The Nichole Wischoff Podcast

Shensi Ding is the co-founder and CEO of Merge, a startup that helps B2B companies build customer-facing integrations. Merge has raised over $75M from leading investors like NEA, Addition and Accel. We dig into: - VCs passing on the seed round because $4.5M was "too large" - Why giving their seed investor a board seat was great for the company - The trouble with pitching non-technical investors a very technical product - AI and its impact and opportunity for Merge Thank you to todays sponsor JoinWarp. Warp offers nearly instant payroll and compliance solutions for startups and venture capital firms. For a free pair of Apple Airpods 4, click to learn more at https://www.joinwarp.com/novpromo?utm_source=nichole. Stifel Bank is committed to supporting the innovation community. Focused on seed- through late-stage companies, they provide a dynamic platform of collaborative solutions for treasury management and lending. Our clients enjoy access to the broader capabilities of Stifel, including Investment Banking, Private Client Banking, and Wealth Management. Stifel’s Wealth Management services provided by Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated. Shoot a note to aguerrero@stifelbank.com for more information.

Leif Abraham is the co-founder and co-CEO of Public.com, an investing platform with a mission to make the public markets work for everyone. Public.com was founded in 2019, scaled to over 1M users in the less than 18 months post launch and has since raised over $300M from notable investors like Accel and Tiger Global. In Today's episode you will hear from Leif about: - Pitching almost 100 VCs for his first company before getting a single yes from Thrive Capital - What founders often get wrong when they go out to fundraise from VCs - Massive tailwinds for Public.com due to Covid and Gamestop - Events contracts and the election (Robinhood & Kalshi) - His hot take on the future of consumer fintech Thank you to todays sponsor Joinwarp.com. Warp offers almost instant payroll & compliance solutions for startups and venture capital firms. For a free pair of Apple Airpods 4, inquire to learn more. https://www.joinwarp.com/novpromo?utm_source=nichole