Closing a $17M Series A
in a down market

In late 2024, Philip Odelfelt faced a difficult choice: maintain momentum during peak season or dedicate months to fundraising in the worst venture market in a decade. With Seed-to-A graduation rates down 50% since 2018, Philip knew the raise would be a significant lift no matter how good their metrics.

Fast forward 6 months and Philip was closing an oversubscribed $17M Series A, with another $5M in debt, while saving hundreds of hours that he instead spent on sales, product, and growing the business.

Market Headwinds

Datavations was preparing to raise capital during the most challenging fundraising environment in recent history. Seed-to-A graduation rates had plummeted 50% since 2018, while average time to close stretched to 6–9 months compared to just 3–4 months in 2018–2019.

As a vertical software provider for housing materials manufacturers — a generally overlooked sector — Datavations needed to find investors that truly understood their vision and would be long-term, value-additive capital partners.

Limited Bandwidth

Philip Odelfelt was stretched thin and trying to find time to do it all. He was acting as de facto PM for all product development, closing major enterprise deals, managing existing client relationships, and running daily operations as the company entered peak season.

"Based on my Seed round, I estimated that running a proper Series A process would require 10–20 hours per week for 4–6 months. That meant 4–6 months of neglecting other priorities. I couldn't accept that outcome." — Philip Odelfelt

Pre-Raise Planning

Instead of diving straight into outreach, Flowlie's team conducted deep market analysis. They benchmarked valuation and financial performance across 500+ similar Series A rounds and created multi-round cap table pro formas with scenario planning based on market conditions and financial performance.

This included a full accounting of all previous rounds and current stakeholders, including their fully diluted positions, conversions at Series A, rights, MOICs, and more. Result: Precisely defined round size and valuation target, which informed which investors to target for the Series A and the overall financing and growth strategy.

Precision Investor Targeting

Flowlie analyzed their entire investor universe, filtered out non-active VCs, and narrowed in on investors actively deploying into similar companies. They filtered 10,000+ investors down to 395 active high-fit Series A partners through deep thesis matching on vertical enterprise SaaS and industrials.

But the real magic came from network intelligence. Flowlie discovered 3,200+ warm introduction paths through stakeholder networks, used relationship strength scoring to go from 3,200 mapped relationships to 150 high-signal intros to VC partners to activate, and conducted social capital analysis to prevent intro fatigue among key connectors.

Ongoing Raise Management

Flowlie transformed from strategist to execution partner through three key areas:

Pre-Meeting Intelligence: The team provided pre-call briefs on each partner's background, recent investments, thought leadership, board seats, and more. They created customized talk tracks based on firm portfolio and thesis, and anticipated questions based on analysis of 50+ similar pitches.

Real-Time Support: Flowlie delivered call summaries with sentiment analysis within hours, maintained an FAQ database updated after each meeting, and provided pitch feedback including human-reviewed and AI-assisted analysis to identify high leverage opportunities for improvement.

Transaction Advisory: The team provided term sheet scenario analysis to show how different options would impact the business today, at the Series B, and at exit. They prepared pro forma cap tables for closing docs and provided negotiation assistance to get all stakeholders on the same page and close the round.

By the Numbers

Datavations closed $22M total funding, including a $17M oversubscribed equity round plus $5M in debt. Philip saved 250 hours that were reinvested in sales, product, and hiring. The company received 3 term sheets and achieved a 3.3x valuation step-up from the Seed round, hitting their target valuation and dilution ranges. They also built relationships with 26 prospective Series B leads.

Summary

In a market where Series A's were about twice as hard to get done, Datavations closed their dream Series A. They worked closely with the Flowlie team to identify and implement the best strategy for their business, find and build relationships with the right investors, and close an oversubscribed round.

"Most founders tell their team 'I'll be less available during fundraising.' I told mine 'Business as usual' and delivered on that promise thanks to Flowlie." — Philip Odelfelt