Join Christina Caljé, a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor, in this comprehensive course on securing your first round of external capital. Drawing on her extensive experience in raising millions for her own (acquired) startup, investing in 20+ startups, serving as an Atomico Angel, Curiosity VC fund advisor and Investment Committee Member for Borski Fund, Christina shares valuable tips and best practices that are universally applicable to founders in any sector or region.
Borderless Brilliance
Navigating Your First External Fundraise
Course Description
Join Christina Caljé, a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor, in this comprehensive course on securing your first round of external capital. With an investment banking background and her extensive experience in raising millions for her own (acquired) startup and having invested directly in 20+ pre/seed startups, Christina shares valuable tips and best practices that are universally applicable to founders in any sector or region. Having sat on both sides of the fundraising table, she demistifies best practices she continually accrues through her vast operator angel network and venture fund collaborations as an Atomico Angel, Curiosity VC fund advisor and Investment Committee Member for Bankers Without Boundaries. In this cohort-based curriculum, you'll join other founders focused on best practices to position themselves for success in the fundraising process.
The format of this live curriculum will be interactive, guided sessions tapping into Christina’s 10+ years of learnings as an entrepreneur who’s gone through every phase of the founder journey - launching, fundraising and selling her company. She emphasizes the importance of seeding your cap table with the right investor profile for you, as that first investor launches a relay that affects the caliber and representation of future investment rounds.
Founders will start with a guided session to personally define their ideal investor profile, ensuring that you find the right investor collaborator who aligns with your values and supports your long-term vision. From there, the curriculum is tailored to build on this foundation, talking through the practicalities that will set you up for a successful fundraise, such as research, investor qualification, pitch material templates and term sheet guidance.
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Borderless Brilliance - Course Overview
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Borderless Brilliance - Session Previews
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Defining Your Ideal Investor Profile
During this live session, Christina will guide founders through a series of questions to help them better pinpoint the values and governance style that best aligns with their professional preferences.
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Filling And Qualifying Your Investor Pipeline
Once we’ve taken the time to define the behaviors, values and characteristics of your ideal investor, we need to find them!
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Entrepreneurial Community Building
Entrepreneurial community building - get to know your fellow founders! We’ll enjoy some ice-breaker sessions, to understand each others’ backgrounds and networks, and where we can ask each other for help.
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Practicalities - Pitch Deck, Data Room and FAQs
During this live session, Christina will talk through the practicalities of structuring your fundraise in a way that preserves your time and keeps you in control of the data and narrative throughout the process.
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Negotiating Startup Terms: A Founder’s Guide
During this live session, Christina will share insights into key clauses and term structures to look out for as you negotiate your first investment.
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SPEAKER. ADVISOR. INVESTOR.
SPEAKER. ADVISOR. INVESTOR.
Christina Caljé is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor in early-stage companies.
Following the acquisition of my video technology company in 2021, I shifted my ambition towards legacy. I advise and invest in practical innovations that address pressing social, economic and environmental challenges. I enjoy thought partnership with clients across the full spectrum of leadership, from CXOs of publicly traded companies to ambitious founders in their first stages of iteration towards product-market fit.
- CHRISTINA CALJE
Start The Fundraising Relay Right!
Course FAQ
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The course curriculum is cohort based, conducted LIVE across five 1 hour sessions. Though Christina has a standard hourly rate for her corporate clients, she understands the reality of a bootstrapped startup founder and charges a sharply reduced rate of €350 for the full course (versus €2.500 value that she commands for this 5hr time dedication).
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Christina approaches these cohort sessions with a true entrepreneurial style. It will be an interactive course, with a guideline for content that can shift, depending on the needs of the founder cohort, and the dynamics of the fundraising environment at the time.
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Born and raised in New York City, Christina is a Goldman Sachs Executive Director turned startup founder, having launched and scaled businesses across Europe and the US. Following the acquisition of her AI-based video technology company in 2021, Christina shifted her ambition towards legacy. She invests early in practical innovations that address pressing social, economic and environmental challenges, and is especially motivated to support founders from historically undercapitalized groups. With this purpose in mind, Christina serves as advisor / board member / investment committee member to venture capital funds and government entities alike, invests as a business angel and has directly mentored 50+ startups. Additionally, she speaks as a subject matter expert on ‘The Philosophical Debate of AI’, 'Entrepreneurship' and 'Investing with Impact'.
For more information on Christina's accolades, press mentions and client work, please refer to her personal website.