Raising capital isn’t just hard — it’s confusing.
You hear “traction,” “story,” “market size,” but no one explains what investors actually look for.
That’s why I’m built Next Round and this newsletter, Founder’s Edge — to make the fundraising process transparent, and to make access something you can earn through knowledge, not just network.
Our goal is simple: help 100 founders get closer to their next round. Every tool, every interview, and every piece of content here is designed to make that possible.
Piece 1: The Investors
I’ve been speaking to founders for nearly two years now. Sometimes its at events. Other times we’re on Reddit or in private communities. After so many conversations about founder success, there are problem patterns I see often. Access might be the biggest issue.
Yes, there are several services and agencies out there who work with startups. They all want founders paying them anywhere between $1,000 and $15,000 for insight about some topic. Want your question answered? Well have you gotten funding? This system is backwards. Most founders need the help to get to the funding!
I really want to change this. I believe that helping founders connect to the right investors is the key. The investors are elusive. Venture capitalists are hard to reach, no matter what time of day or year. Even angel investors are hard to find and connect with. Unless you have a signal that you’re someone above the rest, its difficult to break through the noise.
We’re breaking this cycle. Instead of leaving founders with the spray and pray method or hopeless for investment connection, our plan is to make direct connections. Next Round is already connected to 100+ investors from pre-seed to series A across several verticals. The foundation is set.
Piece 2: The Founders
You can get “founder insight” anywhere. There are books, courses, workshops, and pitch competitions nearly everyday. We don’t want to just give you more information. When all you have is information, everything becomes slop.
Our goal is to give founders clear tactics to get results. We don’t care about having the most subscribers to the newsletter or the most downloads on the podcast. Our results come from helping founders connect with investors and getting deals closed.
This won’t cost founders anything. If your startup is venture scalable and you’ve started getting results, make sure you connect. We want to give you spotlight on our Deal Flow newsletter full of investors that fit your focus.
Piece 3: Intros and Deals
Now here’s the magic. We all know that warm intros help you win in the capital raising world. So imagine if your startup was being mention to top investors by someone already connected to the investor? That’s what we’re doing here with Next Round. While we don’t offer guarantees, we’re already helping founders get introductions and seeing deals make progress. (Can’t get too detailed just yet.) We’ll always share our founder wins here on the newsletter and on the site under “brand story”.
What’s Next?
We’ve got some huge things planned. Here’s a few:
Monthly live sessions with startup experts across the world. We’ll be covering topics like legal, team building, cap table details and a lot more!
Resources and tools to make your life easier as a founder. We’ll be collaborating with some popular brands so you can save money and time.
Local dinners! In 2026, we’ll be doing dinners with investors and founders. The difference with our events will be connection. No, this won’t be a conference of thousands of people. Our dinners are much more focused on building real relationships and getting deals done.
Make sure you join the list so you don’t miss out!