56. Thibaut Sahaghian, Co-Founder & CEO @ Multis (YCS19) - Learnings from being too early in B2B Crypto in 2019 to raising a $7M round with Sequoia in 2022 [a web3 episode]

Runway Series (Venture Capital, Startups, Crypto, web3), in partnership with Olive Capital.

Ep56, a web3 episode with Thibaut Sahaghian, Co-Founder & CEO @ Multis (YC S19).

[PROMO CODE to listen to the full episode https://upcomingvc.substack.com/ep56]

The myth about pivots is that they are an exception: something undesirable that happens because a startup went seriously awry, and which you should strive to avoid.

In reality, pivots are an integral part of the entrepreneurial process. Whether you’re pivoting in the early days because you haven’t yet found product-market fit, or you’re pivoting by reinventing yourself later on, all companies, if they’re going to become and stay successful, are going to have to pivot. You have a brilliant idea, hopefully you’re in the right place at the right time, you execute like crazy, and it either works or it doesn’t. So how do you know when it’s time to pivot?

This is the case with Multis, a startup building the financial backbone of crypto-native organizations which has pivoted and experienced being kind of too early in its markets. Mid-March 2022, French startup Multis announced it had raised a $7 million round led by Sequoia Capital, about the firm’s third investment in France after Pennylane and Upway. Originally designed as a neobank for companies working with cryptocurrencies, the company has completely altered its product vision as it offers now the software layer helping web3 organizations manage their crypto finances.

Co-founded in 2018 by Thibaut Sahaghian, Y-Combinator and efounders alumni Multis’ is an all-in-one crypto finances management tool that works in concert with Gnosis, a highly trusted platform for managing digital assets on Ethereum. Sequoia’s Stephanie Zhan explains that “Multis is uniquely positioned to provide a new generation of entrepreneurs with an all-in-one solution for cashflow and spend management”. “DeFi companies, NFT studios, or DAOs are cutting-edge in terms of tech. But their business tools are prehistoric: most crypto founders still struggle to perform basic financial operations that are essential to running a business, like getting visibility on cashflow.” declared recently Thibaut to Tech.eu. “They end up creating their own solution, often a shared spreadsheet, in fear that their operational set-up will fall apart and they'll end up losing money because they don't have a clear understanding of their finances, or that team members will misuse funds.”

In this 56th episode,

1. Thibaut reflects on the early days & assumptions of Multis and shares with us his learning from building too early in the dark a crypto-company in 2019,
2. the toxic validations they got early on,
3. why they stopped building the product in order to pivot while experiencing a critical change in the co-founding team.
4. Thibaut also shares his findings during the conversations held the VC in their captable as the company was facing tough challenges to find PMF,
5. why vulnerability is key when building a transition plan, switching a challenge to an opportunity & building a narrative.
6. we also talk about how DAOs are reshaping the future of capitalism and the principal-agent discrepancy, about how transparency is a means, a lever for higher trust and the challenges to connect code-based decisions with IRL existance / objects.
7. we discover the road ahead for Multis, Thibaut’s take about hiring in web3, and learn about the next milestones for the Multis product

I am sure you will enjoy the episode.
--
These podcasts are produced by UPCOMINGVC® upcoming.vc, created and hosted by Raphael Grieco.