Podcast: How to recession-proof your startup

Times are now tougher for startups but founder Christina Cacioppo has some hard-won advice.

Raising money in 2022 is a different beast than early to mid 2021. During the pandemic, people were more eager to make deals and make investments.

Now, startups need to prove that their growth is sustainable and be willing to do this through new metrics like ‘burn multiple’, says Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta, a startup that raised initial seed funding in 2021 and surged forward in 2022 despite a more difficult VC landscape.

Christina provides valuable insights into how to attract funding, meet metrics, hire staff and more in this fascinating chat with Andrew Reed, partner at Sequoia Capital.

These are hard won insights on the back of Vanta’s own journey from seed funding to continued growth.

Funding is not impossible in 2022 said Christina, but founders should be aware that they need to show their homework: VCs are keeping a close eye on certain metrics such as the aforementioned burn multiple, a measure of – for every dollar earned – how much it has cost to achieve goals or how much money was burned to get there.

The Vanta CEO talks about how startups often feel like they are “winning and drowning” in the challenging funding environment of 2022.

Christina said the phrase was coined to normalise this situation that startups find themselves in where they are simultaneously doing well and fighting fires and not realising that this is often part of the path to success.

Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta, was in conversation with Andrew Reed, partner at Sequoia Capital on the Venture Stage at Collision 2022.

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Main image of Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta: Harry Murphy/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)