Capital Markets: Fundraising and Market Making

Most builders think about fundraising and token launches too late, and market making not at all. By the time it matters, the decisions have already been made badly. Sean Stubbings, Head of Business Development at DWF Labs, one of the most active market makers and multi-stage crypto investors in the space, joins us at Solana Network State to give early-stage builders an honest education in how capital markets actually work, before you're sitting across the table from an investor or exchange without knowing the rules of the game. This session covers the full arc from pre-seed and seed fundraising through to token launch. The era of low float, high FDV launches is over. Sean breaks down what token structures actually work in the current market, what investors and market makers look for before committing, and how to build a liquid, sustainable market for your token rather than one that pumps on day one and collapses by day three. He'll walk through real-world examples from DWF Labs' portfolio, with details redacted where needed, so you see how these decisions play out in practice rather than in theory. This is directly relevant to your Colosseum submission if you are thinking about how your project eventually captures value, whether through a token, a raise, or both. Understanding capital market mechanics early shapes better product and go-to-market decisions, not just fundraising ones. What you will walk away with: a framework for structuring pre-seed and seed rounds on Solana, a clear-eyed view of what token launch best practices look like today versus what burned projects in the last cycle, how market makers evaluate projects and what healthy market making actually looks like, and the questions every founder should be asking before they take their first meeting with an investor or exchange. If you are building something that will eventually need capital or liquidity, this is the session that saves you from the most expensive mistakes. Can't make it IRL? We gotchu!Dial-in: meet.google.com/dpa-hqho-kae