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For the past four years, I’ve been trying to raise funding for my product, fixparser.dev . The goal of raising capital is to be able to focus 100% on it and scale the business—it’s currently a side project, and it’s not going to grow passively on its own.
Some context on why I thought investors might be interested:
Traction: It’s the most widely used TypeScript library for FIX Protocol messages worldwide.
Team: Started as a solo project, but early users joined as co-founders. Together we’re a small team of talented engineers with deep domain knowledge.
Credentials: We’ve all worked at top-tier firms like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Point72, Millennium, etc., and have decades of combined experience building production-grade systems.
Vision: Today it’s a library, but I see massive potential beyond that. I’m not sharing the full vision publicly at this stage, but I genuinely believe it could evolve into something much bigger.
Despite traction and a strong team, fundraising has been a struggle. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar spot or has advice on how to break through this stage.
Side note: I’m open to selling the entire business: library, plenty of existing clients, IP, everything.
Reach me at victor@logotype.se
How I failed: Applied to YC with the same idea for 4 years. Never reached the interview stage. Got fed up, told YC to fuck off and cried in the bathtub. Will never apply again. Didn't give up on the business though, and it's generating profit to this day, mostly passively since I work on other startups these days. I guess there is a "secret" to getting funding, but I have never been able to figure it out.
I’ve contacted all VCs in the world, all of them. Twice. Managed to get about 10 interviews, but the response is cold. “Too early”, “no conviction”, “not scalable”, “crickets”. I’ve heard it all, and always try to alleviate the concerns by addressing it and improving the product. But still, nothing. It’s also the third year I’ve applied to YC, never reached the interview stage. Also applied to 5-10 other accelerators too.
We are a team of three with deep expertise in the field.
About the product: it’s launched, it’s validated, it’s generating profit. Collaborating with stealth hardware startup to hardware accelerate our product (truly state-of-the-art stuff with redacted and TSMC). Working with industry standards bodies to improve the state of the industry.
Perhaps our product isn’t cool, it isn’t sexy… but it absolutely solves a real problem and we have proof of that. So, how to attract VCs? Is it about the buzzwords and the AI-hype? Do we have to pivot to be AI-first instead of AI-where-needed? I’m lost. Thankful for tips.