1M ARR in 2021 Got Series A Meetings Today It Gets Seed Talks

Startup founders - don’t be surprised if VCs aren’t impressed with your ARR these days.

$1 million in ARR in 2021 = intros to Series A VCs

$1 million in ARR in 2025 = ...seed talks? Keep us updated? Who knows!

One of the biggest questions around VC-backed startups these days is the reliability of revenue. In the AI era, we've seen companies rocket towards major ARR figures in a period of months.

But will that revenue endure? Are many of these contracts part of experimental budgets from major corporations that could be turned off in an instant?

Really loved digging into this with Brianne Kimmel, one of the sharpest early stage VCs I know. Her response perfectly captured the framing to today's ARR moment:

𝗥𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲.

Feels like just another hurdle to climb for would-be VC founders, but it's critical that VCs feel some confidence in the repeatability of your current customer base.

AI tossed all these standard models into the air and we're waiting for things to shake out to a "new normal". We could be waiting a long time.

Full episode: https://lnkd.in/dE8pdnvU

#startups #AI #ARR #venturecapital #Seed #SeriesA