My CFO, CTO and I rebuilt that whole section in < 30 minutes. Nobody apologised & nobody needed to. That is just how the IC works. This is my fourth raise for Borong; I have probably pitched to more than 400 investors around the world, and that room still made me nervous like a first-timer.

Some raw truths from the inside:

The partner, associates, and analysts are your lawyer; the committee is the judge. Their investment team and I spent months sitting on my side of the table. They had already put their neck out defending our numbers before I even walked in. Our only job that day was not to screw it up. That pressure is heavier than any pitch, so do respect them because you have no idea how many nights they've gone through reviewing your business models, your past, your numbers & your future.
Learn how to cut through the noise & focus on the things that matter. They gave us 15 minutes to tell a nine-year story. I've probably spent so many nights cutting my own script line by line, and every cut felt like deleting a piece of the journey. By the end, I was left with a few slides that actually decided the deal. Brutal exercise, but do it anyway – you'll learn more about other perspectives on your own business.
Audit your numbers. The night before, we found a number that did not match another slide after auditing the deck multiple times. My stomach dropped. That room hunts for reasons to say no, and one sloppy figure hands them a free one. We fixed it at midnight, and I slept like crap regardless. Better to have actual numbers (even if you're not proud of them) than to have inconsistencies.
Enjoy the process :) I used to think ICs were bureaucracy. Then, it clicked that VCs answer to their LPs the same way I answer to my shareholders. The committee exists to stop one partner from falling in love with a bad deal. We are working towards a listing, so I took the whole grilling as rehearsal. Auditors and regulators will eventually hit harder.

I walked out drained and sharper at the same time. It's probably the same for most of you founders who have raised/are currently raising. Nine years in, and this game still humbles me every single round.

As usual, still here & still rowing :)

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