Skip to content
Dalton + MichaelDalton + Michael

Standard Capital Update

In this video, Michael interviews Dalton to get an update on Dalton's Series A fund, Standard Capital, since Standard's first ever application cycle was recently completed. They discuss what Dalton has learned so far, as well as some tips for founders that might be interested in applying to Standard in the future. Applications for the second Standard cycle are now open: https://www.standardcap.com Dalton + Michael is brought to you by ‪ @Standard_Cap Dalton Caldwell on X: https://x.com/daltonc Michael Seibel on X: https://x.com/mwseibel

Dalton CaldwellguestMichael Seibelhost
Jan 4, 202613mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Standard Capital streamlines Series A funding with founder-set valuation process

  1. Standard Capital adapts Y Combinator’s application-driven selection model to Series A investing to reduce the time and friction of traditional fundraising.
  2. After its first cycle, Standard funded nine companies and was surprised by how widely the process spread via founder word-of-mouth, driving far more applications than expected.
  3. The end-to-end timeline is roughly two weeks from application deadline to final decision, with founders spending only a few hours on the application plus two short meetings.
  4. A core design choice is that founders name their valuation upfront, and Standard either accepts that price or declines—there is no valuation negotiation.
  5. They encourage founders to apply even if early or unsure, and to reapply with updated deltas, explicitly rewarding repeat applicants with clearer progress signals.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Speed and clarity are a product choice in fundraising.

Standard aims to compress Series A fundraising into a predictable ~two-week process with quick interview turnaround and a firm decision shortly after in-person meetings.

Founder time is treated as scarce; diligence burden shifts to investors.

Founders mainly provide an application, attend a 20-minute first interview and a 30-minute in-person meeting, while Standard does the deeper diligence work by reviewing provided documents.

Setting your valuation is part of the test—and it’s non-negotiable.

Applicants must choose a valuation aligned with traction; pricing too high effectively raises the acceptance bar because Standard won’t counteroffer and may simply reject.

Apply early and reapply; progress is a signal the process is built to reward.

They encourage founders who are uncertain to apply anyway and later reuse the same application with updates, making improvement over time easy to evaluate.

The model is an opt-out from traditional pitch-deck-driven fundraising.

Many successful applicants reportedly applied without building a deck or talking to other investors, using Standard as an alternative to the typical “market-priced” Series A circuit.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

“We didn’t negotiate on valuation. We just gave them what they said on the app. We never talked about it.”

— Dalton Caldwell

“The whole shebang was two weeks.”

— Dalton Caldwell

“In like, a four hours of active time investment… I get a yes/no on a Series A.”

— Michael Seibel

“If someone was to choose a 120 post… their odds of acceptance, the bar is twice as high as 60 post.”

— Dalton Caldwell

“If you actually think you know all the good companies, shut down.”

— Dalton Caldwell

YC-inspired Series A process designApplication volume and word-of-mouth distributionTwo-step interview structure and decision speedFounder time efficiency vs traditional fundraisingFounder-set valuation and no-negotiation policyReapplying and applying early strategyCritique of VC “we already know all the good companies” mindset

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome