Threedy Raised During the Metaverse Crash: What Delaying Their Series A by 6 Months Cost Them

Threedy Raised During the Metaverse Crash: What Delaying Their Series A by 6 Months Cost Them

There are expensive mistakes, and then there are timing mistakes that reshape your entire fundraising trajectory. Christian Stein, CEO of Threedy, watched his company’s perfect fundraising window close in real-time—and chose to wait anyway.

The metaverse hype was at its peak. Meta had just rebranded and committed $10 billion annually to building the metaverse. Every VC presentation featured slides about spatial computing and 3D experiences. And Threedy, with its industrial 3D platform and mixed reality capabilities, was perfectly positioned to ride the wave.

They decided to delay their Series A by six months.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Christian shared what that decision cost them—and why he’ll never make the same mistake again.

The Perfect Storm That Wasn’t

Put yourself in Christian’s position in late 2021 or early 2022. Your company builds visual computing infrastructure for industrial 3D and mixed reality applications. The technology press won’t stop talking about the metaverse. Enterprise interest in 3D data and spatial computing is exploding. VCs are desperate to find companies with real technology in the space, not just concept pitches.

“We did probably a huge mistake by deciding to delay the fundraising for six months. While we are right in the middle of the metaverse hype, which obviously given our core topic, Threedy was right playing into our cards,” Christian admits with the clarity that only hindsight provides.

The logic behind waiting probably seemed sound at the time. Maybe the team wanted to hit certain metrics. Perhaps they thought a few more quarters of growth would command a better valuation. They might have wanted to close specific customer deals before going to market.

Whatever the reasoning, the timing proved catastrophic.

Watching Your Window Close Quarter by Quarter

Here’s what makes fundraising timing so brutal: macro conditions don’t deteriorate gradually—they cascade. The metaverse hype didn’t slowly fade; it collapsed. Meta’s stock plummeted. Enterprise budgets tightened. VC sentiment shifted from “spatial computing is the future” to “maybe we overpaid for 3D startups.”

And Threedy was now trying to raise in this new environment.

“But then we missed the hype cycle and into the declining economy,” Christian explains. The six-month delay meant entering a market that looked nothing like the one they’d left. Interest rates were rising. Tech valuations were correcting. The easy money era was ending.

The challenge wasn’t just about lower valuations—it was about fundamental uncertainty. “It was very difficult I guess to find out what was the right amount to look for,” Christian reflects. When the market is shifting beneath you, even basic questions become complicated. Do you go for the number you would have raised six months ago? Do you adjust down? How much?

The Mismatched Maturity Problem

Threedy faced an additional complication that many technical companies encounter: their product development was ahead of their commercial maturity. This asymmetry created friction in investor conversations.

“Also given the very different maturity of the business, I guess from a product versus from a commercial perspective, what are the different proof points that we need to deliver to get the deal to closing at the end,” Christian notes.

When you’re raising during a hot market, investors are willing to extrapolate from strong technology and early traction. When markets tighten, they want to see proven commercial execution. The bar for what constitutes sufficient proof rises dramatically.

For Threedy, this meant having sophisticated conversations about product capabilities while simultaneously addressing questions about sales efficiency, customer acquisition costs, and go-to-market scalability—all while the macro environment continued deteriorating.

The Recalibration Treadmill

Perhaps the most exhausting aspect of fundraising in a deteriorating market is the constant recalibration. What worked in your pitch deck last quarter doesn’t resonate this quarter. The valuation expectations you set with early investor conversations look wildly optimistic by the time you’re trying to close.

“So there was a lot of recalibration and while at the same time the environment was drastically changing quarter by quarter,” Christian shares.

Imagine trying to run a fundraising process when your comp set is being repriced in real-time. Public market multiples for SaaS companies were compressing. Private rounds were happening at flat or down valuations. Every week brought news of another startup extending runway or making cuts.

This creates a psychological challenge beyond the tactical difficulties. You know what your company would have been worth six months ago. You can see exactly what the delay cost. But you can’t change the past—you can only navigate the present market conditions.

What The Seed Round Taught Them (That Didn’t Apply)

The contrast with Threedy’s seed round made the Series A pain even sharper. “I think also the first seed fundraising was very different from the Series A,” Christian notes. “Obviously at that point in time, given the technological state and already a number of customers lined up, I guess raising the seed round was rather easy.”

This is a common trap: successful early fundraising creates false confidence about later rounds. The seed round might have come together quickly because you had strong technology, smart founding team, and early customer validation. You assume the Series A will follow the same pattern, just with bigger numbers.

But Series A dynamics are completely different. Investors scrutinize unit economics, sales efficiency, and market sizing with far more rigor. They want to see that the initial customer traction can scale. And when macro conditions turn, they become even more selective.

The Lesson That Cost Millions

Christian’s reflection on the experience is unambiguous about what he’ll do differently: “Looking forward the next time we’ll definitely try to prepare maybe and the decisions and process for a longer time and make sure that the timing is not so bad.”

Notice what he’s saying: longer preparation, better timing. It’s not about rushing into fundraising unprepared. It’s about being ready when the window opens—and having the conviction to move when conditions align.

For Threedy, that meant learning several expensive lessons:

First, hype cycles are real and they matter. When investor sentiment aligns with your category, that’s signal, not noise. The metaverse hype may have been overblown, but it created a genuine fundraising advantage for companies with real technology in the space.

Second, six months is an eternity in venture markets. What seems like a short delay to build more traction can mean the difference between raising at strong terms and grinding through a difficult process.

Third, you can’t time the bottom. Once you’ve missed the peak, trying to wait for a better moment usually means watching conditions deteriorate further. The “right time” to raise in a downturn is as soon as you’re ready, not when you think the market has turned.

The Broader Principle

Strip away the specifics of metaverse hype and market timing, and you’re left with a principle that applies across fundraising: perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Founders often delay fundraising to hit one more milestone, close one more customer, or achieve one more quarter of growth. Sometimes this calculus makes sense—if you’re a month away from a major customer win that will meaningfully change your story, maybe you wait.

But more often, founders are optimizing for confidence rather than conditions. They want to feel perfectly ready. They want their metrics to be unassailable. They want to remove any possible objection.

Meanwhile, the macro environment is shifting. Sentiment is changing. Comparable companies are getting repriced. And the window is closing.

What Threedy Got Despite Everything

The story has a somewhat happy ending: Threedy did close their Series A in December 2023. They got it done despite the challenging environment, the missed timing, and the maturity mismatches.

But Christian’s candor about the mistake is the real lesson. Successful founders don’t pretend every decision was optimal. They don’t rationalize obvious errors. They name the mistakes clearly so they don’t repeat them.

For founders currently looking at a favorable fundraising environment—whether due to renewed AI interest, strong category momentum, or any other factor—Christian’s experience offers a stark warning: when the window is open, raise the money. You can always deploy capital strategically. You can always be disciplined about growth.

But you can’t recapture a closed window. And six months might be all the time you have.