E349 | Fundraising Playbook: Process, Pitfalls & Power Plays with Paul Archer (Duel), Jo Saxby (Spruce) & John Readman (ASK BOSCO®)

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Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse

Monkhouse & Company

359 episodes

4 days ago

Wide awake at 3am, wondering how your business turned from a 15-person rocket into an 80-person rollercoaster? Hit play. This show is for founder CEOs who want practical wins, not platitudes. Every fortnight, Dominic Monkhouse - who scaled two UK tech firms to £30m+ in five years (twice) - grills people who’ve actually done it: operators, battle-scarred founders, and experts who cut through noise. You’ll learn techniques that stop fires, speed up decisions, and give you time back. What you’ll get: field-tested methods that will all contribute to one of three vital goals – freeing up your time, building a leadership team that can lead without you, and installing systems that you can be sure will work. No recycled LinkedIn fluff. No crappy ‘inspiration’. Just clear actions you can run this week. Why listen now? Because growth shouldn’t mean chaos. Twelve of Dom’s clients have exited. His 2-Day-a-Week CEO Blueprint shows leaders how to make sure they spend their time doing things that ONLY they can do - not covering tasks that could be done by others. He coaches scale-ups, writes books people actually read, and asks the questions you wish investors would. If you’re stuck between “we’re onto something” and “this might kill me,” this is your edge: honest stories, hard numbers, and repeatable systems to build a business you’re proud of - without losing yourself along the way. New episodes weekly. Grab a notebook. And hit follow so the next time you’re staring at the ceiling at stupid o’clock, you’ve got a plan - and a playbook - waiting in your ears.

All content for Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse is the property of Monkhouse & Company and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Entrepreneurship

Business,

Management

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E349 | Fundraising Playbook: Process, Pitfalls & Power Plays with Paul Archer (Duel), Jo Saxby (Spruce) & John Readman (ASK BOSCO®)

Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse

1 hour 4 minutes 54 seconds

1 month ago

E349 | Fundraising Playbook: Process, Pitfalls & Power Plays with Paul Archer (Duel), Jo Saxby (Spruce) & John Readman (ASK BOSCO®)

Fundraising playbooks often skip the messy middle. This one doesn’t.

In this panel episode, three founder–CEOs who actually closed rounds in the last year unpack how fundraising in the UK really works - from brutal pre‑seed rejections to Series A droughts, and everything in between.

They break down the tactics that moved term sheets, the traps that wasted weeks, and how to run a tight process: negotiating with leverage, surviving due diligence, and choosing investors you’ll still want to text when the wheels wobble.

We get into ARR “magic numbers”, family offices, co‑leads, board control, and why capital = time - so if you’re going to raise, spend it to move faster.

What You’ll Learn -

Running a process: staged “sexy → deep” data rooms, deadlines, partner‑first intros, FOMO at events like SaaStock.
Numbers that matter: why $5m and $10m ARR are real gates for many funds; how fund size dictates your exit math.
Investor fit: difference between US vs EU/UK funds, VCTs, growth equity, family offices - and what each expects from you.
Negotiation & leverage: controlling access, not sending the deck without a meeting, co‑lead trade‑offs, when to push back.
Due diligence without burnout: what to prepare, what to outsource, and why you still need extra hands even if you’re “organised”.
People and pace: raising to move faster (recruiters, senior hires), opening in the US, and hiring outside London.

About the Guests -

Jo Saxby- Co‑Founder, Spruce

Software for heat‑pump installers; accelerating decarbonisation of buildings. Latest raise £3m+; ARR moved from hundreds of £k to ~£1m run‑rate by Christmas. Pre‑empted round, sequencing, and pitching smarter.

Paul Archer - CEO & Founder, Duel

Enterprise brand‑advocacy platform powering growth via passionate fans for top fashion/beauty/retail brands. Recently raised $16m; ~$4m ARR at raise, targeting $10m ARR near term. Co‑lead lessons, NYC expansion, beachhead strategy.

John Readman - Founder & CEO, Back to Episodes