Hey friends, it’s Jorian—welcome to Into the Ring. I’m a startup fundraising coach and have worked with 50+ founders who’ve raised over $190M.

I’m writing to you from across the pond today in Paris. I’m working from here this week, fueled by crepes & croissants. Don’t tell my trainer about my lack of protein intake this week!!

Being in Paris has me inspired by their giant startup hub, Station F. It’s massive - 366,000 square feet (roughly the size of 4.8 soccer pitches) - and houses 1,000+ startups. In today’s newsletter, I’ll write about how every city deserves a Station F, share the last two week’s tier 1 VC deals, give my recommendations on VC podcasts/essays to check out, and share a deep dive on cleaning up before and during your fundraise.

And it’s great to be back after taking last week off from writing. I’m launching a few other projects (watch this space!) and spent last week fully dedicated to building those out.

Last, thank you for being part of this Into the Ring tribe of 1.8K+ startup founders and operators/investors from OpenAI, Anthropic, a16z, Lightspeed, etc. If you think someone else might like this newsletter, they can sign up here.

Now onto today’s newsletter!

I spend 95+% of my time these days working with American startups, but I love taking inspiration from throughout the world on how to build the best startup ecosystems possible.

Just because the U.S. is the standout leader in startup fundraising, doesn’t mean we can’t make our startup ecosystem even better.

I’m a huge fan of what Roxanne Varza and her team have built at Station F in Paris. As mentioned in my intro — it’s a massive startup campus, the biggest in the world. I’ve had the chance to check it out — it’s a vibrant ecosystem, buzzing with energy, and you can see real-time building & collaboration at their restaurants & cafes (yes, they have thousands of desks, too).

It’s such a big deal that even Emmanuel Macron has personally supported it.

My belief is that every city serious about fostering a startup ecosystem should have their equivalent of a Station F. A place where if you care about startups, you go there. A place that welcomes anyone involved in the startup ecosystem.

But to cities thinking about creating a Station F of their own, you need to imbue it with soul and really create an ecosystem, not just a building. I highly recommend you check out what Roxanne & team have built at Station F.

To my readers — what are your favorite examples of Station F-like hubs in the U.S. or around the world?

Building a successful startup is a journey with many bumps on the road. And these bumps can make your startup house seriously dirty. Whether it’s a co-founder who left on bad terms and owns a significant portion of dead equity or aggressive terms you agreed to as part of an early angel round.

Many founders treat fundraising just like a race - a finish line you want to reach as quickly as possible. But they don’t realize it’s an important opportunity to clean their startup house in two key ways.

It’s important to distinguish between two types of cleanup a founder needs to embark on before and during fundraising.

The first is the cleanup that needs to happen BEFORE fundraising.

And the second is the cleanup you can focus on DURING fundraising.

Unless you’re the hottest startup since Anthropic, having a dirty startup house when fundraising will spook many VCs. While any one of these issues may not single-handedly stop your fundraise, they could seriously delay the due diligence process, and if too many issues pile up, they may prevent your deal from happening.

These are some of the most common issues you may want to clean up before fundraising:

Then there are issues that you want to fix as part of your term sheet negotiation. A new funding round, and the term sheet that comes with it, can offer a (relatively) clean slate for you to address issues in your company structure, cap table, and so on. However, one note - the better your startup is doing, the more leverage you’ll have to make these changes during fundraising.

Many of these changes are affected through the new VC you’re bringing on. They’ll want to invest into as clean of a startup house as possible, so they’ll be incentivized to work with you to help clean it up (though as mentioned, if it’s too dirty, you may spook them!).

These are some of the issues you can commonly address during term sheet negotiations:

I have bad news, folks.

Cleaning up your startup house before and during fundraising ain’t easy. It often involves real trade-offs and decisions you made in the past. It will inevitably require tough conversations and getting “into the ring” (sorry, had to do it!).

One of the recommendations I have is getting an experienced startup lawyer by your side, even in the early days. Yes, it can feel expensive - but if you speak with Series C / D founders, many of their regrets stem from economic & control provisions they wish they had cleaned up (or never given away in the first place) in the earlier stages of their startup.

But a clean startup house is one that’s easier to operate & manage. And the tough conversations & cleanup work now will save you from even more pain (and potentially losing your company) down the road.

You’ve got this, founders.

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I’ve helped 50+ founders run high-quality fundraises and raise over $190M. Check out jorianhoover.com to read founder testimonials and learn more about my approach.