April 23, 2024
New Podcast Episode: Don’t Let Fundraising Break You & How to Treat an Entrepreneur - with Shaily Baranwal of Elevate K-12
Happy Tuesday, friends. We are introducing a new series of podcast episodes today: Conversations with Entrepreneurs, where we will discuss how entrepreneurs raised non-dilutive capital, and what investors can learn from the CEOs running successful companies. Today I’m super jazzed to bring you a conversation with Shaily Baranwal, founder and CEO of Elevate K-12, an edtech company based in Chicago. I’ve known Shaily since 2019, when Gale Wilkinson of Vitalize VC introduced her to Novel. We provided her with RBF growth capital and she has gone on to build Elevate to massive scale. Shaily is one of the brightest, most focused people I have ever known, and I always come away from a conversation with her with new ideas and insights. We cover a lot of ground:
How her personal journey from special ed student to entrepreneur informs her approach to problem-solving and to growing her company.
How she raised capital, and how she thinks about key issues in her company while she scales.
How she learned to raise capital…as she did it.
Why she sought out non-dilutive capital, and how she chose a provider.
You will hear how a great CEO thinks about raising capital, which is critical for investors to understand.
Shaily has raised from premier VCs, PEs, angels, from us at Novel, and she figured it all out as she went. I’m a huge fan of Shaily’s and I’m really excited for you to hear her story. Tune in here and let us know your thoughts!