The secret behind raising $1.5 billion

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the arc of innovation and its acceleration from Gutenberg’s press to the advent of artificial intelligence. There is a common denominator in all these innovations: the power of imagination to dare to dream big.

My own journey at wefox, going from a dream to a billion dollar reality, encapsulates the essence of ambition and the transformative power of imagination. Intentional imagination is when we can access our deepest “why” and that gives meaning and purpose to what we do. As Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “He who has a reason to live can endure almost anything.”

The image above is of me when I was live on the air on CNBC announcing that my startup wefox had just raised $650 million in a funding round. I want to tell you the story of how I got to this point.

This is me in 2011 when I raised my first funding for my first start-up. I was over the moon and never believed I was capable of what I had achieved. I was just a confused kid who didn’t know what life had in store for me.

At the time I had no idea what I was doing, but it still worked. Over the next few years, I developed an iterative approach to fundraising that I call “The Power of Imagination.”

It all starts with setting yourself high aspirations. For example, my formula was to look at what the largest fundraising round was in my industry and scene and multiply it by a factor of two. So how can I double it?

The largest Series A in insurtech at the time in 2015 was $15 million, so when I started the fundraising process I was aiming for $30 million: We raised $30 million. The largest Series B was $120 million: We raised $240 million.

Setting high ambitions is not enough: You have to believe in yourself and your abilities to achieve your goal. For this, you need to convince yourself deeply – completely – how you will effectively use this capital to enter a new stage of development for your business. What business KPIs will you be able to achieve? What new strategic initiatives are you going to invest in? How will these investments affect the future value of your business?

If you believe in your abilities, then the magic part begins: You have to imagine yourself already achieving your goals. How do you feel; What do other people say to you when you achieve your goal? How well will you sleep after all that pressure is off your shoulders? Use all your senses to visualize this perfect situation and feel, smell and feel every aspect of that moment as if you were right there at that moment. In this way, you begin to integrate the vision into your body because it is important that you begin to think, feel and behave in this state of mind. To paraphrase Gandhi: “Be the change you want to seek.”

Once you’ve made up your mind about your desired future state, you need to talk about your aspirations publicly with as many people as possible. You have to burn the boats – get out with no way back.

You will soon see: if you believe in yourself and have achieved your goals, then people will believe in you, support you and open more doors. If you haven’t done the work and talk about ambitious goals, people will dismiss you as a wishful thinker. This is the point of action when the rubber meets the road.

In the end, you have to execute your plan and be sure: the bigger your ambition, the bigger the challenges you will have to endure. People will try to test you if you are really serious and they will try to make you doubt yourself.

This is a photo from 2017 where I was in a lot of pain. Both physically and mentally. It was the period I call “The Black Summer”. I was getting married and it was supposed to be the best summer of my life. Instead it was terrible. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy, no investors believed in us and I was desperate. I was responsible for more than 200 employees, the pressure was so high and I started to lose faith in myself.

I knew I had to regroup. I focused and restored my faith in myself and my abilities to save the company. I found a way to believe in my goals, dare to dream big, eliminate the self-doubt I felt through constant rejections, envision the outcome, speak confidently about my plans and execute with speed to build momentum. And I continued to build on that momentum.

In the end, “The Power of Imagination” enabled me to raise $1.5 billion for my company and in the process created the world’s leading insurance technology with $800 million in revenue, over 1000 employees and a valuation of 4 .5 billion dollars.

The road to success is not a straight line and there will always be obstacles – but through the ‘Power of Imagination’ combined with iron conviction, the path ahead becomes not only bearable, but doable.

This is true for fundraising and indeed for any other endeavor in life: Whether it’s building a happy family or anything else in life that really matters to you.

“We dare not because things are difficult, but because we dare not things are difficult” ~ Seneca the Younger.