It may come as a surprise to some, but not every startup is clamoring to raise venture capital.
The reasons some founders shun the process of raising institutional funding vary based on individual circumstances. There are founders who don’t like the idea of giving up equity. Others don’t want to give up control of their operations and/or strategy. And there are many who want to hold on to both equity and control. Then there are those for whom raising venture capital is simply not as accessible, such as founders in emerging markets like Latin America.
There is no right or wrong way to grow a company. While some companies may stay bootstrapped forever, others decide after years of being in operation that maybe raising outside capital is not such a bad idea after all — especially if they are experiencing rapid growth.
Below are the stories of startups that were bootstrapped for years before going the M&A or venture route, as well as one that remains bootstrapped by choice:
- Money Minx, a fintech startup that turned down funding due to unfavorable terms and ended up getting acquired by another, larger fintech — venture-backed Arta.
- Valcre, a proptech startup that scraped together $13,000 to start its venture and waited six years to raise outside capital despite being approached regularly by investors.
- 10KC.com, a Toronto-based networking and mentoring company that bootstrapped for eight years before opting to raise growth capital.
- BairesDev, an Argentinian-born software-outsourcing company with impressive financials and no plans to raise institutional funding.
- HealthAtom, a Chilean vertical SaaS company for healthcare SMBs that raised money after a decade in business to expand into embedded payments.
