Every startup founder is eventually confronted with the question, “Should we take more investment capital?” If you ask ten different founders their opinion on the matter, you’ll likely get ten different answers. More money allows the organization to grow and develop, but it also means that more of the company is owned by what are often viewed as “outside interests”.
As someone who was just faced with this question, I can tell you that there are lots of things to consider. For example, what is the company worth? How big of an option pool should we have? Will this be the final investment round? To me, though, those are not the most relevant questions. The more important questions are: (1) What are we trying to accomplish at this company? and, (2) Who can help us get there?
At Zivity, we knew we wanted to take more money. It’s all a matter of scale. Zivity is not aiming to be acquired; we are building a premium subscription social network, and we are aiming to be a multi-billion dollar global media company. Such a massive undertaking requires capital. So for us, it wasn’t so much a matter of whether or not we would take additional investment, but rather how much we would take and from whom.
If you’re reading this blog entry then you are probably already aware that Zivity just closed $7M in equity financing in its Series B round. Our institutional partners in the round are BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund, neither of whom we consider “outside interests”. They really are partners. With strong roots in social media and the digital landscape, they understand our vision and offer a lot more than just money to help us to achieve it. Choosing the right equity partners is one of the most important decisions a startup has to make. We have found true teammates in BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund.
What will we be doing with the money? We’re going to use it to build a social network unlike anything that’s ever been seen before. Imagine a place where advertisers don’t dictate which content is acceptable. Think about an environment where like-minded users can appreciate and help to redefine what beauty means.
It’s not a small undertaking, and we need help doing it. Think of it this way … in the early days at Zivity, a few of us arrived in a big, untamed jungle with a few machetes. We hacked our way through enough of the brush to create a small clearing. Now we want Zivity to take off and soar. Before it can, though, we need to build a runway. The money we just raised is going to enable us to build that runway. Starting now, we are aggressively adding to our team of engineers and others who will help us take off. Know how to fly? Have experience building runways? Come and join us!
