A valuation you can defend
The number matters less than the method behind it. How to arrive at a pre-money valuation that survives the first partner meeting.
Fueling growth
Helping startups raise capital.
I work with early stage founders on the parts of a raise that actually decide the outcome: a valuation you can defend, a story investors repeat to their partners, and a route to the people who write the cheques.
Free, 30 minutes. Bring the raise as it stands, not a polished version of it.
$10M+
raised in equity across SAFEs, notes and priced rounds
$11M+
supported in non-dilutive and grant funding
5 years
in-house investor relations, not agency side
Most raises do not stall because of the deck.
When a founder has been out for months with no term sheet, the deck is usually where the problem shows up rather than where it started. It is normally one of these.
A valuation with no method behind it
The number came from a comparable someone mentioned. The first partner who asks how you got there ends the conversation.
A model built to look complete, not to be tested
Assumptions buried in a template, no sensitivity, and a use of funds that does not map to a single milestone.
An investor list pulled from a search engine
Forty funds, most of them wrong on stage, sector or cheque size. Volume feels like progress and returns nothing.
A story that describes instead of convincing
An associate cannot repeat it to their partner on Monday, so it does not leave the first meeting.
What I help with
Take one of these or all of them. Most founders arrive with a specific gap, and the engagement is scoped to that.
Fundraising strategy
Round size, instrument, timeline and the order of conversations, built around your milestones rather than a generic raise template.
Valuation and financial model
A model built from your inputs with visible assumptions, sensitivity where it matters, and a valuation with a method you can defend in the room.
Pitch deck and investor materials
Positioning, structure and a slide by slide rewrite, plus the one pager and the follow up materials that go out after the meeting.
Market sizing and business case
Bottom up sizing you can source line by line, and a use of funds tied to the milestones that unlock your next round.
Investor targeting and introductions
A researched list of funds and angels matched to your stage, sector and cheque size, and warm introductions where I hold the relationship.
Data room and diligence prep
The documents diligence will ask for, organized the way investors actually work through them, ready before anyone asks.
Raising non-dilutive as well? I have supported more than $11M in grant funding and can point you at the right programs and review what you are submitting.
All services, including go-to-market and business model work
How it works
STEP 01
Discovery call
A free 30 minute call. We go through your goals, where the raise stands, what is already built, and what is missing.
STEP 02
A scoped proposal
A written scope, a timeline and a flat fee for the work we agreed on, usually within two days. Hourly advisory is there when you only need a second set of eyes rather than a build.
STEP 03
An approach built for the raise
Some raises call for working sessions with you. Some call for me heads down in the material and back to you when it is ready. Some call for me speaking directly with your team. I set the approach based on what the raise needs and adjust it as things move.
Why work with me
Over $10M raised in equity
Across SAFEs, convertible notes and priced rounds, for client companies and as the in-house lead at a cleantech company.
Five years on the inside, not the sidelines
Investor Relations Lead at Solaires Entreprises, building the models and sitting in the diligence calls rather than advising from a distance.
Range across sectors and raise sizes
Cleantech, mining, consumer, SaaS, and deeptech, with founders across North America, and no minimum or maximum on the size of the round.
I am Saleh Jairoudi. There is no shortage of fundraising advice available to founders, and most of it is free and general. Very little of it involves someone sitting down and building the materials, setting a valuation you can defend, and assembling the list of funds worth your time. That is the work I do.
Companies I have worked with
Solaires Entreprises
Nature's Vault
Cafe Latte
From the blog
Be ready before the first meeting, not after the tenth.
Thirty minutes, free. We go through the raise as it stands, and you leave knowing what to do next, whether or not we end up working together.