Birdseye View
Welcome to The Haven Newsletter – your weekly read on how modern businesses run their finances. We’ll share practical breakdowns of the numbers that matter, the stories behind them, and how Haven helps founders gain time and financial clarity.
Because too many founders fly blind when it comes to their finances.
The Menu
🪖 What’s New at Haven
The S-Corp Optimization Strategy
The third chapter of Haven’s Tax Code University is live! This edition breaks down how S-Corps work, how founders save money, and the specific rules you need to follow so those savings stay in your pocket instead of becoming back taxes plus penalties. Full article here.
Haven’s 2025 “Slack Wrapped”
Spotify wrapped made some big noise this week, so we thought we’d put together our own version of Haven wrapped. The numbers speak for themselves. Check out the full report!
Near x Haven Case Study
Near, the platform helping U.S. companies hire remote talent across LATAM, freed up 25% of founder time and recovered five years of messy books by switching to Haven. CEO Hayden Cohen now runs on clean, audit-ready financials, giving his team the clarity and control they’d been missing.
📈 The State of Startup Finance
Harvey, an SF-based legal AI startup, raised $160m at an $8b valuation. The raise was led by a16z and joined by a handful of other angels (Tech Crunch).
Quanta, an SF-based accounting and ERP startup, raised $15m in Series A funding. Accel led, joined by Naval Ravikant, Designer Fund, and Basecase (Quanta Blog).
Flex, a "private bank" for HNW business owners, raised $60m in Series B funding. Portage led, joined by CrossLink Capital, Spice VC, Titanium Ventures, Wellington, Companyon Ventures, Florida Funders, and FirstLook Partners (Globe Newswire).
📚 Hit the Books
The S-Corp Optimization Strategy
Most founders overpay taxes because they don’t understand how the S-Corp actually works.
The S-Corp isn’t a loophole. It’s a tax identity that lets you split your income into salary and distributions so you’re not paying payroll tax on every dollar you earn.
When done correctly, it can save you thousands per year while keeping your business fully compliant.
The catch: this strategy only works if you know how to set a reasonable salary, take distributions the right way, and document your decisions so the IRS sees a system, not a shortcut.
If you want to pay yourself smarter, keep more profit, and avoid the audit traps most founders fall into, understanding the S-Corp the most valuable financial skill you can build.
💪 Quick Hits
Stat of the Week: Omnicom acquired IPG, creating the largest agency holding company in the world. They also announced they plan to cut 4,000 jobs in the process (AdAge).
Investor Insights: Carta released it’s 2025 Fund Economics Report, highlighting how private equity managers put significantly more skin in the game than VCs, committing 2.55% of fund capital vs 1.7% in venture (Carta).
Tool Tip: Track your real-time MRR, ARR, AR Aging, month-over month revenue, and payment trends with Haven’s reporting tools.
Sick of not knowing the truth behind your numbers, talk with someone from our team to see how we can help!
🔈 Weekly Limelight
HUGE shoutout to our friends at Ostium for announcing their $20M Series A led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto, along with Wintermute Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Localglobe, and Crucible Capital (Full Announcement).
Congrats also to the team at Autolane who emerged from stealth with a $7.4M raise from Hyperplane!
Big ups to the 10+ companies whom Haven supports that were named to this years Forbes 30 Under 30!
Karun Kaushik & Selin Kocalar from Delve
Theodore Janson, Eden Ovadia, and Victoria Toli from FINNY
Max Marchione & Kevin Unkrich from Superpower
Henry Kasa & Zach Rosen from Brellium
Giovanni Vignone from Octane
Joshua Cohen & Justin Krokoff from Pinpoint
Levi Gershon from CRABI Robotics
Hooman Reza Nezhad & Artem Iurkovskyi from Solcoa Industries
Ben Sharf, Kieran Derfus, and Michael Keenehan from Platter
Eli Mann, Arien Wagen, and Corin Wagen from Rowan
Daniel Caridi from Kibu
And a handful more...
🚉 Commuter Content
Because everything is content now, and we wanna share the best of it with you.
TBPN lads interviewed Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston at YC Demo Day.
Will Mandis shared some poetry about how craft is the antidote to slop.
The leather jacket don, Jensen Huang, went on Rogan.
🧾 From the Control Room
That’s all for this week.
We’ll be back next time with more ways to keep your books (and your business) in sync.
In the mean time, Haven Blog is firing. Check it out for weekly updates on all things startup finance.