Our $200M Series C / Oxide

Well, yes, on both fronts, so let us explain a little.

First, we have the luxury of having achieved real product-market fit: we are
making a product that people want to buy. This takes
on additional dimensions when making something physical: with complexities like
manufacturing, inventory, cash-conversion, and shifting supply chains,
product-market fit implies getting the unit economics of the business right.
All of this is a long way of saying: we did not (and do not) need to raise
capital to support the business.

So if we didn’t need to raise, why seek the capital? Well, we weren’t seeking
it, really. But our
investors, seeing the business take off, were eager to support it. And we, in
turn, were eager to have them: they were the ones, after all, who joined us in
taking a real leap when it felt like there was a lot more risk on the table.
They understood our vision for the company and shared our love for customers
and our desire to build a singular team. They had been with us in some
difficult moments; they know and trust us, as do we them. So being able to raise
a Series C purely from our existing investors presented a real opportunity.

Still, even from investors that we trust and with a quick close, if the business
doesn’t need the money, does it make sense to raise? We have always believed
that our biggest challenge at Oxide was time — and therefore capital. We
spelled this out in our initial pitch deck from 2019:

Six years later, we stand by this, which is not to minimize any of those
challenges: the technical challenges were indeed hard; we feel fortunate to have
attracted an extraordinary team; and we certainly caught some
lucky breaks
with respect to the market. With this large Series C, we have entirely
de-risked capital going forward, which in turn assures our independence.

This last bit is really important, because any buyer of infrastructure has
had their heart broken countless times by promising startups that succumbed to
acquisition by one of the established players that they were seeking to
disrupt. The serial disappointments leave a refreshing bluntness in their
wake, and it’s not uncommon for us to be asked directly: “How do I know you
won’t be bought?”

Our intent in starting Oxide was not to be an
acquisition target but rather build a generational company; this is our life’s
work, not a means to an end. With our Series C, customers
don’t have to merely take our word for it: we have the capital to assure our
survival into the indefinite future. If our Series B left us with confidence
in achieving our mission, our
Series C leaves us with certainty: we’re going to kick butt, have fun, not
cheat (of course!), love our customers — and change computing forever.