Former Google and Microsoft alum David Aronchick methodically prepared his open-source Bacalhau spinout, then moved quickly to raise $7.5M.

The enterprise SaaS company focused on a small circle of potential investors—and armed itself with the latest trends in valuations—to conduct a successful fundraise.

Cybersecurity company Dapple Security followed up its SAFE with a priced seed round. The keys? Founder-market fit and communicating a vision to investors.

In the first installment of Carta's new Q&A series, it took more than 150 meetings—mostly on Zoom—for Alphathena to buck geography and a challenging environment.