Fundamentals for FINTECH Startups: How to Raise Venture Capital as a Fintech Startup

Hope Cochran, Managing Director, and Elisa La Cava, Investor, of Madrona Venture Group (www.madrona.com) will share tips and tricks for raising capital from VCs. Discussion will center around KPIs and milestones that VCs look for when assessing startups, with a special focus on fintech business models.

Hope Cochran became a Managing Director of Madrona Venture Group in early 2019, following two years as a Venture Partner. As Managing Director, Hope identifies and leads new investments, provides strategic and operational advice to Madrona portfolio companies, and fosters corporate and strategic business development relationships with larger companies and investors. Hope spearheads Madrona’s leadership in the OnBoarding Women program which is focused on a business first education for prospective women corporate board members. Hope serves on the boards of three public companies, Hasbro, Inc, MongoDB and NewRelic.

Prior to joining Madrona, Hope was the CFO of King Digital, the creator of Candy Crush and other successful mobile games, where she helped the company manage explosive employee and revenue growth, guided the company’s IPO and successfully completed a $5.9 billion acquisition by Activision in early 2016. Prior to King Digital, Hope was CFO at Clearwire, a telecom company that navigated the complicated world of spectrum, partnerships and competition as the modern wireless industry took shape. While at Clearwire she brought the company through $12 billion of capital raises including an IPO, secondary offering, multiple debt offerings and strategic investments from large public companies.

Elisa La Cava joined Madrona in 2018. Elisa focuses on sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities that span the full breadth of Madrona’s investment themes, as well as working with portfolio companies to develop strategies for growth and success. Elisa is particularly interested in intelligent applications, cloud-native software, and the future of work.

Prior to joining Madrona, Elisa held positions at MATH Venture Partners and AT&T Corporate Development / M&A. Prior to her MBA, Elisa worked at Deloitte Consulting where she held US West Region Chief of Staff and Consultant roles. She worked primarily with technology and life sciences companies in developing M&A integration, software implementation, and training strategies. She was also involved in several key initiatives including developing Deloitte’s first Diversity and Inclusion go-to-market strategy, as well as leading an international pro-bono consulting program for non-profits in Latin America. Earlier in her career, Elisa gained startup experience at Seattle biofuel manufacturer General Biodiesel where she wore several hats, including business development, project management, and HR.

Fundamentals for Startups is a weekly one-hour lecture series featuring notable experts who share startup-related information, experience, and insights with our entrepreneurial community. From raising capital to scaling to exit strategies, these seasoned guest speakers deliver valuable content designed to help startups and entrepreneurs thrive. Lectures are typically 30-40 mins, followed by open Q&A.
Each lecture is filmed, live streamed and archived on CoMotion’s Startup Training Videos page.

These lectures are open to the public and you do not have to be currently affiliated with the UW or a startup to join. Please register at the link below for access information.

We hope you can join us online!