helping founders raise quick and smart at Byblos
byblos.digital
Joined July 2026
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Founders are forced to raise blind — guessing what funds are looking for.
Byblos surfaces the VC intel in one place: what every investor is saying, what they'll fund, and who's active and ready to deploy.
A founder's job is to build. Leave the VC research to Byblos.
Live now on Product Hunt↓
when a fund leads a round in your space, it seems you have to rush to pitch them.
but they actually just committed. the better move is pitching co-investors who saw that deal. they did the research, liked the space, and didn't get to lead.
showing such investors is one thing our app does. every time a deal shows up, it also shows who to approach instead.
solo founders are around 36% of new startups but get much less VC money.
once funded, they do about the same as teams, keep 28% of the company at exit vs 16% for lead founders with cofounders.
the hard part seems to be getting funded and not making something work.
lina from Byblos retweeted
"The best founders are worldbuilders. They are able to envision a future world that doesn’t exist yet and share the intense excitement of that vision with investors."
I swear VCs are just little nerds.
I found a trading firm skynet trading like that ai from terminator. also evangelion capital, atreides management (like in dune), morpheus ventures, and two different funds called valhalla.
does matrix partners give you colorful pills at the end of the meeting?
one pro-tip is to be a little risky with your goals in the pitch deck.
founders often set modest goals in their deck because they want to look realistic. but investors are looking for 10x to 100x on their money. if someone puts in 200k, they need to see a path to 2M-20M back.
being realistic is good but being too modest can lowkey damp your raise. don't be too safe.
founders often set modest goals because they want to look realistic. but investors are looking for 10x to 100x on their money. so if someone puts in 200k, they need to see a path to 2M-20M back.
one pro-tip is to be a little risky with your goals in the p ise. don't be too safe.
this
I think the startup world has made fundraising way too much of a full-time job.
Founders spend six months pitching 100 VCs, tweaking decks, chasing introductions, and answering the same questions over and over.
Then they finally raise $5M, celebrate for a week, and start preparing for the next round.
At some point, when do you actually build the company?
I’ve seen founders who are incredible at raising money but surprisingly average at running a business.
Fundraising is an important skill, but it’s not the business.
Your job isn’t to convince investors you’re building something valuable.
It’s to actually build something valuable.
The best fundraising strategy is having a business investors can’t ignore.
lina from Byblos retweeted
I think the startup world has made fundraising way too much of a full-time job.
Founders spend six months pitching 100 VCs, tweaking decks, chasing introductions, and answering the same questions over and over.
Then they finally raise $5M, celebrate for a week, and start preparing for the next round.
At some point, when do you actually build the company?
I’ve seen founders who are incredible at raising money but surprisingly average at running a business.
Fundraising is an important skill, but it’s not the business.
Your job isn’t to convince investors you’re building something valuable.
It’s to actually build something valuable.
The best fundraising strategy is having a business investors can’t ignore.
my hobby is checking the speculation in fundraising space. I love data-heavy or experience studies that @murphcapital or @ben_botes do but most of other posts are complete spam.
it's very hard to generalize and analyze the sentiment and patterns in VCs.
don't let random conclusions that no one invests in your niche kill your vibe.
fundraising is humbling.
i get that it's extremely humbling and embarassing because no one wants to raise for years without getting any responses or being rejected after the first call.
you can do all the targeting right (right timing, right angle, right fund) and still get ghosted or rejected.
maybe they already did a similar deal, or are saving money for follow-ons, or didn't like your outfit.
what i say is: what you can control is not wasting time on the ones that were never going to reply.
my favourite part of investor research is telling a founder "don't pitch this fund" because I can actually explain why.
fundraising tip:
- check the investor's records of past rounds for patterns
(do they write your check size? has their sentiment shifted?)
- consider their co-investors (maybe they are your match too?)
for example, this is Byblos's records of 20VC, its recent rounds and co-investors. does anyone see patterns?
wake up
check new VC deals
tell a founder fundraising is a strategy
prepare a team for a pitch
go to sleep
repeat
one of the VC newsletters I read started selling memberships for you to invest in pre-IPO deals alongside people who, as they put it, were early in OpenAI and Airbnb.
more and more platforms like this start popping up. this makes sense people companies stay private for longer.
but it’s so funny reading this the same week I am talking to pre-seed founders who are just trying to get one fund to reply.
top and bottom of venture feel like different worlds fr.
yes, you can get an investor list from everywhere.
usually from an ai tool, sometimes 200+ names long.
I took a look at one of them from a founder I knew, and the first two pages were all VCs, though he asked for family offices.
the problem isn't that the lists are wrong. they are just soooo generalistic. they tell you who invests in SaaS when you are building a CRM for private schools.
if you are willing to pay for investor lists, make sure you know the methods and the quality of those lists.
this is like buying a Rolex on the street, guys. there is a reason it's on the street.
