Equity · Friday, July 3, 2026
Yuri Sagalov of General Catalyst outlines three types of investors for early-stage startups. He categorizes them as those who act like extended employees, those who provide funding and disappear, and those who meddle excessively. Sagalov advises founders to actively avoid the third category.
“I I've always thought that there are three buckets of investors and the first bucket of investors are investors who like you really want them on your cap table who are just like they're going to be almost an extended employee of your company.”
“The second type of investor that you have is kind of an investor that gives you money and then disappears and maybe they'll reply to an email once every couple of months saying congrats and you just don't hear much from them.”
“And then the only bucket that I would avoid, especially for early founders is like there's this third bucket of investors who they give you money and they're going to in your kitchen meddling, giving opinion on everything, they get stressed out when things don't go right, which at every startup is always.”