Mada Seghete reveals why she will ‘never ever’ celebrate a funding round

When a start-up raises money, it shouldn’t necessarily be seen at as a good thing, according to the co-founder of tech unicorn Branch.

Mada Seghete, Branch’s head of strategy and market development, said that though getting funding is a “necessary” step for new companies, it comes at the expense of a team’s ownership in their business.

“We will never ever celebrate a fundraise,” Seghete said at a CNBC-moderated panel at the Web Summit tech conference. “When you raise money, it’s definitely important that you raise money to fuel your company.”

“But you do give out a percentage of your equity, you dilute yourself and your employees, and it’s not necessarily something to celebrate,” she added.

Based in Redwood City, California, Branch sells a technology known as deep-linking, which helps clients create links that direct users to a certain point on their website or app. The company has raised $113 million in funding to date and is backed by Android founder Andy Rubin’s Playground Ventures.

Branch last year secured a $1 billion valuation, lifting it into the ranks of an ever-growing group of companies known as unicorns. Venture capitalist Aileen Lee, whose seed-focused fund Cowboy Ventures is another investor in Branch, is thought to have coined the term unicorn in 2013, referring to how rare such firms were at the time.

“I think there can be a little bit too much overemphasis on getting funding in the current climate. It’s really important to solve a problem that matters to people. And I think that the further you can take it without getting outside funding, the more control you have over your destiny.”

Though Branch isn’t yet profitable, Seghete said it “definitely” has a plan in place to breakeven in the next few years.

Lucy Liu, co-founder of financial technology firm Airwallex, said her firm hasn’t yet reached profitability either. Airwallex’s platform is used by businesses to make cross-border payments at competitive exchange rates.

Liu said that growth-stage businesses like hers have to balance making profits with growing at an aggressive pace and meeting the expectations of investors that have bet heavily on a venture’s ability to scale.

“Profitability is something that is always at the back of our head,” she said. But, she added, “it’s actually a bad thing that you’re not spending all the money that you’ve raised. They don’t give you all the money to be put in the back as cash.”