99.co’s Darius Cheung and two other founders on their toughest fundraising woes

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Fundraising for a startup is inherently tough. But it can become even tougher amid a difficult fundraising environment, economic downturn, or disinterested investors, among other possibilities. How can founders thrive?

We reached out to some founders to share their own experiences and learnings.

Editor’s note: Answers have been edited for clarity.

Darius Cheung, CEO at 99.co

Toughest fundraising experience

My experience is probably an outlier. In 2009, we were raising a series A of about US$2 million or US$3 million for our startup tenCube. First of all, there were really zero investors in that range in Singapore/SEA at that time, plus we were hit by the Asian financial crisis. In the end, we had to go after unconventional sources—sovereign funds (and their related VCs) and corporate investors.

Eventually, we found One97 from India to be our investor and it worked out well. We gave great returns to One97, which ended up becoming Paytm. We are proud to say that we still have One97 founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma as a 99.co investor today.

What to do amid a declining landscape or economy

Most good founders could see a declining fundraising landscape coming from a mile away. But the hard part is to buckle down and build good economics and financial performance fast enough.

Many early markets are often over-funded and have an over-emphasis on growth versus economics. There is nothing wrong with this. But the real test for founders is whether they have the mettle to transform a recklessly fast-growing but money-burning startup into a healthy (gross) profit-generating business.

Let’s discuss