Alessio Alionco: “You Need to Stand Out to Get a Seed or a Series A Round”

When pitching your startup, you have to be aware that any VC will want to help, but also know how to say no to proposals, adds Rodrigo Baer, from SoftBank

Standing out.
April 04, 2022 | 02:51 PM

A founder needs to stand out and do anything to increase their odds of having a good awareness when pitching their startups to potential VCs, says Alessio Alionco in a class for the second season of SoftBank Group Operator School (SBOS).

The co-founder and CEO of Pipefy, a startup that helps companies design and manage sound workflows, says a great weapon for startups is to show how different you are from other companies probably aiming for the same money.

Investors invest in movies, not pictures, says Alionco, emphasizing, in his view, the human factor that leads VCs to put their money into firms with great characters.

He says that investors who put their money in his pre-seed were investors that knew him from his previous company when they decided to pass because the business was bad, but now they chip in.

PUBLICIDAD

For his part, Rodrigo Baer, managing partner at SoftBank Latin America Fund Early Stage, says founders should understand a VC’s point of view in the decision-making process, how to organize and run the fundraising process, and how to choose the right investors for an Early Stage company.

In this chapter of the second season of SBOS, Baer and Alionco draw a good chart of what to do when seeking your first Seed or Series A round:

  • Stand Out
  • Get recommendations
  • Assess the fit
  • Show metrics and performance
  • Create relationships
  • Loopback

See more master classes by SBOS here.