From Pivot to $10M Raise: Building Fondo with David Phillips
What does it really take to build a venture-backed startup from the ground up? Join us for a candid conversation with David Phillips, YC alum and CEO of Fondo, as he shares his founder journey — from an early pivot out of BloomJoy to launching Fondo and scaling it to thousands of customers and a recent $10M raise.
We’ll dive into how David navigated product pivots, founder-led sales, early hiring, and the mental game of building in the early stages — lessons that resonate with any founder scaling their first venture.
About the Speaker:
David Phillips is a the founder and CEO of Fondo (YC W18), the #1 accounting platform for YC startups. After previously bootstrapping Hackbright Academy to an $18M acquisition, David founded Fondo to automate bookkeeping, tax, and R&D credits for startups. Under his leadership, Fondo has scaled to over 1,000 customers and $10M in ARR, helping founders save over $100M in taxes and thousands of hours on back-office work. David is also an angel investor in 100+ startups including Rippling, Flexport, and Liquid Death.
Guests Are Welcome!
Please bring a guest! Every member can bring one (1) guest to each event. Each guest must be a full-time tech startup founder so they can bring new perspectives, skillsets, and experience to your chapter.
All guests must be full-time tech startup founders and you can register them directly on this function page. See How to Register a Guest here.
Confidentiality Policy:
All information shared within Founders Network is strictly confidential. We are built on a foundation of trust, and the community takes confidentiality seriously. Investors, members, and staff all share experiences and opinions off the record. In this roundtable forum, we continue to model our fnValues of Reciprocity, Humility, Authenticity and Inclusivity.