Paul Ahlstrom

Fundraising? Nail Your “Use of Funds” Story Many founders fumble here: They raise $500k but can’t explain exactly how they’ll use it. Investors want to know: ✅ How much will go to growth? ✅ How much for product development? ✅ What milestones will this funding unlock? Your “use of funds” isn’t just a slide in your deck. It’s a reflection of your priorities and execution plan. Clarity here = confidence from investors. Before you pitch, ask yourself: “Can I explain exactly how every dollar raised will drive us forward?” Founders, how did you allocate your last funding round? Let’s learn from each other. #FinArchitect #InvestorReady #StartupFunding #FounderTips #VCInsights

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Ready to elevate your fundraising game? Fundraising is not luck. It is a process. The best founders treat raising capital like a high-performing sales process. Clear targeting, disciplined outreach, and strong follow-through make the difference. It starts with building the right investor list. Focus on VCs who match your stage, sector, and check size before you ever send a deck. Want the step-by-step playbook? Read our latest VC Unfiltered article! Link in comments👇 #startup #fundraising #venturecapital

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🚀 Meet PACT, simplifying SBA-backed acquisitions with investors. Think YC’s SAFE, but built for Main Street M&A. 📘 What is PACT and why we built it PACT (Partnership Acquisition Commonsense Terms) is a free, balanced starting point for the agreements used in SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors. For too long, SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors have been the wild west: every deal is different, inefficient, and confusing, especially for first-time searchers raising capital. PACT gives everyone a common baseline so reviews are faster, expectations are clear, and operators can focus on acquiring the business. 🧩 SAFE for ETA Y Combinator’s SAFE gave startups a shared template that made early investing easier to execute. PACT brings that same idea to ETA. It teaches the key concepts in plain English, aligns searchers and investors on the economics, and sets a fair place to start. Our goal is for PACT to become the default baseline for investor-backed small business acquisitions using SBA loans. 🤝 Who contributed 🏛️ Legal input from top SMB M&A attorneys: Joseph Spina (Cullen and Dykman LLP), Mark Dittrich (Groundswell Advisors, LLP), and Eric Hsu (Clear Focus Law, PLLC) provided feedback on drafts. 💼 Early investor adopters: Jordan F. (Shareholder Ventures), Grant Hensel (Entrepreneurial Capital), Jason Ehrlich (Fruition Capital), Sean Smith (Search Fund Ventures), Adam Kaplan (ETA Funding Partners), Jacob Hall (Kando Capital), Tony Cappaert (Workbench Capital) and Adam Markley (PROX Search Capital) have adopted PACT on new deals. 🎓 Community support: Chelsea Wood and Walker Deibel at the Acquisition Lab and Buy Then Build have committed to start educating the community on how investor deals work using PACT. 👉 What to do next 🔍 Searchers: download the docs and ask your lawyer to start from PACT. ⚖️ SMB M&A Law firms: review the templates and send feedback so the next version is better. 💸 SMB investors: adopt PACT as your starting point and share redlines from real deals. This is a community-led standard, and we will keep versioning PACT as feedback comes in from all sides. 📝 Thanks: Special thanks to Joseph Spina for leading the legal drafting with me and helping shape a true middle ground. 🔗 Download PACT and see the key terms: ETAPACT.com (link in the comments) Let’s make investor-backed acquisitions clearer, faster, and fairer for everyone. 🚨 DISCLAIMER: PACT is not legal advice. Searchers must engage experienced SMB M&A counsel to review and tailor these documents to their deal.

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Mana Up is a venture capital (VC) firm and accelerator that supports Hawaii-based entrepreneurs to grow their businesses globally. Their investment range has not publicly disclosed.

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Weather delays. Compliance gaps. Lost days and lost dollars. Every contractor knows the pain. Pavewise, based in North Dakota and built by operators who’ve lived it, has just raised a $2.5M seed round led by C2 Ventures Fund II, alongside Connetic Ventures, Service Provider Capital, M25, gener8tor 1889, and Broadwater Capital. Their platform brings real-time compliance, weather, and production tracking to road construction, helping crews make better calls, cut rework, and keep projects on time. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about our thesis, Dirty, Dull, and Dangerous innovation: solving real operational problems in essential industries with durable tech. https://lnkd.in/eecPMHdN

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At Brightstar Capital Partners, we believe success begins with strong relationships built on trust, alignment, and a shared vision to help great businesses grow. While capital is essential, we focus on building long-term partnerships built through hands-on experience and a commitment to lasting value. Our investment evaluation process is grounded in sectors we know deeply. We focus on cash-flowing businesses where we see an opportunity to optimize operations and foster ownership culture, helping to grow the company better than it could on its own. Ultimately, we judge success by a simple question. Five or 10 years after we exit, if someone calls a founder or partner we’ve worked with and asks, “Should I work with Brightstar?” I want the answer to be yes. That is our definition of real value creation.

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From Founder to Partner: Lessons From 25 Years of Guiding Clients Through Pivotal Decisions What does it take to guide clients with clarity through life’s pivotal financial decisions? In this new podcast episode, James A. Werner, CFP®, Partner, Wealth Advisor at Waverly Advisors, LLC, shares insights drawn from more than 25 years in wealth management and his experience co-founding Silicon Hills Wealth Management before its acquisition by Waverly Advisors. In the episode, James discusses how he maintains his process of emphasizing the two-way transfer of knowledge between planner and client—an evolving dynamic that ensures financial strategies align with individual values and goals. He also reflects on key lessons learned from merging his company into a larger firm and champions the role of community in financial planning, highlighting how strong connections and shared values can shape outcomes. Investment advisory services offered through Waverly Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. 👉 Click here to listen to the podcast: https://lnkd.in/gwhqNN5R #retirementplanning #investmentmanagement #Investing #EstatePlanning #wealthmanagement #waverlyadvisors #FinancialPlanning #RegisteredInvestmentAdvisor #LegacyPlanning #WealthStrategy

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What’s the #1 mistake founders make when pitching to investors?  Investors don’t just want a great idea; they want a clear path to ROI, scalability, and a team that can execute. Here’s the fix: Before your next pitch, research your investor’s portfolio and tailor your narrative to their goals. For example, if they focus on SaaS, emphasize your recurring revenue model, not just your product’s features. What’s one pitching mistake you’ve seen (or made)? Drop it in the comments—we’ll share our top tip for overcoming it! #StartupFunding #InvestorPitching #Startup #StartupFinance #PitchDeck

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The most successful funds I’ve seen are boring operationally. Predictable. Structured. Disciplined. Investors don’t want surprises in operations. They want surprises in performance.

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🚨 Major milestone for TAU Systems — and we at Alumni Ventures are thrilled to be part of the journey. The company just closed a $20M extension to their seed, bringing total funding to $35M to power the launch of TAU Labs, a first-of-its-kind commercial facility for laser-plasma acceleration. 🛰️  This isn’t just incremental tech — it’s a leap forward in how we generate and harness high-energy particles, unlocking numerous applications. Congrats to Bjorn Manuel Hegelich and the entire TAU Systems team — building infrastructure that previously lived only in government labs, and making it commercially accessible. We’re proud to back bold teams pushing the edge of science into real-world impact. More at 👉 tausystems.com #DeepTech #FrontierTech #ParticlePhysics #TAUSystems #AlumniVentures #SpaceTech #ScientificInfrastructure

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