem you are really solving.
I do not know why you're better than the rest.
I do not know why you win.

So if you have not made me care before the product, all I see is noise.

And every VC is the same. 

This is a snippet of a roast of a deck I did with a founder. 

Want to get your own deck roasted? 

Comment "ROAST" and I'll send you how to send me your deck to roast myself. 

AND the full video of me roasting this pitch deck.

The biggest problem with pitch decks are that I never know what makes a founder of company great. 

They are generic, one dimensional and lack story. 

So they get put onto the "generic" pile. 

To never be looked at again. 

Below is a snippet of a pitch deck roast I did with a founder last month. 

If you want to get your pitch deck roasted by me, FOR FREE. 

Then comment down below "ROAST" and I'll send you the details. 

P.S. I go very detailed and am VERY direct.

If you uploaded your deck to a VC website and heard nothing back, this is the part no one tells you.

Right now you’re probably telling yourself it’s: 

• The market
• The timing
• That VCs are slow

Maybe they’ll “get to it eventually.” 

That story feels comforting. It’s also wrong.

When you upload a deck into a VC portal, you are not being evaluated neutrally. 

You are walking into the lowest-trust inbox ever. 

When I was a VC, those portals were where the worst decks lived. 

• Wrong stage. 
• Wrong sector. 
• Unfundable ideas. 

Endless nonsense that after opening dozens of those a week, your brain gets trained to expect garbage before you even click.

So when a genuinely good company shows up...
They never got a fair read. 

They inherit the fatigue, the cynicism, and the negative bias created by the last fifty decks.

That’s the part founders don’t want to accept when they upload their deck online. 

You’re not starting from zero.
You’re starting from negative.

And here’s the uncomfortable implication most people avoid saying out loud. 

If your deck is coming through a portal, a VC can immediately tell you don’t have a real network yet.

That signal matters more than your slides.

Uploading a deck to a VC website is not outreach. 

It’s what people do when they don’t know how to access the actual game. 

And once you’ve done it, you’ve already damaged your position without realizing it.

So my blunt advice to you fundraising in 2026.... 

Stop doing it. 

If you’re mid-raise and relying on portals right now, you don’t have a deck problem. 

You have a network and process problem, and pretending otherwise is why you’re stuck.

If this hit a nerve, DM me “NETWORK” and I’ll tell you how to solve this properly.

Most AI tools for fundraising miss the point.

They’re built by people who’ve never actually raised money.

So they focus on surface problems:

• Finding investors
• Writing emails
• Scraping data.

Useful in parts for sure. 
But that's not where fundraises fail. 

The hardest part of fundraising isn’t sourcing names.
Or spamming more investors via cold email. 

It’s building trust in real time.

It’s learning how to: 

1. Lead investor conversations
2. Read subtle signals, and
3. Manage momentum.

And that’s where AI is quietly about to change everything.

For the first time, founders can:

• Practise their pitch against a simulated investor
• Get contextual feedback on tone, pacing and clarity
• Map their structure before a single meeting happens

It’s like running 100 fundraise reps before your first call.

My own AIs are already hitting 80 % of my live sessions. 

Which means founders can now use them between sessions: 

1. To rehearse
2. To refine
3. To rebuild confidence daily

This isn’t about replacing experience.
It’s about compressing it.

The tedious, messy, high-friction parts of fundraising are about to become fast, structured, and learnable.

The human part (trust, emotion, narrative) becomes the main event again.

Would you use this type of AI for your own fundraise if let you use it?

The top 1 hardest part about raising startup funding: 

As a founder you are most likely a domain expert about your industry. 

1. Speaking to customers may seem easy. 
2. Understanding your problem is a given. 
3. Knowing what to do is systemised. 
   
Your founder life is organised and structured to succeed. 

But when it comes to fundraising its the complete opposite. 

And there's a major reason for that. 

You've got to where you are in your founder journey. 
BECAUSE YOU COULD FAIL. 

Those failures made you. 
Sculpted you. 

But with fundraising you don't have that ability. 

You only have one shot at each investor... 
If you fail that shot you fail your raise. 

And because you don't have the ability to fail. 
You have ZERO clue on what you need to do. 

So fundraising feels: 

• Slow 
• Chaotic 
• Unfocused 

You don't have an understand of what matters. 
And what doesn't.

So everything breaks. 

You barely get more than 5-10 investor meetings. 
Those rarely get past the first meetings. 
Your round gets dragged along. 

And suddenly your 6+ months gone... 

Having wasted all this time fundraising with nothing to show for it. 

This is why you need to ACTUALLY understand what you are doing right or wrong in a raise. 

That way you become structured like everything else. 

It's the only way to increase your chances to raise. 

What do you think you're missing in a round?

How many more random people are gonna start posting about how to grow on Linkedin in 2026? 

2025 was crazy how many randos with 2000 followers are doing it. 

For some reason they think they can just copy others and everything will be fine? 

Where's your expertise? 
Where's your love of doing something? 

You just see someone else getting likes so may as well do it as well? 

The scary thing is that I truly think 2026 may just beat it. 

What's your thoughts?

Yasin Ehsan

10x Hackathon Winner | 8x Bootcamp Alum | 2x AWS Patent Owner | Ex-Capital One Chatbot | TEDx Director | Serving CS Undergrads

My focus these days is to support exceptional engineers, operators, and invest in rare founders.

CEO and Co-Founder

We are building the world's first AI professor, Anthony. Anthony will launch students through 5 stages: rook, intern, pro, elite and prime. Our values - intentional, talented and accomplished.

U Waterloo meetup ✅

I am amazed by the drive. 
incredible folks, innovative ideas. 

lots of community to how quickly 
we got 150 under a roof.

yes, we did come to Canada 
in -25 degree weather

but that didn’t stop many
of you guys from coming.

Shoutout waterloo.
Should we make a
“gateway to sf” embassy 
in Waterloo?

PS Thx to Faizan Ahmed, Faizan Syed Shayaan, Muhib, Daniel, Afifa and everyone who made this possible

Yasin Ehsan 🚀

No alternative text description for this image

People of Waterloo. 

I am in your campus. 
Doing a meetup at 4pm sat. 

If you are building, Ill hear 
your pitch. Can potentially invest 
from a16z sr fund or 5 other funds

if you or someone else, wants 
more full time offers, I can 
connect you with series A+ 
founders

If you want to drop out, 
Break into sf tech scene 
but not sure

i am more than happy to 
talk to you. 

Come grab tim hortons
Coffee and cookies
DM me for link

CS Students:

Below is a hiring manager
venting on how new grad 
is not able to maintain code

he praises gen-z, or the 
ai-first junior eng as 
able to ship fast 

but fears the future 
where lacking fundamentals
leads to being confused 
when dealing with bugs

As a CS Student: 
what you can do

1) read deep technical blogs
2) try coding without ai 
3) making a cheat sheet 

Re: READ DEEP 
TECHNICAL BLOGS

yk netflix, LinkedIn
meta, google, nvidia

all have large dedicated 
resourced sharing their
insights and system design

even cooler ones in ai 
like how openai deals 
with memory limitations 

or how X-b2b startup
circumvents some technical
limitations to achieve happy-path

Point is more 
independent reading, 
means better off you’ll be 

re: TRY CODING
WITHOUT AI

this doesn’t mean leave
cluade code and whisper

this means when something 
gets stuck, think WHY 
before rushing to unstuck

try to also ask ai, WHY
it thinks certain code
makes sense 

compare your ideas
with Claude’s ideas 
and be more open to 
eventually trusting yours more

So yah, hiring managers
are skeptical of new grad

But you can be above 
and beyond by doing 


1) read deep technical blogs
2) try coding without ai 
3) making a cheat sheet 

Agree?

Ps Wanna build a GPT 
model from scratch? 

Link for zoom session 
this Thursday 2/5 

led by my roommate 
from yc/tesla ai
in comments

Waterloo recap 🎞️🎥

The 10k-100k smartest
in ai are in san Francisco

in a 2x3mile grid from
north beach to dogpatch
or Cursor office to yc

these are ai researchers, 
engineers, tinkerers, founders
investors and more

Waterloo was an incredible 
experience, many smart 
ideas and people

many feel limited due to
visas and other issues
but dw we will open an 
office in Waterloo

and help folks get the 
o1 visa, get funding or
find a great startup in sf

this just the beginning 
of the things we will do
this year

thank you to everyone 
who came and enjoyed 
our matchas

Cali or bust. Amirite?

A year ago, this was ~15 people in our backyard.

Last night, we had 200 of the top founders, builders, and investors show up to Powell St

All you need is a year to change your life.

Especially when you have a community pushing you forward.

That’s why we believe community is the most important thing for founders.

Thank you to our sponsors and speakers for making this possible.

Amy.      (Bloomberg Beta)
Kaz.       (Serval)
Dmytro (Fireworks AI)
AJ          (Revolut) 
Sam.     (Artisan)
Jaspar. (Artisan)

We hope to see everyone again.

Yours truly,
Powell St

Build a GPT. 

Follow former OpenAI cofounder
Andrej Karpathy's GPT Lecture

​walkthrough of how language models 
work, without libraries or abstractions

start from first principles and 
build a transformer-based model 
from scratch

tokenization, embeddings, self-attention, 
positional encodings, and the full training loop. 

​This workshop will be taught by Saad, 
Co-Founder at Claybird (YC F25), 
previously Tesla Autopilot for 3yrs
also Powell House roommate

Happening this thursday 
Jan 29, 5pm PT on zoom

Interested in joining? 
Comment "GPT" 
or DM me and send link

Code for fun.

most people code for roi
school, work, hackathon

code for the sake of code. 
to tinker, to try, to explore

see whats new, how it feels
what you can integrate

expand your artillery
expand your arsenal 

its easy to feel hesitant
“I am better communicator”
“I am not the best at coding”

its ok. 
still try it. 
give it a go. 

“Passion” or “love” can
grow or come in due time

Not every action has to
happen because “you like it”

I share an example of 
using Clawdbot, a new 
oss executive assistant 
that is blowing up on X

1 year in ai is 7yrs in internet. 
Time to cook is now. 
Shake and bake. 

Agree?
Comment your thoughts.

♻️ Repost for a 
freind to hear this

U Tornoto Meetup ✅

30cm of snow but 
they brought the heat

I am impressed by 
level of thought

My msg today was simple
come to sf

2-3 nights at sf 
and forget

Definitely want to come back
Saw some great folks

Excited to be back again 
In T and UW in Feb

Should we a open
“gateway to sf”
office in canada?

NexHacks montage.

Was fun meeting cs students.
To me one thing was clear:

Everyone has a side project 
in their back pocket.

I dream of a world where 
people bring those to life. 
Use their own ideas to break 
into startup scene. 

To build something of your own 
or join a rocketship 
witness 0-1Mn or 1-10Mn revenue

At Powell St 9 roommates got into yc, 
7 into a16z.
We are happy to help you 
get your break, live with us


Our next powell event is tonight, 
200 RSVPs ft early 
stripe and discord mafia.

There’s not much time, 
so make this your time. 
Come to sf.

Agree?

Cc Faizan Syed
Vid Junaid Faizal

People of Stanford. 

Me and Cory Levy will be on campus. 
Doing a meetup 6pm this wednesday. 

If you are building, Cory can hear 
your pitch. He can invest from 
his fund or I can invest from a16z SR Fund

if you or someone else, wants 
to coffee chat with series A+
SF founders, he and I can connect you 

If you want to drop out, 
Break into sf tech scene 
but not sure

we are more than happy to 
talk to you. 

Come grab a matcha
Coffee and cookies
DM me for link

Hiring a founding designer.

Headstarter has partnered 
with Google, Polymarket
and top sf companies 

we built a platform thats
engineers-first to highlight 
the best work of engineering
and creativity

where the very best ideas
get ranked and voted

Behind the scenes
for our customers

we rank their own candidates
and share feedback 
from candidates 
about how they felt

i believe the best 
engineers run the world.
help me make this 
one step closer to reality 

share video with someone 
who is looking for UI/UX
role at a startup

Apply here: https://lnkd.in/em8sRTD4

Stripe Mafia Event. 

Powell events have 
been a great way to 
meet top sf founders.

Hosting a private Powell St event 

Ft Dmytro, founding team Pytorch at meta now cto of Fireworks AI ($4bn valuation)

Ft @jasper from artisan building the ai sdr, responsible for iconic billboards in sf 

And with 200 engineers this might be our largest event yet. 

DM if you want an invite. SF 7pm

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