What First-Time Founders Get Wrong (And Right) About Fundraising

In a bylined piece for Inc42, Salone Sehgal, Founder and Managing Partner of Lumikai, argues that a strong raise rests on alignment between the ambition of a business, the risk profile of venture capital and how well a founder understands what they are building. When that alignment is missing, founders can take on the wrong kind of capital at the wrong time, and follow-on rounds stall.

Drawing on patterns from early-stage pitches, she makes the case that venture funding suits a narrow set of businesses chasing large markets, so choosing it should be a deliberate financing decision. She explains why precise knowledge of the user carries more weight with seed investors than narrative polish, why distribution and retention are the real moats at the earliest stage, and why strong investor relationships are built long before capital is needed, often beginning with a “not yet.”

The piece grounds these lessons in Lumikai’s portfolio. Eloelo scaled to 2Mn users in its first two years through organic, community-led growth on WhatsApp and Telegram, Vobble used early IP partnerships to build brand recall and trust for its AI-powered audio companion for children, AutoVRse seeded adoption through enterprise services before launching its SaaS platform VRsebuilder and AskMyGuru engineered a marketing loop that prioritised high-intent users and early payback. Salone notes that this question of alignment sits at the core of Lumikai Pixels Blueprint, a series helping first-time founders navigate the fundamentals of early-stage building and fundraising.

Read the article now.