Building in Public #7

Fundraising. Probably one of my favourite topics to talk about.

To date, I've spoken with at least 600+ investors building Borong. Global VCs, regional family offices, UHNWIs, sovereign-linked funds and even banks across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the US. Some I closed, most I didn't, but most of them taught me something I didn't know before.

Here's what nobody tells founders when you start raising: the actual fundraise is 20% pitching and 80% paperwork.

When I started Dropee back in 2017, I genuinely thought I'd nail the deck, tell the story, and the money would follow. Turns out every serious investor wants to see your dataroom before they'll even commit to a second call, and what's inside it decides whether you close in 2 months or 18.

The thing that f*cked me early on was assuming all investors want the same things, because they really don't.

Malaysian family offices and UHNWIs want your SSM records, M&A, audited financials they can cross-check against your LHDN filings, and whatever MITI or MSC approvals you've picked up. But more than any of that, they want to know who you actually are as a person. They bet on the founder first and the company second, which is why the first meet is usually online, the second is physical, and by the third you're talking business and, more importantly, your personal background, what you believe in, what drives you.

US and global VCs run a completely different playbook. They want your cap table on Carta, IP assignment agreements signed by every developer who's touched the codebase, a 409A if you've done a US round, clean board minutes and TAM/SAM/SOM numbers cited from real sources rather than recycled Statista screenshots. The first meeting is 30 minutes on Zoom, the partner is asking hard questions by minute three, and they've usually made up their minds by week two.

The overlap between the two worlds is honestly bigger than the differences, but the gaps are what kill deals.

Because I've also mentored a fair number of startups over the years, I figured this might be useful to put out into the world properly.

So I built a fundraising readiness checklist that mixes both styles. 67 items across 8 categories, tagged as Malaysian, US-VC, or both, and flagged by stage so you know what to share at first introduction, what to release after the IC nods, and what to hold back until final DD. It also covers the Malaysian-specific stuff most founders forget about until DD blows up in their face: EPF reconciliation, SST filings, and the rest of the compliance landmines no US-style template will ever cover.

If you're a founder thinking about raising in the next 12 months, do yourself a favour and start building your dataroom now, not when the term sheet is already on the table.

Honestly, the investors who passed on me taught me as much as the ones who said yes. Maybe more.

Comment “checklist” and I'll DM you the list :)