I caught up with a founder who shared an update on his fundraising. The story stuck with me because of how the tariff turmoil is impacting him. That’s not something I anticipated for technology companies raising from venture capital firms.

He’s raising a $1 million round and had a lead investor committed for $500k. He was deep in diligence with a few other firms to fill out the rest of the round. Then, the tariff turmoil hit. All the investors in deep diligence simultaneously pulled out. His lead investor has notified him that it will pull out too if the remaining $500k isn’t raised within a tight window.

This founder went from seeing his fundraising go from a clear path to completion to complete uncertainty because tariff and stock market turmoil rattled the investors he was talking to.

This story was surprising to me since this founder is early stage, but it was a reminder. The tariffs and stock market turmoil they caused are prompting uncertainty, which will show up to entrepreneurs in all sorts of unexpected ways.