Raise Your Seed Round Like a Pro
“Once I learned how to confidently and quickly raise investor funding for my ideas, it unlocked my power and creativity to think bigger and go bigger in life. I created Fundraising Mastery to take others down this same path”.
“Raising money can be frustrating and laborious, or it can be quick and smooth. Like a sherpa helping you climb Mt. Everest we enjoy guiding and supporting entrepreneurs on the journey to master this strange art, so you can close your round and put a dent in the universe.”
~ Will Sacks,
Fulcrum Founder
“Once I learned how to confidently and quickly raise investor funding for my ideas, it unlocked my power and creativity to think bigger and go bigger in life. I created Fundraising Mastery to take others down this same path”.
“Raising money can be frustrating and laborious, or it can be quick and smooth. Like a sherpa helping you climb Mt. Everest we enjoy guiding and supporting entrepreneurs on the journey to master this strange art, so you can close your round and put a dent in the universe.”
-Will Sacks,
Fulcrum Founder
Paul Gambill, CEO, Nori ($18.7M raised so far)
Fundraising Mastery is a comprehensive fundraising support program for funded founders. The program is an intensive bootcamp designed to help you successfully raise as much investor capital as you need to seed your company.
If you have already met with success in other areas of life, and are now looking to massively up-level your results in the area of fundraising. This program was designed for you.
Malcolm Woods
CEO, FareUpThere
“Fulcrum isn’t just theory, it doesn’t speak in hypotheticals, this is the no-bullsh*t step by step guide to getting funded. Over the past 90 days, I’ve realized how much time I’ve wasted doing things the absolute wrong way.
Tired of going unnoticed and overlooked, I sort of discovered the program out of desperation. But now that despair is certainty and confidence. I know exactly what to say in investor meetings and how to say it. I recommend this program for anyone looking to shave months or even years off their fundraising goals.”
Fundraising Mastery includes group calls, one on one strategy calls and a program of skill building to walk founders through the fundraising process and execute on their raise.
The program is perfect for founders who want to avoid wasting time and execute on their fundraise thinking and acting like a pro.
Graduates of Fundraising Mastery are able to raise more money in less time from better investors on better terms
In Fundraising Mastery you will learn:
- Why most founders struggle with raising money, and how to stand above the rest and succeed.
- A proven process that makes raising simple and smooth.
- The winning psychology of fundraising and how to apply it to your process.
- How to set your valuation and how to know how much to raise.
- Dilution, liquidation preferences and other “gotchas” founders need to know about.
- When, why and how to officially launch your raise for best results.
- How to identify, meet and close angel and VC investors on your vision.
- How to center yourself on your vision and run a process that gets investors excited to invest.
- The most effective and efficient ways to meet investors and get high quality introductions.
- How to run initial and followup investor meetings.
- Rookie fundraising mistakes and how to avoid them.
- And most importantly… everything you need to know and do to get cash in the bank
Program Structure
The program is structured to maximize learning and application of what you learn into your actual business and your actual fundraise. This is a hands-on program. The structure is as follows:
1. Bi-weekly live session video calls with Q&A section (Thursdays from 10-11:30 MT)
2. Bi-weekly office hours with Fulcrum experts (and guests) to get your questions answered and work through execution.
3. Bi-weekly 1 on 1 strategy calls (scheduled when it works for you).
4. Weekly group calls with other program CEOs to build your network, provide accountability and power your process
5. 24/7 Private Slack mastermind group
6. Weekly activities to prepare and execute your raise.
Live Sessions
Our live sessions give us the opportunity to:
* Learn the Fulcrum fundraising process
* Build community
* Build accountability
* Get reflected by other leaders
* Share our wins
* Commiserate our setbacks
* Learn and grow
* Get questions answered
* See new opportunities
* Uplevel our abilities
One-on-one Strategy Calls
One-on-one strategy calls give us the opportunity to:
* Dive deep on your application of the process
* Revisit your high-level strategy and make adjustments if necessary
* Dive deep on your thorniest fundraising issues or questions
* Build deeper relationships
* Motivate and orient you towards success
Slack Founder Mastermind
Our Founder Mastermind in Slack is our place to connect and help each other execute between calls.
Meet other elite level founders and trade advice and contact.
We use Slack to ask questions, tell stories, build community, share materials, get feedback.
Different channels in Slack allow us to address the entire gamut of fundraising Q&A as well as help with the specifics of closing specific investors, etc.
Guest Sessions
We invite top level guests to come in and meet with our founders. Some example guests include Sphero Ventures, Motivate VC, First Mile Ventures, Massive VC, First Mile Ventures, Mightly Capital, Base Ventures, True Wealth VC, Counterpart VC, Lorimer Ventures, Cerracap, and many others.
Mohamed Sheta
CEO, AiZtech
$5.7M Raised
“I highly recommend Fundraising Mastery for every entrepreneur aiming to raise a seed round. It is a great investment into a well-crafted outcomes-driven process. Fundraising Mastery is the Olympics for seed fundraisers.”
Fundraising Mastery includes a comprehensive audio program.
GetFunded: The ultimate startup fundraising program is included in Fundraising Mastery. Put an end to wasted time, learn how the game is played, and get cash in the bank.
In Fundraising Mastery you will have access to all the GetFunded audio lessons so you can supplement your progress and understanding as you complete the program.
Raise With Confidence
Raise With Confidence
Perks!
We've partnered with the best vendors in the startup world to offer our founders over $1M USD in perks as part of Fundraising Mastery.
... and more
If you are accepted into the program, you will unlock massive savings in the cost of building your product and managing your team. You will gain access to exclusive perks worth over $1,000,000 USD including hundreds of thousands of dollars in cloud credits and significant discounts on many tools you likely already use.
FAQ
Watch a short video of Fulcrum Founder Will Sacks answering the most commonly asked questions about Fundraising Mastery or see individual answers below.
Fundraising Mastery is for elite level CEO founders who have already been successful in other areas of life and business, but have not yet succeeded in closing a significant seed round for their business due simply to lack of experience.
Often this looks like founders who have had considerable success in the corporate world or academia, or who have a successful background in technology, entertainment or other pursuits.
We look for founders who believe in developing themselves and are open to learning and growing in the area of startup fundraising. We believe for these founders, Fundraising Mastery is the best program of its kind anywhere on earth.
Our most recent cohort of Fundraising Mastery launched on July 6th 2023. Our next Cohort launches on October 31st 2023.
The Fundraising Mastery program is 100% online. We have had founders join and get results from nearly every continent (except Antartica).
Live Sessions (every other Thursday at 10a MT) are mandatory while office hours are optional (but highly recommended). If there’s an emergency and you’re not able to join a session, that’s OK. Investor guest sessions (Tuesdays and Fridays at 10a MT) are optional. All sessions are recorded, so you can watch or rewatch them at a time that works for you.
No. We only work with the CEO. If you’re not the CEO, please have your CEO apply.
In our experience we get the best results when just the CEO attends the group sessions and is in our founder Slack group. Co-Founders are welcome to attend 1 on 1’s (with our permission) and since all sessions are recorded, co-founders are welcome to watch or listen to them later so they are fully up to speed on the process.
Yes. Fundraising takes time & commitment. The more time you spend on it, the sooner you will get your round closed. In our experience, 20+ hours per week is the minimum amount of time you need to spend on fundraising to get results. 30 hours is better than 20, and 40 hours is better than 30. If you aren’t ready to commit to your raise please wait to apply.
Unlike other programs, we keep our program intentionally small in order to provide every enrolled founder with a massive amount of personal attention and support. We work with less than 10 companies at a time.
Yes. If you’re planning to open your round soon, now is the best time to start preparing. In our experience most founders grossly underestimate the amount of preparatory work required to run a smooth raise. By starting well before you need the funds in your bank account you dramatically increase your chances of success.
Yes. We work with companies worldwide and we’ve found our process works for companies outside the US. Sessions and Office Hours are held at 9 am PST / 10 am MST / 12 pm EST / 6 pm CET. If that time work for you, you’re welcome to apply.
Yes, we have a growing network of investors whom you will meet in the program. Investor sessions happen on Tuesday’s and Friday’s at 10a MT inside the program for the duration of the program. Additionally, once you are ready we help facilitate introductions for you to investors in our network that match your company. Joining Fundraising Mastery is a way to exponentially increase the number of investors you are speaking with.
Yes, for companies admitted to Fundraising Mastery we take a small amount of equity on founder friendly terms in the form of a warrant. You can learn more about the warrant here. We intentionally take less equity than other accelerators to help keep more equity in the hands of the founders.
Yes. Fundraising Mastery is our flagship program and delivers massive results for founders through an intensive engagement with our staff and mentor and investor network.
As a result we charge a small program fee in addition to the warrant to cover our staff time. Combined with our warrant, the program fee allows our founders to keep more of their equity and makes us much less dilutive than other accelerator programs. We offer a reduced fee for early-bird enrollments and scholarships for founders in need on a case-by-case basis.
Yes, if you are accepted into the program you will receive more than $1M + USD in perks from top vendors like IBM, AirTable, Docusign, Zendesk, Typeform, Foundersuite and more.
Yes. Inside Fundraising Mastery we have a structured and regimented process that will vastly improve your slides and presentation. Whether you have a deck already, or are just starting to create it, within the first few weeks of the program, you will get massive support to create a professionally designed set of slides to be used when emailing investors and when presenting to investors live. Many founders find this process to be one of the highlights of the program.
Yes. Included in Fundraising Mastery is a complete set of fundraising documents for convertible note, preferred equity, and revenue share funding rounds as well as example term sheets. We provide video walkthroughs of each term in each of the documents and support and mentorship in finalizing your funding documents. We’ve had founders save more than $10k in legal fees thanks to these templates.
Fundraising Mastery is an intensive program. The more you put into the program the more you will get out of it. In our experience founders who succeed hit the ground running and keep up momentum through the entire program and until their round is closed. This means clearing your schedule and committing to your raise as your top priority. Also applying early helps because once you are admitted the work begins.
Historically we’ve accepted about 10% of founders we speak with.
Here’s a video of Fulcrum CEO Will Sacks presenting to a group of founders on the winning psychology of fundraising that will give you more insight into our approach.
