Going from sellside to founder--etiquette and reaching out questions
So I've been in the industry for about a decade and have established relationships internally with colleagues over that period, while my client relationships are almost as old. Now that I'm senior and my partner and I went independent and started our own boutique a while ago, my work hours have diminished and I've gotten time to focus on side projects. One such side project is a fintech startup (not blockchain) that is getting off the ground and so far doing well. Some details that I think are important:
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It is only very tangentially related to my day job.
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It's relatively low cost for now, but maintenance will rise exponentially with scale.
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I'm one of two founders, neither of us have a tech background (both finance).
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While my work and I are U.S. based, the project targets a foreign market.
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We were offered initial funding from an incubator but turned it down (bad fit, don't want to dilute ownership at seed stage).
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I'm fully self-funding the project for now.
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My niche is working with large asset management firms (average AUM is probably $20b among our clients).
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This startup's valuation won't eclipse $10m now, and even if it's wildly successful may never be worth more than $100m.
I expect us to scale to the point where I can't afford to keep it running in about a year, so I'll want to start reaching out for funding in maybe six months. I'd like to leverage my relationships, but I don't know how to do this. Can I just reach out internally and externally? Is there a compliance issue I need to worry about? Is it in bad taste--should I just not bother and try cold calling VCs I don't know?
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