How did Multibagg AI raise its first round of funding?

So far in my life, I have raised money three times. Today I'll tell you the story of my first fundraise.

It was mid-2023 and I had just pulled off a project of massive scale at Goldman Sachs. But I felt like I could build something even bigger and better for the world. It wasn't possible at Goldman, so I quit my job.

I had started my corporate life when I was just 21. Half a decade of work had exhausted me. So after leaving the company, I took a break for some time. I travelled almost all of India. It gave me a unique perspective. I would recommend everyone to take a break and travel India at least once in their lifetime.

Early 2024, I started building my team. Mostly interns that I intended to train and offer full-time roles later. We started writing code. It felt amazing. We were full of energy. But then reality knocked the door. Operational cost of running the startup was huge. Initially I put my own money but there is limit to anything. In order to build a decent product, we had to source raw data at a cost of more than 30 lakhs.

I thought I will build a prototype with cheaper alternative and raise from a top VC. I was wrong, dead wrong. I laugh at myself today. I spoke to 3-4 VCs, nobody budged. I understood quickly that I am not building rockets that VCs will fund me at the idea stage. I'll have to prove that the product can be built and people will love it and pay for it.

Basically money became the roadblock. I remembered the words of Ronnie Screwvala (from his book Dream with Eyes Open) that "Money is rarely the constraint, we just blame it." Putting more money from own pocket was no more an option. So what did I do?

I called my college friends. Friends I grew up with, friends who know me more than anyone. It was not a long call, less than 5mins maybe. I did not even explain what the startup was all about. They also did not bother much, male-friendship you know. They just had plain and simple faith in me. Some of them still don't know what I do but they all came together and I ended up raising 65 lakhs from my friends.

Startups rarely succeed. The success story you see in media are all exceptions. There is only 1% chance that I will end up building a successful global technology company from India. But if that happens, it will only be possible because a few college friends came together to support another friend who was taking a giant leap of faith.

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