Hey Startup Leapers 👋

This week, we’re diving deep into the fundraising journey.

For some founders, realising they didn’t need VC money changed everything.

Others leaned hard into government grants, bootstrapping, and customer revenue to build on their own terms.

But first, a few exciting updates from your hosts:

🧠 Maria has been reflecting on the rise of AI in venture - why it might help you match with investors faster, but won’t help you build the relationships that matter.

🏆 Yvonne joined as a judge for the Cap Table Competition powered by Dean Forbes in association with Corton Capital - see a snapshot of the event through the lens of the winner.

Let’s get into it 👇

🎧 Sait Cham - The Power of Bootstrapping (Hutch and Pimento)

It came after years of startup experience: from nearly missing payroll at a previous company, to being COO of a venture-backed business that struggled to make the economics work.

Sait had seen first-hand how chasing funding could pull focus from building a solid, sustainable business.

So when he co-founded Hutch, he took a different route.

Before writing a single line of code or signing a lease, Sait and his co-founder Ben built a spreadsheet.

Ben insisted: “Unless this works on a spreadsheet, I’m not joining you.”

It didn’t take long for them to realise the numbers didn’t stack up for same-day delivery. But they could make a different model work - one with tight unit economics and real, organic margins.

And as Hutch grew = profitably investors took notice. But even with term sheets on the table, Sait kept coming back to one simple question: “We’re doing £60k in profit a month, do we actually need to raise?”

Often, the answer was no.

And when a top VC passed with the feedback that Hutch “wasn’t venture-backable but could be a £25M profitable business,” Sait saw it as confirmation, not rejection.

🔥 Takeaway: Sometimes the best funding is customer revenue.

Try this → Open a blank spreadsheet. Map your unit economics - cost to acquire, serve, and retain a customer. Then ask yourself: can I make this profitable before raising? If not, can I tweak the model until I can?

🎧 Sabrina Del Prete - Building a Fintech Giant Without VC (Kore Labs)

Sabrina had spent over two decades in banking and fintech, so she knew the stakes. Startups that raise big, hire fast, and then flame out? She’d seen it firsthand. She wanted Kore Labs to be different - lean, strategic, resilient.

So how did she build without VC?

✅ Customer Revenue First: Sabrina focused on early clients - listening deeply, tailoring the product, and monetising quickly. Kore Labs first contracts helped fund operations and build credibility.

✅ UK Innovation Grants: She tapped into non-dilutive funding through Innovate UK and other grant schemes - giving her the capital to grow without giving up equity.

✅ Disciplined Headcount: Instead of ballooning the team, she only hired when roles were justified by revenue or customer demand.

✅ Focused Product Development: They resisted the temptation to overbuild. Every feature served a real use case, backed by bank partners and regulatory insights.

Now Kore Labs powers product governance and compliance for firms serving over 120 million end users without taking a single penny of venture capital.

🎧 Elizabeth Rossiello - How She Raised $50M by Outlearning the Market (AZA Finance)

Elizabeth didn’t set out to build a pan-African fintech empire. But after five years trekking across the continent rating microfinance institutions she saw the same broken pattern everywhere: cross-border payments were chaotic, inefficient, and often simply didn’t work.

That lived experience became the spark for AZA Finance (formerly BitPesa).

But the journey from idea to $50M in venture backing? Anything but straightforward.

She started by bootstrapping - because she had to. Elizabeth raised her very first cheque from what she now calls a “random investor” offering $50K to women-led crypto startups.

But that came with a painful 60/40 equity split in his favour - terms she only later realised were wildly off-market. At the time, undervalued and burnt out from two pregnancies and work rejections, she took it.

From there, she clawed her way into proper venture capital. Every new investor taught her more about cap tables, norms, and how to structure future rounds.

She leaned on other founders in early crypto networks, used her first viral Bloomberg feature to get in front of Digital Currency Group (DCG), and slowly built a global cap table = despite being told "Africa was too risky."

Investors didn’t get it. Many of them had never stepped foot on the continent. So Elizabeth made it her mission to educate them - armed with deep research, field data, and relentless storytelling.

Her pitch reframed Africa not as a high-risk bet but a frontier opportunity with massive untapped demand for B2B cross-border liquidity.

The breakthrough? Product-market fit. 

After focusing too heavily on the Nigerian market, everything came crashing down in January 2021 when regulators abruptly shut off key payment channels. Revenue plummeted to zero.

But Elizabeth didn’t quit. Within six months, her team reactivated every dormant plan - firing up new markets in Senegal, Ghana, and Francophone Africa, acquiring a licensed European business, and building up $10M in revenue across non-Nigerian markets by year-end. All while navigating COVID, a newborn, and remote teams.

That resilience and real traction unlocked the $50M in funding. 

Many of her current backers had previously passed.

What changed? Proof.

She’d built a product that moved billions in value across 80 currencies, navigated regulation in multiple jurisdictions, and weathered crises that would’ve sunk most startups.

📚 Interesting Reads, Resources & Opportunities

1. Enter the Boardroom with Nurele: Episode featuring, our very own, Yvonne Bajela on founder breakups, discovering moats and the new role of governance

2. Female Founders: Connecting Companies with Capital | Applications Now Open!

3. Open Court x AI Tinkerers Summer Mini Hackathon

4. Baobab Network Accelerator: Applications Now Opened!

Thanks for reading 💜

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