How I Raised It - The podcast where we interview startup founders who raised capital. · Foundersuite.com - software for raising capital

Ep. 296 How I Raised It with Pablo Srugo of Mistral.vc

·54 min

Nathan Beckert opens the show by framing it as a look inside how founders and VCs raise capital. Pablo Shrugo of Mistral.VC is the guest. Before venture, he founded a fitness-tech startup. That company raised money from a strategic investor. It also received an acquisition offer. Then things unraveled in what he describes as a dramatic crash. The conversation leans into that arc because the story is as much about process as outcome. Pablo and Nathan dig into what happens when a founder has to negotiate from what feels like a very tight position. He describes the overnight prep before the meeting. They walked through every possible argument the buyer might make. The next day, after very little sleep and several espressos, the team sat down with the head of M&A, the CFO, and the founder. From there, the discussion turned into a hard negotiation. They were working off a post-money valuation of about 6.65 million. Pablo says they were not willing to cut price just because the other side was pushing. The startup had also locked in a pilot with Anytime Fitness. That mattered because Anytime Fitness has 3,000 franchises and the pilot could expand from corporate locations to the broader franchise system. Their plan was to build the product, make the pilot work, and use that traction to raise a Series A in about 18 months. The target was 8 to 10 million at a 25 pre. The episode keeps coming back to leverage, timing, and how much a good pilot can shift the conversation. It ends with a quick sign-off after a practical, founder-to-founder discussion about deals and fundraising.

As heard by us

A founder's deal story becomes a practical look at timing, pricing, and conviction.

Pablo Srugo's path through a fitness tech startup is the center of the episode. It stays strongest when it sticks to the deal work: the strategic investor, the acquisition offer, the pilot with Anytime Fitness, and the effort to turn that traction into support for the next raise.

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Why you'd press play

Hear a former founder turned VC walk through a fitness-tech startup that took strategic money, got an acquisition offer, and then fell apart.

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