Thunder

We're a tech-enabled investment bank for founders, by founders. We help companies navigate their capital strategy for acquiring funding to fuel their growth.

Founders: AI-assisted fundraising for companies. Join the network for free to see which investors are more likely to invest in you.

Investors: Access vetted deal flow and invest with no fees direct on cap table

Thunder X Capital, LLC offers securities through Stonehaven, LLC, a Member FINRA/ SIPC.

Managing Director & Founding Partner

Interplay

Operating Partner

PEF Community

Brining together the London PEF community

Chapter Lead

Hustle Fund

Angel Squad Member

Angel Investor & RE/VC/PE LP

Investor / Advisor 

Generation Esports

President & COO

Walmart Technology

Director Of Digital Media

LiquidSky Software, Inc. (Acquired)

Chief Revenue Officer

ConveyIQ by Entelo

VP of Marketing

Misc Small Businesses and Startups

Built, grew, and sold a few small businesses that are still actively running today.

Founder

I'm a serial entrepreneur that has raised $135M+ and has had multiple exits. I'm now on a mission to support founders with their capital strategy and acquire the capital they need to grow their businesses. 

Thunder.vc is a tech-enabled investment bank for founders, by founders.

When it comes to supporting the founders in our Thunder.vc community, here are some free resources that can help you with your capital raising efforts.

 - Fundraising Demystified newsletter - Sign up at http://join.thunder.vc
 - Free list of AI-recommended VCs specific to your business - https://web.thunder.vc/list-of-investors-vcs-for-founders 
 - Free tool to source lending partners for your working capital needs - https://lp.thunder.vc/apply-for-working-capital-for-your-startup-company
 - Private Slack community for founders - Apply to join at https://app.thunder.vc/signup

Jason Kirby

Founders think raising capital is hard.
Try selling your company while running it. ⚙️

If you’re a founder thinking about selling in 2026, here’s your M&A survival guide (from two people who’ve done it the hard way):

5 Steps to Sell Smart - Not Desperate:

1️⃣ Start early. Build relationships with strategics 12–18 months before you plan to sell. Seek partnerships, integrations, and POCs in the early days to build trust and rapport with them.

2️⃣ Know your numbers. Buyers don’t fund dreams; they fund predictability. After a few intro calls you'll know if you're ready or not with the numbers.

3️⃣ Run a process. Competitive tension is your best negotiation leverage. In today’s market, selling to a strategic is harder; that's why you need to prepare for a private equity buyer, it keeps strategics honest and makes them move faster.

4️⃣ Avoid the earnout trap. Structure cash up front. Earnouts sound great, but rarely workout. Maintain control over the KPIs of an earnout or drop the earnout all together.

5️⃣ Control your narrative. Don’t let your board, your VC, or your emotions run the process. If you're not 100% behind the narrative, it will fall apart.

Bonus6️⃣ Don't run a process without help. Selling your company is a full-time job, similar to fundraising, but even harder. As the CEO, you'll be expected to hit your targets. Having a banker or board member leading the process allows you to stay focus and drive momentum on both fronts.
  
If you want to explore M&A and want to pick someone's brain, comment below or send Oliver Low a DM! He leads M&A deals at Thunder.vc and sold his previous company, he knows what it's like to be in your shoes.

4x Exits, $100M+ Raised. Helping founders raise/exit with clarity, control, and conviction.

I just denied an applicant solely because they have a @hotmail email address. Does that make me a bad person?

I'm looking for tech forward partners who have a deep understanding of technology companies. 

If I was one of my clients and saw that the partner that's supposed to competently understand my business had a hotmail account... I'd immediately discount their abilities. That's my justification.

Is that a fair assessment? or am I just an a** hole

If you're a founder looking to hire a PR in the middle of a crisis, it's likely too late and the damage will get worse.

David Meadvin (CEO, One Strategy Group) breaks down why even the best crisis consultants can’t fix what founders don’t already have... trust.

If your reputation isn’t built before the storm hits, you’re in for a rough time.

💡 2 actionable truths from David’s experience:

1. Your reputation is earned long before crisis day. The founders who invest in team trust and transparent communication recover fastest.

2. The calmest person in the room wins. When everyone panics, composure becomes a superpower, and the board will remember it.

Founders: Don’t wait until you’re trending for the wrong reason.
Start building your “reputation reserve” now.

👇 Watch/listen to the full story:

Watch the full video here. Most founders think they’ll never face a real crisis, until they do. In this episode, David Meadvin shares what happens whe

Open article: The $100M founder’s playbook for surviving bad press by Jason Kirby • 2 min read

The $100M founder’s playbook for surviving bad press

I'm hiring a partner to join Thunder.vc... anyone else getting the AI slop applications like these?

Like they're not even trying to mask the AI. I've gotten like 10 of these identical applications via email. Their cover letters make them sound like a perfect fit, but the resume and the past jobs are WAY off, like not relevant at all. And they all say the same thing.

I hope these desperate people aren't paying for a service like this. I've already created a filter to block them.

For those of you hiring, how obvious has been the AI and what are you doing about it?

Spoke my mind on the AI bubble and where I think it's going and shared some personal deal dynamics I rarely mention publicly. Check it out on the The Mergers podcast

Jason Kirby sold his startup for $40M - but only after the CEO of Samsung Electronics went to prison and nearly blew up the deal.

Investors got greedy.

The new Samsung CEO shut everything down.

Jason's team showed up at 9am to celebrate… and there was nothing to announce.

Welcome to the world of venture capital — where founders are often left holding the bag.

This week on The Mergers, Kenneth Kashif Thomas and Rory Mason sat down with Jason Kirby, now founder of Thunder.vc, to hear the wild behind-the-scenes of what really happens when you raise, scale, and try to exit a venture-backed company.

Jason has:

- Raised $100M+, 
- Sold 4 companies
- Advised on $200M+ in founder exits
- Navigated M&A deals with Walmart, Samsung, Verizon... and lived to tell the tale
- Watched VCs ghost founders when they no longer show “breakout velocity”
- Built Thunder VC to help bootstrapped and “orphaned” founders find exits, growth capital, or both

In this episode:

🖊️ What most founders get dead wrong about term sheets, preferences, and secondary sales
🖊️ The dirty secret of management fees and why VCs often win even when startups lose
🖊️ How to create “phantom leverage” when you have no options left
🖊️ Why AI is a bubble — and why that might not matter

If you’re a founder, investor, or operator - you need to hear this

🎧 Listen here: https://lnkd.in/dDCNNsTr
 📺 Watch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eNztGnxG

When Oliver Low sold his startup, he thought he’d hit the dream exit.

Instead, he walked straight into a trap most founders never see coming:

The earnout...

He hit his growth targets, but the parent company missed theirs — and the big payout disappeared.

Nine out of ten earnouts fail for this exact reason.

That’s why, at Thunder, we help founders structure exits, not just chase them.

Here’s the truth no one tells you:

Selling early isn’t losing. It’s creating optionality.

Once you have liquidity, you can take bigger swings, with less risk — and 10x your next outcome.

But you only get there if you understand deal architecture: competitive process, buyer psychology, and clean incentives.

Oliver Low breaks it down in this week’s episode:
 🎧 “How to Sell Your Startup: The Founder’s M&A Playbook”

💡 Tactical takeaways:
- How to avoid the 9/10 earnout failure rate
- Why selling in the fourth inning is often smarter than waiting
- How private equity is changing founder exits forever

Listen on: Youtube Spotify Apple Most founders wait too long to sell and end up losing leverage. In this episode, Jason Kirby and Oliver Low share the

Open article: The M&A playbook for founders in 2025 by Jason Kirby • 2 min read

He left venture capital to help take Life360 from Seed to a $7B public company. 

When Itamar Novick joined Life360, it wasn’t yet the household name it is today. The team was small. The product was early. The vision was big but uncertain. 

Like every early-stage company, there were challenges: 

💬 Raising VC capital was tough. 
💸 The company didn’t have much cash. 
🚀 The future was uncertain. 

But instead of staying in VC, Itamar made the rare move, he joined the founding team, betting his career & his networth on building something lasting. 

Years later, that decision helped shape Life360’s journey to 80M users, $200M+ raised, and a dual listing on the ASX and NASDAQ.

In our latest episode of $100M Exits, Itamar shares: 

🔥 Why he left venture to join a scrappy startup 
🔥 How Life360 scaled from early chaos to IPO readiness
🔥 What founders can learn from dual IPOs and post-IPO growth

Watch the full video here. When Itamar Novick joined Life360, it wasn’t yet a global brand — it was a small, ambitious startup still proving itself. T

Open article: The VC who quit to build a $7B company - Itamar Novick on Life360’s wild ride by Jason Kirby • 2 min read

The VC who quit to build a $7B company - Itamar Novick on Life360’s wild ride

Humans in VC

Writing for a  VC community. 
writing newsletters & podcasts, youtube scripts.

Writer

Humans in Tech

writing to build a tech founder's community. 
Great writing is great thinking.

Stealth Startup

I have seen a great market opportunity which I can easily cash in. 
started taking action over that & building a new startup.

Superskills

I had a great idea to start working on it. shown bravery and started taking action. (executing)
I was building a programme to cater for kids from 5th to 8th grade kids 
helping them build emotional quotient. 

Then I got incubated at COEP's bhau institute, Applied for YC startup school but got rejected. 
Had a team of 5 people with a small office at COEP Bhau building. 

We launched our MVP version and it didn't work out. 
The market that I was in was shrinking. 

It made a lot of sense for me to quit working on this idea. 

Closed this company and started exploring different markets. 

"started reading books on building startups & entrepreneurship "

Stealth Mode

I started my first company while I was still in college. 
Built a team of 10 people. 
Grabbed a contract & made around 1.5 lakhs. (for myself) 
Due to insufficient cash flow couldn't pay the salaries on time. 

I did a terrible job at managing the team 
The biggest lesson I learned was to sharpen the axe before you cut a big tree. 

Failed to build this because I was doing this just to make money. 
Shut down the company and started focusing back on studies and building my skills.

COEP Impressions

Head of Marketing and Public Relations

I am the founder of most famous event " Comiking " in impressions fest. this event is all about standup comedy . it is famous among comics in Pune and Bombay region.

Event founder & organiser 

“Most Silicon Valley-based investors struggle with attracting top-quality founders, limited partners and building a meaningful network on LinkedIn.” 

“The reason is because their content is often too focused on promoting themselves rather than providing value to founders and the industry they operate in. 

They dont post valuable content daily on linkedin which decreases visibility. 
They dont add valuable comments on industry posts which again reduces their chance to be seen as authority. 


This disconnects them from the real pain points founders in their industry face and makes them appear unapproachable.”

“When this happens, founders overlook these investors, causing them to lose out on valuable deal flow and networking opportunities.”


“Until all of a sudden, they’re stuck in a position where they’re only attracting mediocre startups and their influence in the ecosystem dwindles.”


“What I do is 

"I help you Build a high-quality network in the startup ecosystem by ghostwriting 90 LinkedIn posts in 90 days, attracting  top-tier founders and  influential limited partners."

“By publishing 90 posts in 90 days, you will attract  100+  top founders and 75 +  influential investors, growing your network in the startup ecosystem”

“All of which allow you to build the biggest network in Silicon Valley 
which will give you acces to all top tier founder's & game chnaing companies.

Mayur Meshram

We’re hosting a GP/LP Dinner in 
San Francisco on Nov 19 . 

an intimate, (invite-only) evening designed to 
build real relationships that move capital.

This is part of our Humans in VC series : a growing private community of venture capital investors who believe capital flows through trust, and building relationships. 

Hosted by:
George Portillo — CEO, Sushidata (ex-Google)
Mayur Meshram — Writer in Venture Capital space 
Gladys Chiang — Co-founder, Woodpecker AI

Seats are limited to 16.
 
If you’re a fund manager or LP interested in joining
Here is the link : https://luma.com/nq18zz8z

Writer in Venture Capital space | Tech entrepreneur

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The Battle

Jason Kirby

Mayur Meshram

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Performance ScoreJason Kirby's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMayur Meshram's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Jason Kirby

Mayur Meshram

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jason Kirby's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMayur Meshram's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJason Kirby's LinkedIn Performance