Table of Contents

• 👉🏻 Introduction

• 💰 Deals done this week

• Today's Deep Dive: Distribution is the Ultimate Mo …

• Want some 121 time with me?

• 🤖 AI in fundraising

• Interesting Things I Read

• Founders’ Guidelines

• About Raise Like a Pro

👉🏻 Introduction

I’m a firm believer that velocity of growth is the only real defensive moat in the age of AI.

You only have to look at Lovable ($100m ARR in 8 months) and ElevenLabs ($200m < 3 years/ 260% growth in 1 years) to see that; especially when it’s so easy to build your own version of what’s out there using vibe/no-code tools.

That means a killer GoToMarket (GTM strategy) and some secret distribution superpower.

But most founders have no idea what a good GTM looks like and often confuse it with distribution.

Well no longer intrepid folk!

Today we unpick the difference between the two and how to make them work for you.

💰 Deals done this week

• Fyxer AI, a London-based productivity startup building an AI-powered executive assistant for everyday professionals, raised €25.5M in Series B funding to expand in the US and enhance natural language chat capabilities. (Read)

• Factris, an Amsterdam-based FinTech providing invoice financing solutions for SMEs, secured a €100M funding facility from Brand New Day Bank to scale factoring services across Europe. (Read)

• Proxima Fusion, a Munich-based fusion energy spinout from the Max Planck Institute, added €15M to its Series A, bringing total funding to €200M to accelerate HTS stellarator hardware development. (Read)

• Mistral AI, Paris-based developer of large language models, raised €1.7B in Series C led by ASML, nearly doubling its valuation to €11.7B and cementing its position as Europe’s leading AI contender. (Read)

• Tipple, a Dublin-based startup modernising the global alcohol supply chain, raised €4M in Seed funding to replace outdated trade systems with a scalable digital platform serving 500+ brands, including Diageo and Brown-Forman. (Read)

Today's Deep Dive: Distribution is the Ultimate Moat

You can have the most brilliant product in the world; a truly game-changing piece of technology that is a massive painkiller. But if you can't get it into the hands of the people who need it, you have nothing. It’s as simple as that. As investors, we see it all the time; a fantastic team with an amazing product gets absolutely trounced by a competitor with a better distribution strategy and worse product.

Right now, the stakes have never been higher. The rules of the game haven't changed – you still need customers to build a business and growth to raise capital – but the arena has. The pace is insane. Today’s most successful startups are hitting $100m in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in less than nine months. The following year, they’re practically tripling in size. They’re doing this with remarkable efficiency, often generating more new revenue than the cash they burn.

This speed and efficiency mean you can’t afford to wait. You need to think about your distribution strategy from the moment you start building your company. It's no longer a "nice-to-have" or a problem to solve once the product is ready. It's a core part of the founding process.

So, what are these founders doing differently?

Distribution vs. Go-to-Market: What's the Difference?

Before we get into the "how," let’s clear up the language. People often use "distribution" and "go-to-market" (GTM) interchangeably, but they aren’t the same thing.

Think of distribution as the plumbing. It’s the specific set of channels you use to consistently reach your target customers and convert them into users. These are the actual pathways your product travels, whether it’s through direct sales, content, partnerships, or community building. Distribution answers the question: "How do we get our product in front of the right people, time and time again?"

Your go-to-market strategy, on the other hand, is the full architectural blueprint. It’s the complete plan for how you’ll win in the market. It includes everything from who you’re selling to (your target audience), how you’ll position your product, your pricing model, and yes, which distribution channels you'll use. Distribution is a crucial component of your GTM strategy, not the other way around.

The Problem With a Great Product

We’ve all heard the myth that if you build a great product, people will just come. That might have worked in a less crowded, less competitive world, but it simply doesn't anymore. A superior distribution strategy can and will beat a comparable product every single time. It's a tale as old as time in the world of startups.

Just look at the classic case of Gong vs. Clari. Both companies developed powerful software for sales teams. The products were similar, but Gong's aggressive and brilliant GTM execution, powered by a brand that felt both powerful and helpful, made them the undisputed leader. They didn’t just outsell Clari; they fundamentally defined a new software category and positioned their competitor as a mere alternative.

This dynamic is even more pronounced in the world of AI. A startup can generate massive early buzz, but within a few months, it's often surpassed by a competitor who has nailed a specific viral loop or distribution channel. In today's market, the company that figures out how to reach the customer best is the one that wins. It really is that simple.

The most successful founders have a distribution-first mindset. They treat it as an integral part of the product from day one. They build a playbook before they even think about hiring a sales team.

The "One Channel" Playbook

So, what does this playbook look like in practice? The founders who nail distribution early on don't try to be everywhere at once. They find one, maybe two channels, and absolutely dominate them. They build a strategy that’s laser-focused on their customers.

Take a company we saw that sells software to plumbers. They quickly realised their customers weren't on LinkedIn – they were in very specific, niche Facebook groups. Instead of running a generic content campaign, the founders embedded themselves in these communities. They shared trade-specific memes, offered genuinely helpful advice, and became trusted admins. They built a pipeline (pun intended!) that felt authentic, not like a sales funnel.

Or another founder who identified the second most popular podcast in their industry. Instead of just buying a few ads, they brought the host on as an advisor in exchange for a tiny bit of equity. Overnight, that podcast became an organic, trusted lead-generation channel that no amount of marketing spend could have replicated.

Finding your "one channel" isn't a marketing problem; it’s a customer-understanding problem. If you don't know where your customers live, what they worry about, and who they trust, you don't know them well enough yet. The right channel is a direct reflection of your customer's daily reality.

Are you selling to restaurant owners? They live on the phone and in their kitchens, not in their email inbox. Your playbook is calling them directly, or maybe showing up in person.

Are you targeting pharma leaders? They're on LinkedIn trying to understand how AI will impact their industry. Your playbook is to become the go-to thought leader answering that exact question.

It all starts with radical customer specificity. Find out where they spend their time, what keeps them up at night, and who they listen to. Then, build a strategy to meet them there in a way that provides immediate, undeniable value.

A 5-Step Framework for Finding Your Channel

Here’s a simple framework we've seen work time and again for finding and winning that first distribution channel.

1. Become an expert on your customer. Go deeper than demographics. You need to obsessively understand your customer's world. Where do they spend their time, online and offline? Who do they trust for advice? What podcasts are they listening to? How do they actually make buying decisions?

2. Find your arena. Once you know where they are, find a channel where you can realistically win. It doesn’t have to be some undiscovered secret, but it should be a place where competitors are weak or where your unique approach can cut through the noise.

3. Craft your hook. You need a compelling value proposition that is specifically tailored for that channel. This isn't your company tagline; it's the "hook" that will grab their attention in that specific context. For example, a startup helping medical spas used a hook that showed them the exact search traffic they were losing to competitors.

4. Deliver in-channel value. Provide unique value within the channel itself, before asking for anything in return. Create a high-signal community, offer proprietary data, or share incredibly relevant insights. Give them a reason to pay attention, to trust you, and to engage.

5. Go all-in, then expand. Once a playbook is working, double down until you see diminishing returns. Master it and own it completely. Only then should you consider expanding to a new channel.

A common question we hear is whether it's better to go where no one else is. Not necessarily. The goal isn't to find an empty channel; it's to find a channel where you can win. Sometimes that means entering a crowded space but with a more creative and specific approach. While your competitors are fighting over broad keywords, you can win by dominating a niche Facebook group, owning a hyper-local search term, or becoming the go-to expert at a small industry event. The question isn't "Where can I be first?" but rather, "Where can my unique approach allow me to build authority the fastest?"

The Final Verdict

Ultimately, this all creates a classic carrot-and-stick scenario for founders.

The Stick: The expectations for growth are higher and faster than ever before. You can no longer afford to "figure out" your go-to-market strategy after you’ve built your product. A sharp, deliberate plan for distribution from day one is now a requirement for survival.

The Carrot: You have more powerful tools, data, and creative channels at your disposal than any generation of founders before you. Small, scrappy teams can now run plays that used to require a Series B funding round and a full marketing department.

The founders who win in this era will be those who see this reality clearly. They will identify one high-impact channel early on and execute on it with relentless focus. In a world where technology is a commodity, distribution is the ultimate moat. It’s what we, as investors, look for when evaluating a company. It’s what separates the winners from the rest.

Want some 121 time with me?

I've recently been taking a whole bunch of calls from founders all over the world where either I don’t have the time to work fully on their raise—or just need some specific targeted advice around different areas of their fundraising campaign, be it GTM, market sizing, pitch deck, or whatever.

I've now opened up additional slots, which you can book here.

🤖 AI in fundraising

Fundraising is undeniably time-intensive and often pulls focus from the critical work of building your business. The good news? The landscape of AI tools is rapidly evolving, offering increasingly sophisticated ways to save precious time – whether you're summarising investor requests, meticulously preparing for meetings, or streamlining the management of due diligence materials.

This week, I've been diving into a few platforms that have truly impressed me with their potential to be game-changers for any fundraising effort:

FE Capital – Positioned as a comprehensive AI-powered fundraising stack, FE Capital integrates investor CRM, automated outreach, and fundability scoring into a single workflow. Founders can track deal progress in real-time while leveraging AI to refine targeting and messaging. It’s particularly useful for early-stage teams that lack dedicated fundraising infrastructure but want institutional-grade tracking and analytics.

DeepFlows – Designed with both founders and VCs in mind, DeepFlows applies AI to streamline capital raising and due diligence. Its secure data-sharing and AI-assisted analysis reduce the friction of investor updates, Q&A, and diligence prep. By automating repetitive requests and surfacing key insights, it frees founders to spend less time in data rooms and more time on strategy and growth.

My NEXT Raise – A founder-first platform that blends multiple AI tools into one fundraising hub. It covers everything from generating investor-ready decks and AI-powered data rooms to financial runway calculators and dilution modeling. Layered on top is an investor-matching engine and access to curated funder events, making it not just a tool but a broader fundraising ecosystem for early-stage founders.

Interesting Things I Read

CoreWeave launches venture arm targeting AI startups 

Following its IPO, cloud AI firm CoreWeave unveiled CoreWeave Ventures, offering startups not only capital but access to its high-performance computing infrastructure, blending equity and service-for-equity models. (Read)

European deep tech and defence startups see record investments 

Policymakers and VCs have flooded the sector with €1.4 billion raised in the first seven months of 2025 alone, up from just €30 million in 2020, as security concerns and battlefield tech adoption ramp up. (Read)

Healthtech funding bounces back, thanks to AI

Healthtech VC in the US and Europe rebounded to $7.9 billion in H1 2025. AI-driven tools, such as patient monitoring, insurance automation, and virtual care, are now central to the comeback, signaling a more investor-attuned space with stronger exit potential. (Read)

Founders’ Guidelines

• A Founder’s Guide to SAFEs – Clear breakdown of pre-money vs. post-money SAFEs, key terms like valuation caps, and how to avoid messy dilution.
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• Top 10 VC Pitch Mistakes – Why most decks fail before slide 5, with practical fixes on problem framing, GTM strategy, and investor ROI.
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• 12 Questions VCs Ask Before Passing – A candid look at the unspoken checklist investors use when evaluating pitches.
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• Pre-Seed vs. Seed – Practical guide to knowing which round you’re really raising, including traction, valuation, and investor types.
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• The $0 Billion Pitch Deck Checklist – Six investor tests your deck must pass, from the Hook Test to Use of Funds clarity.
  🔗 View post

About Raise Like a Pro

Raising a funding round isn’t rocket science. It’s not even brain surgery. But it's incredibly time-consuming, HARD and emotionally challenging.

As a founder, your time is better spent building product, finding product-market fit, signing up customers, and building your team. Yet fundraising demands an enormous amount of your attention and energy.

I've witnessed countless founders struggle with this balance. They get stuck in the cycle of endless pitch meetings, confusing feedback, and the dreaded "no's" that seem to pile up without explanation. Even successful companies like Canva, now valued at $25.5 billion, started with their CEO Melanie Perkins hearing "no" over 100 times before getting that crucial first "yes."

My promise to you

Every piece of advice in this newsletter comes from actual experience: deals I've closed, terms I've negotiated, and strategies I've refined through real-world application.

I'm not here to give you startup platitudes or generic advice. Instead, you'll get practical, actionable tactics that you can implement immediately in your fundraising journey. This is the playbook I use each and every day to help founders all over the world raise money from investors all over the world.

The type of things we have and will continue to cover:

• The actual processes I use to close deals.

• Step-by-step morning routines for effective fundraising.

• Real email templates that get responses.

• Meeting scripts that convert to term sheets.

• Pipeline management techniques that close deals.

• The stuff you really need to know so you don’t get screwed by investors.

The goal? To help you raise money faster, at better valuations, while protecting your interests and your time.

– David

Raise like a Pro is what David Levine does every single day though this business Glenluna Ventures. An exited founder, he raises money each and every day for founders all over the world from investors all over the world.