A Fundraising Masterclass from Marc Lore

How Wonder’s CEO uses a meticulous “capital plan” to map out when and how much to raise to hit your ultimate goal.

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Illustration by Eleanor Taylor

Friends,

Marc Lore is cooking.

On Tuesday, Wonder announced a new $600 million raise, valuing his “super app for mealtime” business at more than $7 billion.

From The Generalist’s self-interested perspective, the timing could not be better. As part of the “Letters to a Young Founder” series, Marc and I recently discussed his methodical approach to raising capital, which we’re sharing with you today. The correspondences below offer an inside look at how one of tech’s most successful fundraisers has secured billions in venture funding.

A few bits of this edition that I especially loved:

1. Getting it wrong. Marc is super transparent about the times he’s gotten it wrong, discussing how he raised too much at Jet and got in over his skis. Every founder thinks they will never make this mistake…yet almost all do when given the chance.

2. A framework for raising capital. Marc seems to have a detailed, thoughtful framework for basically every core aspect of company building. Just as in the last edition, he has a rigorous way of thinking through raising capital.

3. The risk of maintaining the status quo. We get a fascinating inside look at how Marc thought through Wonder’s biggest pivot—away from food trucks and toward brick-and-mortar. I live to hear about these critical moments for founders.

4. How to operate in sixth gear. We get a lambent glimpse of Marc Lore’s intensity when he talks about going into “sixth gear” during company-defining moments.

I always enjoy this series, but I’m having a particularly good time learning from Marc, and finding ways of leveraging his advice to be a better builder of this humble publication :) If you missed our first letter, you can find it here:

How Marc Lore Architects Unicorns

To unlock Marc’s full letter, you’ll need to become a member of Generalist+. For just $22/month, you get exclusive interviews with elite founders and investors, tactical guides, a private database of high-potential startups, and our full library of case studies.

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Mario’s letter

Subject: The capital game
From: Mario Gabriele
To: Marc Lore
Date: Tuesday April 23, 2025 at 5:42 PM GMT

Hi Marc,

I’m heading back to New York in a few weeks and excited to try out Wonder for the first time! I don’t think you’d gotten the physical locations up and running last time I was in the city, so I’m looking forward to swinging by the Chelsea or Brooklyn spots and doing something of a personal food tour :)

I can’t tell you how much I love the organizational philosophy you outlined in our last letter. There’s something simultaneously surprising and logical about the Formula 1 style points system you use, for instance, and I’ve thought about it quite often since.

In addition to running a well-oiled operational machine, you have a reputation as an expert fundraiser. Looking at the numbers, I can understand why. Between 2014 and 2016, for example, you raised more than $500 million to build a direct Amazon competitor with Jet.

You’re taking an even bigger swing with Wonder, raising $1.4 billion (Update: Now more than $2 billion at a $7 billion valuation!) since its founding in 2021. You seem to have wielded the capital you’ve raised aggressively, buying out Grubhub for $650 million in 2024, for example. That’s not something most three-year-old startups are capable of pulling off, either financially or operationally.

For starters, I’m curious why you’ve chosen to follow such an aggressive capitalization plan with Wonder. From one vantage, it seems unavoidable. You’re trying to build a national-scale business in a highly operational, brick-and-mortar category. Though there are clever ways to change the traditional cost structure (which you’ve leveraged), large amounts of funding are simply necessary to execute at speed.

Still, I’m curious how you wrapped your mind around this. Did you ever consider a more conservative fundraising approach? Would it even make sense? Was there ever any concern about raising too much capital, especially as a nominal “seed”? I could imagine another founder preferring to raise a smaller initial round and de-risk the model more fully before tapping VC to the extent Wonder has. Was there an urgency around this idea and the current market dynamics that made you think you couldn’t afford to wait?

This may be a naive question, but did you have any concerns about being able to put that much capital to work effectively? Or, after 25 years of building operationally complex companies, has it simply become second nature to you?

Though Wonder seems to have grown rapidly (Update: Revenue is north of $2 billion, including Grubhub), validating your aggressive approach, there have been meaningful changes in the model that I’d love to hear how you reasoned through.

When you started, for example, Wonder utilized a fleet of vans that operated as mobile, micro kitchens. Couriers would drive to a customer’s house, then use the vehicle facilities to finish the meal, delivering it piping hot to their doorstep. It was a fascinating offering, promising a new level of quality in at-home dining, albeit with what looked like thorny operational complexities. In 2023, Wonder changed course, selling its vans and moving to more traditional brick-and-mortar locations.

To the extent that you’re willing to share, I’d be fascinated to hear what this period felt like from the inside, how you gained the confidence to make your decision, and if it impacted how you thought about Wonder’s fundraising journey.

Given how methodically you organize your team, I can imagine you’re similarly rigorous and strategic in how you think about timing and structuring your raises. What techniques have you found effective at driving a round to its conclusion? What have you learned after logging your “10,000 hours” of sitting across the table from venture capitalists and selling them on your vision? How have you succeeded in making your companies so capital magnetic?

Despite how effectively you seem to have raised capital from the outside, I know the truth is often much messier. Even the founders of supposedly “hot” companies often seem to have faced at least one round that required remarkable perseverance and a sheer force of will to get across the line. (In general, I subscribe to the view that every great company has at least one near-death moment, and often a handful.) Were there any raises that proved particularly challenging?

I’d love to hear how you approach this aspect of your craft, and thank you again for sharing your experience with me.

Best,
Mario

Marc’s response

Subject: The capital game
From: Marc Lore
To: Mario Gabriele
Date: Thursday May 1, 2025 at 10:02 AM EST

Mario,

It’s good to hear from you, and I’m glad you enjoyed the last letter. It was fun to talk through it together.

You asked about raising money. It’s always been strange to me that every startup makes a business plan, but almost no one builds a “capital plan.” With every company I’ve built, I’ve mapped out from the very beginning the outcome we were aiming for, and the money we would need to reach it, step by step.

Making a capital plan

Here’s how I’ve put my capital plans together, starting at Quidsi and continuing to Wonder.

First, you have to start with a clear picture of what you’re aiming for. Ask yourself: What size market cap company does your vision support? If everything plays out as you hope it will, what scale outcome are we talking about? That depends on the market you’re attacking and just how ambitious you want to be. You have to be honest with yourself. Are we talking about a $100 million, $1 billion, $10 billion, $100 billion, or $1 trillion business? What order of magnitude are we building towards?

For example, let’s say a founder is shooting for a $1 billion outcome. That’s usually a pretty good sweet spot. You can see a path to building something of that size; it works for early-stage venture capitalists, and it’s not so crazy ambitious that it’s going to require a ton of capital. (If you’re aiming lower than that – say, $100 million – it’s hard to raise capital from traditional VCs.)

Next, you need to determine how much capital you’ll need to achieve that outcome. I use what I call “The Rule of 250” to guide my thinking about this.

Take whatever sized outcome you’re targeting – $1 billion in our example – and divide it by 250. In our case, we’re targeting $1 billion, so doing the math, we should raise $4 million to get started. If we were shooting for a $10 billion outcome, we should try to raise a lot more to get started and operate at a true startup pace, closer to $40 million. Not everyone can get that kind of capital out of the gate, and you need to have a plan that backs it up.

The next step is to operate at true rocketship cadence and raise accordingly. With my companies, my goal has been to double the amount I raise at double the valuation every 18 months. You can only do that if you’re executing, consistently banking 100% year-over-year growth, but that’s what I expect of myself and my team.

Obviously, you can tweak this to fit different businesses, market conditions, circumstances, and so on. But it’s a good framework to get started with and a helpful straw man to push against.

You can use our $1 billion example, do the math, and see how it works out:

• Seed: Raise $4 million on a $8 million pre-money valuation, $12 million post-money.

• Series A: Raise $8 million at a $24 million pre-money valuation, $32 million post-money.

• Series B: Raise $16 million at a $64 million pre-money, $80 million post-money.

• Series C: Raise $32 million at a $160 million pre-money, $192 million post-money.

• Series D: Raise $64 million at a $384 million pre-money, $448 million post-money.

Keep the pace, and the next round is the $1 billion IPO.

It’s a great outcome for everyone. As a founder, you should still have about 20%, and your investors have made a great return, with IRRs of +70%. You consumed $124 million over five rounds to make it happen.

Now, what’s really useful about having a capital plan isn’t just seeing these numbers. It’s understanding what it means to build the business step by step. Instead of starting out by wondering “How do I get to a billion dollars?” you just need to ask yourself “How can I go from a $4 million seed to an $8 million Series A?” or “What can I do to get myself from a $12 million valuation to a $24 million valuation?”

What to prove

Every round, you have to prove something different. You should outline that for yourself, too. (By the way, obviously, the names of the rounds don’t matter. It’s the same principle whether we call the $4 million first round a pre-seed, seed, Series A, or whatever.)

Seed is about having a vision. You need a big idea, attacking a big TAM, and you need to be a strong founder. You can raise it off the back of a good pitch deck. It’s a bit of sizzle.

When it gets to the Series A, you need to have something to show . A product, an app, data demonstrating that people are starting to use it. Investors should have the feeling of “Wow, this is exciting. I can see how this has come to life.” There’s still some sizzle here, but less.