How Founders Close Major Rounds Insights from Disrupt 2025

Disrupt 2025: Closing big rounds starts long before the pitch

TechCrunch Disrupt lands at Moscone West, San Francisco, October 27–29, 2025. On October 29 the Builders Stage hosts a must-see session for founders targeting late-stage capital: three leaders in venture and AI-driven scale-ups will share what it truly takes to close major rounds.

Why this matters: raising late-stage capital isn’t just about hitting revenue targets. It’s about telling the right story, tracking the right metrics, and building relationships that compound over years. Expect candid, tactical takeaways founders can apply immediately.

The speakers bring complementary perspectives:

• Andrea Thomaz, CEO of Diligent Robotics — the founder’s view on scaling AI hardware and earning investor trust in capital-intensive categories.

• Zeya Yang, partner at IVP — former product and scaling leader turned late-stage investor focused on AI-native startups and product-market signals.

• Lila Preston, head of growth equity at Generation Investment Management — brings mission-driven investing and global scaling experience to evaluating growth rounds.

Practical frameworks to expect

• Narrative arc: position your product and team story well ahead of diligence, tying milestones to scaling inflection points.
• Metric stack: focus beyond ARR—cohort retention, unit economics, gross margin trajectory, and capital efficiency.
• Relationship runway: investor conversations are cumulative—start building credibility years before a raise.
• Diligence readiness: data rooms, repeatable KPIs, and clear use of proceeds separate winners from hopefuls.

Real-world analogies help. Think of fundraising like preparing a spacecraft launch: you don’t just pick a date and hope for clear skies. You simulate weather, test engines, inspect bolts, and build a mission log investors can verify. That discipline scales trust.

For AI hardware founders, Andrea’s playbook often centers on capital milestones and tangible deployment metrics. For AI-native product founders, Zeya’s lens will favor usage signals and retention inflection. Lila will push founders to align financial scale with mission and global market fit.

How leaders should use these sessions

Founders should leave with an action list: refine the story tied to metrics, prepare a short diligence pack, and map a six- to 12-month investor engagement plan. Investors and growth teams can spot pipeline opportunities and benchmark startups against clearer signal sets.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 also offers broader value—200+ sessions and 250+ speakers create an environment where networking accelerates into real term sheets and partnerships. Tickets are available with early discounts through September 26.

QuarkyByte’s take: treat fundraising as a product you can iterate. Use scenario modeling to understand dilution trade-offs, align metrics to story beats, and bake investor-ready reporting into your monthly rhythm. Doing that separates companies that command valuation from those that simply pursue it.