As a corporate investor that backs growth-stage businesses with corporate-resource based capital, we have always advocated for good business fundamentals just as much as (and in fact more so) the common approach of burning through investment just to drive revenue, particularly if this results in unsustainable growth over the mid term.

Here’s a good reality check for founders striving for success. Businesses have to make money to survive and to succeed, and investors are increasingly erring away from the tried, tested (and often failed) attitude of ‘growth by long term negative burn’. In a recent survey of founders at the time of writing this article, 84% said they were under more pressure (from their investors) to prioritise profitability. An unsurprising sentiment given the tighter early stage investor landscape – it will be interesting to see how sentiment evolves as more investments mature this year.

The upside being that founders have mostly followed that advice (at least those whose startup has survived), with 64% having cut back on new hires and 57% trimming staff costs; and 49% have also made savings on office costs.

Increasingly founders have said they’d like more help with industry & investor connections, which is exactly the strategic support we believe investors, whether cash or corporate in their model, should focus on when backing growth-stage companies (biased as we may be, given it’s the crux of our investment model).

The survey also found that 71% of startup founders feel like their relationships with their investors has become strained over the past year with 44% of founders acknowledging that many traditional VC investors were not super helpful when it comes to business strategy – meaning that founders, often first-time leaders that lack corporate experience, are left unsupported in executing on the growth initiatives that all stakeholders have ultimately bought into by backing the business. It’s high time that founders and funders alike leverage the real value of ‘better together’ when scaling for success.