Why Did Daytona's Series a Not Happen?

Ivan Burazin says Daytona's Series A, on the new product after the pivot, did not get done the first time. The company had already raised a pre-seed and a seed on the original product while the team was in Croatia. For the new product they ran a timed process, which he likes because investors without conviction can say no quickly. This process came back with nos. He calls that devastating. You tell the team and the existing investors that you are raising, and you come home with nothing.

There was one term sheet, from an investor he does not put in the top tier, at about half the valuation they were aiming for. He and his co-founder turned it down. They still had revenue and had not run out of money, so they went back to work for three months. Very few investors understood the company. The objection was not technical. When he said agents will need computers, the response was to ask why. That idea was not obvious yet. The growth was also only three months of data, which he says is easy for a venture investor to distrust, because a short ramp can be gamed. Three months later they had six months of numbers, the customers were still there, and the round happened.