Deal Makers (& Fakers) Podcast

About Deal Makers (& Fakers) Podcast

Deal Makers (& Fakers) is my podcast where fundraising gets real. No polished success stories. No fake LinkedIn wins. dealmakersandfakers.substack.com (https://dealmakersandfakers.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Niclas Schlopsna

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Jan 2026

Latest episode

18 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

22 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Sept 2026

   The Biggest Problem in Startup Fundraising Isn't Money | Andreas Schmidt x Deal Makers (& Fakers)

   There is money in the market. What’s actually missing is someone willing to lead the round. That’s the argument Dr. Andreas Schmidt makes in this episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers), and interestingly, it flips the usual fundraising story on its head. Founders assume the problem is a shortage of capital. Andreas, (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreas-schmidt-80259a/) a serial biotech founder, investor, and venture builder who has built and funded companies across the US, Singapore, and Europe, says the real gap sits earlier: not enough investors are willing to write the first check and set the terms. Niclas Schlopsna, partner at spectup, discussed with him a lot of things surrounding the capital raising. Andreas has been on both sides of the table & being the one who knew things as a founder and also being the one writing checks, he walked through the insider signals that mostly investors look for before writing a check: * Customer validation * A team that understands its market * Real technology * Evidence that someone out there will pay for what you’re building. He explained why “Great team, come back in two years” is such a common response from investors, and why that usually means the capital raising process is broken, not the company. He also made a case that surprised us: Get early revenue if you can, because it can matter more than almost anything else in a pitch. VC isn’t automatically the right financing model for every company, and founders who treat it as the default often miss better paths, including non-dilutive funding. The most different part of the episode is how Andreas’s own investment process works. Thanks for reading Deal Makers (& Fakers)! This post is public so feel free to share it. His team uses a swarm of AI agents, with experts in the loop, to route pitch decks to the right specialists and support due diligence. It’s a different way to think about how funding decisions get made, worth hearing even if biotech isn’t your world. If you’re a founder raising capital, an investor evaluating deals, or just curious how funding actually happens behind the scenes, this one is for you. In this episode: * Why early lead investors are the real bottleneck in startup fundraising * What investors look for before writing a check * Pitch decks, customer validation, and what makes a company investable * Non-dilutive funding and why revenue can beat a term sheet * How AI agents are being used in venture capital due diligence * Building outside the US: lessons from Singapore and Europe Thanks for reading Deal Makers (& Fakers)! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Listen to the full episode below. If it’s useful, the best way to support it is to send it to a founder who’s fundraising right now. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dealmakersandfakers.substack.com (https://dealmakersandfakers.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   17 Sept 2026

   He said Fundraising is a scam nobody talks about | Andreas Schmidt x Deal Makers (& Fakers)

   What do investors actually look for when they evaluate a startup? And why do so many founders get startup fundraising wrong? In this episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers), Niclas sits down with Andreas Schmidt for a very honest conversation about capital raising, startup funding and what investors look for in a startup. We talked about what makes a company genuinely investable, how investors evaluate startups, what founders need to understand before approaching investors, and why impressive looking numbers do not always tell the full story. Andreas also shares his perspective on fundraising strategy, the financial strategy behind building and scaling a company, cash flow management, and knowing when raising capital actually makes sense. Thanks for reading Deal Makers (& Fakers)! This post is public so feel free to share it. We get into some of the mistakes founders make when raising money for a startup * What investors want to see before committing capital * Why understanding investor due diligence can completely change the way founders approach fundraising. If you’re a founder thinking about how to raise capital, preparing to pitch investors, already speaking to investors, or simply curious about how investment decisions are really made, there is plenty to take away from this one. 👇 What’s one thing about fundraising you wish someone had told you earlier? Drop it in the comments. Deal Makers (& Fakers) is hosted by Niclas Schlopsna, partner at spectup, a private capital advisory. Subscribe for more conversations on venture capital, angel investing, and what it actually takes to raise or deploy capital well. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dealmakersandfakers.substack.com (https://dealmakersandfakers.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   31 Jul 2026

   How to Spot Unicorns in 2026? | Andy Goldstein

   Andy Goldstein has coached nine unicorns. He also walked away from Deloitte Digital Ventures, the company builder unit where Niclas Schlopsna worked for him as a consultant, to build something entirely different: a university for investors. In this episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers), Andy sits down with Niclas Schlopsna, partner at spectup, for a full conversation on venture capital, angel investing, startup fundraising, and how to actually break into VC. Thanks for reading Deal Makers (& Fakers)! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. From Deloitte Digital Ventures to Venture University Years of angel investing on his own had produced a portfolio that looked good on paper but was not converting into exits. After four quarters inside Venture University, he had six exits in 2025 alone, and two more already this year. Networking is not the skill. Deal flow is. Andy does not think networking is the core skill in investing, deal flow is. But networking is one of the best ways to get it. He described it as giving life a chance to reveal itself to you in a positive way, the kind of thing that happens when a casual conversation about a swim turns into an introduction that leads to a deal. The buzzword he hears every day Ask Andy what phrase makes him wince and he will tell you: “we’re an AI first company.” He understands why founders say it, software has gone through its own version of what happened when photography went digital, and everyone is scrambling to prove they will not get replaced. His test for whether a company is actually AI first: can they show you their large language model partners, their agentic strategy, and how AI shows up in every part of the business, not just the pitch deck Europe invests around $45 billion a year in venture capital. The US invests over $1 trillion. Andy’s read on the gap has less to do with talent and more to do with mindset. American funds, in his view, are far more stage agnostic, willing to write a $50,000 check into an early company and stay in all the way to IPO. European funds tend to be siloed by stage and fixated on ownership percentage. “I’d rather invest a couple million in a company valued at two billion that I think is very likely to go to 30 or 100 billion, than invest in a company at two million that I think might go to 10,” he said. Two changes that would change everything in Capital Ecosystem Two structural changes, in Andy’s view, would open up more capital in Germany specifically: * Letting pension funds and insurance companies allocate into venture (something many are currently restricted from doing) * Stronger tax incentives for private individuals to angel invest, similar to what France already offers. Thanks for reading Deal Makers (& Fakers)! This post is public so feel free to share it. The three questions before Andy invests He laid out the criteria the fund uses before writing a check: * Magnitude of improvement: Is this solution two times better than the status quo, or ten times, or a thousand times better? He pointed to Uber as the clearest example of total category transformation. * Market size: If the transformation works, is the market big enough to make the company hugely valuable? He gave the example of a fertility tech company using AI to select embryos, where even a one to two percent improvement in outcomes is large enough to create a unicorn. * Unfair market advantage: What is the actual entry point, the marketing hack, that lets this company win distribution before anyone else can copy the idea? Just like Venmo’s early edge was not the payment technology, it was that all you needed to send money was a phone number. 🎧 Listen to the full episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers) above, or wherever you get your podcasts. Deal Makers (& Fakers) is hosted by Niclas Schlopsna, partner at spectup, a private capital advisory. Subscribe for more conversations on venture capital, angel investing, and what it actually takes to raise or deploy capital well. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dealmakersandfakers.substack.com (https://dealmakersandfakers.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)