Table of Contents

• 👉🏻 Introduction

• 💰 Deals done this week

• Today's Deep Dive: What Does It Mean to Be Venture …

• Want some 121 time with me?

• 🤖 AI in fundraising

• Interesting Things I Read

• Founders’ Guidelines

• About Raise Like a Pro

👉🏻 Introduction

One thing that worries me is that I see a lot of founders who almost act entitled to getting funding simply because they are raising a round. The reality is they're not entitled to it—they need to understand what a VC actually does, what they're really concerned with, and the type of deal they look to invest in.

Fundamentally, they misunderstand what "venture scale" truly means. Venture scale means a business that can scale at the rate venture capitalists (i.e. people who invest in outlier risk) want to see.

This week, I'm going to unpick this in quite some detail. It's pretty much August, and so many investors are away. I have less calls on my diary, and I've been binge listening to Harry Stebbings and 20VC podcasts. So my brain's been firing and you get to bear the brunt.

Read the full article below on what it means to be truly venture scale.

💰 Deals done this week

• Tzafon, a Stockholm-based AI startup building autonomous agents, closed a €8.3M pre-Seed round—Sweden’s largest to date—to scale compute and launch its first agent, Lightcone. Backers include HV Capital, Kakao Ventures, and angels from OpenAI and xAI. (Read) 🇸🇪 🤖

• Psylink, a Vilnius-based biotech startup creating plant- and fungi-inspired mental health treatments, raised €500K+ in pre-Seed funding from Coinvest Capital, FIRSTPICK, BSV, and angels. (Read) 🇱🇹 🧠

• Tilla, a Berlin-based maritime tech company optimizing global crew logistics, secured €2M from Motion Ventures and Exmar to expand its Blue Economy platform. (Read) 🇩🇪 🚢

• LIfT BioSciences, a UK/Irish biotech startup pioneering neutrophil immunotherapies, received a €12M grant—the largest ever from Ireland’s DTIF—to scale research with the University of Galway and Hooke Bio. (Read) 🇬🇧🇮🇪 🦠

• Delian Alliance Industries, a Greek defence tech startup founded by a former Apple roboticist, raised $14M to scale its drone and surveillance systems for security applications. (Read) 🇬🇷 🛡️

Today's Deep Dive: What Does It Mean to Be Venture‑Scale?

“Your startup isn’t really venture-scale.”

If you’re building a company and trying to raise funding, chances are you’ve heard this from an investor - maybe without much explanation. So let’s talk about it properly. In plain English, being venture-scale means your startup has the potential to become massive, and to do it fast.

Not every good business fits that mould, and that’s perfectly fine. But if you’re trying to raise venture capital, you’re entering a specific game. The rules of that game are built around chasing outliers - companies that grow to be worth billions. So what exactly does “venture-scale” look like in 2025?

The Big Traits of Venture-Scale Startups

1. You’re Going After a Monster Market

The market you’re targeting needs to be big - really big. If you’re only solving a problem for a few thousand people, or your market caps out at a few million quid a year, you’re not playing the venture game. Investors want to see you going after a market worth billions - with a plan to capture a meaningful chunk of it.

Rule of thumb: is there a clear path to >£100m in annual revenue if you win? If not, you’ll struggle to get VCs interested, no matter how smart your product is.

2. You Can Scale Fast Without the Wheels Falling Off

The word “scalable” gets thrown around a lot, but here’s what it really means: you can grow the business without your costs rising at the same rate.

A classic example is software. You can serve your hundredth or thousandth customer for barely more cost than your tenth. That’s very different from, say, a services business where growth means hiring more people. The best venture-scale startups are the ones where margins improve as you grow.

VCs are looking for signs that your model can scale like this - ideally with technology, automation, and/or network effects doing the heavy lifting.

3. You’re Already Showing Real Traction

In early-stage rounds, investors don’t expect you to be huge - but they do want to see signs that you’re on your way. Fast growth in user numbers, revenue, or retention? Tick. Customer waitlists, referrals, or virality? Big tick.

They’re looking for momentum - the kind that makes them believe that once you throw fuel on the fire (i.e. capital), the whole thing could blow up in a good way.

Here’s the harsh truth: growing 20-30% a year might be amazing in normal business land, but in VC land, that’s nothing special. They’re hunting for the 3×, 5×, 10× growth curves. It’s unreasonable - but as my kids say #thegamesthegame.

4. You’re a Team That Can Go the Distance

Venture-scale startups often end up with hundreds of employees, international offices, and all the complexities that come with it. So investors are looking at you and asking: “Can this founder go from Chief Everything Officer to CEO of a 500-person company?”

They’re betting on you as much as on the idea. That means showing you’re coachable, resilient, focused, and capable of attracting other great people to build with you.

If you’ve never built a company before, that’s not a dealbreaker - but you need to show the attitude and trajectory that suggest you’ll grow with the company.

5. You’re Building Something Investors Actually Want

This bit is easy to overlook. Not every venture capital firm invests in every type of business. Some only back SaaS, others go deep on fintech, others want climate tech, or AI, or healthcare.

So your startup might technically be venture-scale - but still not a fit for certain VCs. That’s fine. But it’s on you to figure out who aligns with what you’re building. Don’t waste your time pitching a consumer app to a fund that only backs deep tech.

Also: don’t twist your business to fit this week’s hype cycle. The hot sector will change, but good fundamentals never go out of fashion.

6. There’s a Plausible Exit Story

VCs only make money when your company exits - usually by being acquired or going public. So at some point in your journey, you need to convince them that a big exit is possible.

You don’t need a 10-point exit strategy on day one, but you do need a narrative. Could this business eventually go public? Could it be acquired by a giant for £1B+? If not, there’s no path to the kind of return VCs need to justify the risk.

What IPO Readiness Looks Like in 2025

One of the cleanest indicators of “venture-scale” is whether your business could go public one day - and what that would realistically require.

Back in the 2010s, companies could go public with £100M - £200M in annual revenue. Twilio, Etsy, and others listed with numbers in that range and got solid market traction.

Now? That’s child’s play.

In 2025, if you want to IPO with real institutional support, you’re looking at:

• £500m minimum in annual revenue.

• >£700m ideally, with a clear path to £1b within 18 months.

• A target valuation of £5b-£10b (minimum) to get analyst coverage and serious institutional interest.

Put simply: the bar has gone way up. If you’re not projecting a path to half a billion in sales, your IPO dreams probably aren’t realistic - and any investor backing you will factor that in.

So What Does That Mean for Early-Stage Founders?

Don’t panic. No one’s expecting you to have £500M in revenue when you’re raising a seed round.

At early stage, it’s all about the shape of your curve. Do you have signals - even small ones - that suggest your growth could be explosive? Are your early users obsessed? Are your conversion and retention numbers off the charts?

Also: are you telling a story that connects the dots from today to IPO-scale? You need a narrative that’s ambitious but credible - “we’re building this thing now, but here’s how it gets to £100M+ revenue in a few years.”

Venture capital is forward-looking. You’re selling potential. But it has to be grounded in logic, numbers, and execution.

UK vs US: Same Ambition, Different Playing Fields

In the UK, the venture scene is smaller and a bit more conservative than the US - but the expectations are starting to match.

There’s still a gap: the US has hundreds more unicorns, deeper capital pools, and a more active IPO pipeline. But the UK is catching up, and the most ambitious UK startups are now playing on global terms from day one.

Founders here know they’ll probably need to win not just the UK market, but Europe or the US too. And that’s reflected in the kinds of stories they’re telling to raise capital - big, global, audacious.

If you’re a UK founder pitching VCs in 2025, you should assume the venture-scale bar is the same as Silicon Valley’s. And if you’re playing the game, you should aim to exceed it.

Why VCs Care So Much About Scale: The Power Law

This is where it all comes together.

Venture capital is built on what’s called the power law. Out of 20 companies a VC backs, 1 or 2 of them will drive most of the returns. The rest? They’ll either fail, stall, or sell for modest amounts that barely move the needle.

That means VCs are swinging for the fences. Every investment needs to have the potential - not the certainty, but the potential - to be a billion-pound-plus exit.

That’s why a VC might pass on a great £10M business growing steadily, but throw money at a money-losing company that’s growing like crazy. They’re not looking for safe wins. They’re looking for outliers.

This model drives a lot of VC behaviour that can seem irrational from the outside - aggressive growth expectations, “growth at all costs” attitudes, and the obsession with valuation milestones. But it’s how the maths works.

If they’re running a £200M fund, they need to believe at least one company in their portfolio could return £1 billion or more. If your company doesn’t have a path to get there, you might be a great business - but not a great venture investment.

The Last Word

Being venture-scale isn’t about hype, buzzwords, or chasing trends. It’s about whether your business has the DNA to become huge, fast.

It’s about markets that can handle £100M+ businesses. Models that scale beautifully. Teams that can lead through chaos. Traction that hints at a rocket ship. And a story that makes VCs say, “If this works, it’ll be a monster.”

If that’s the kind of company you’re building, go raise capital and swing hard. But if not - that’s also totally fine. Plenty of life-changing businesses are built outside the venture track. Just be honest with yourself about which game you’re playing - and build accordingly.

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:

Finta (Aurora) is an AI-powered fundraising copilot that automates investor CRM tasks, enriches contact data, writes hyper-personalized outreach emails, surfaces warm intros, and helps founders share smart due diligence links and deal rooms efficiently.

Altss is an OSINT-powered LP discovery engine built for founders raising institutional capital, delivering real-time mandate tracking, allocation signals, and segmentation across over 1.5 million verified LP profiles to help you pitch the right allocators at the right time.

Raizer is an AI-powered matchmaking and outreach tool that connects founders with a global database of 50K+ investors using curated lists and automated email drafting, enabling one-click pitch delivery and faster fundraising workflows 

Interesting Things I Read

Global VC Funding Redefines the Market in H1 2025
Total venture investment reached $205b in H1 2025, up 32% YoY, but was highly concentrated: 34% of that total went to just 11 companies raising billion‑dollar rounds. This underscores a bifurcation between mega‑round favorites and broader startup ecosystems struggling to attract early‑stage capital.(Read)

Mega‑Deals & IPO Rebound on the Horizon, If You Can Wait
Despite sluggish deal‑count activity, average late‑stage deal sizes surged (~$270m), and firms expect an uptick in exits as IPO windows reopen—especially with regulatory headwinds easing. M&A activity has already climbed ~155% YoY in H1. (Read)

Geopolitical Risk and Structural Inequality Are Shaping VC
Geopolitical uncertainty ranked as the top concern for VCs globally, while gender funding gaps persist—female-founded startups still raise significantly less capital, exacerbated by systemic factors. Founders need to take control of narrative and network. (Read)

AI as the Greatest Source of Empowerment for All
OpenAI argues that AI tutors now enable users to learn twice as effectively as traditional classroom settings, and that AI tools are levelling the global playing field by democratising knowledge, healthcare access, and creativity. For founders, this vision underscores opportunity: build AI tools that empower rather than extract. (Read)

Founders’ Guidelines

• 5 Exit Paths Every Founder Should Know
  From strategic M&A and ESOPs to clean wind-downs—there’s more than one way to exit well. Start planning early to avoid panic later. Read the post

• The Venture Capital Method, Explained
  This is how VCs actually value your startup—using IRR, ownership targets, and back-solved IPO outcomes. Know the model, shift the power. Read the post

• CLTV:CAC—The Metric Investors Care Most About
  Strong unit economics signal product-market fit. Learn how to calculate (and defend) a healthy CLTV:CAC ratio. Read the post

• Cap Table Mistakes That Kill Deals
  Confused about pre- vs post-money? Don’t know your prefs from your dilution? This breakdown makes VC math founder-friendly. Read the post

• Why Exit Planning Is a Strategy, Not an Afterthought
  Your cap table, hiring plan, and growth targets should align with your likely exit. Start with the endgame in mind. Read the 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.