What Makes a Startup Fundable

Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek Venture Capital funding get rejected. Many because they are not fundable. I run One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), a global virtual accelerator for startups. 2025 is our fifteenth year supporting entrepreneurs.

Thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs have approached us for help with their funding at a stage where their chances of getting funding is ZERO. We can’t help them, regardless of how powerful our investor connections are.

We can’t help a startup get funding before they become fundable. It pains me to see how many entrepreneurs have no idea what makes a startup fundable.

Marc Andreessen says: “We see 3,000 inbound deals a year. And those are inbound and coming through our referral network, so those are sort of prequalified. We can do maybe 15 or 20 investments out of the 3,000 a year. So I like to say our day job is crushing entrepreneurs’ hopes and dreams. Our main skill is saying no, and getting people to not hate us.” Source: Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen – Fortune Management

You’ve often heard me say that over 99% of the entrepreneurs who seek financing are rejected. This post offers a set of rejection statistics culled from credible sources on some of the key players:

• Y Combinator: 97.15% [Source: The Economist]
• AngelList: 98.8% [Source: The Economist]
• Andreessen Horowitz: 99.3% [Source: Fortune]

If you get rejected by Accelerators, Angels or VCs, and they don’t tell you why, you need to understand the objections and the analysis that led them to their decision.

If you want my explanation, please join 1Mby1M Premium.

You can get started with Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor right now. 

My humble advice to all entrepreneurs: please learn to assess your own probability of getting funded. 

And please Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, AFTER you become fundable.

Are you going around hitting up VCs and getting rejected? Should you?

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One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor available 24/7 in 57 languages, and offers a compelling alternative to Y Combinator and other equity accelerators.

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond.