Opinion

March 4, 2026

I turned down VC cash to build my AI startup. You should too.

We’re stuck in a ‘blitzscale or die’ mindset that has been proven wrong so many times

Éanna Kelly

4 min read

Empathy AI founder Ángel Maldonado Elvira tells Sifted why you should resist VC cheques.

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Éanna Kelly

Éanna Kelly is a contributing editor at Sifted, and writes Startup Life , a weekly newsletter on what it takes to build a startup. Follow him on X and LinkedIn

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