We built the design partner we wished we had.

Raise Studio was founded by people who've been inside the founder hustle and watched investors evaluate the work that came out of it.

Raise Studio exists because we've been inside the founder hustle.

We know the pressure of raising capital. We know what investors see. We know that design, when done strategically, changes the trajectory of your Series A journey.

How Raise Studio Started

Raise Studio was founded by a team that's been inside seed-stage startups.

We've watched founders pour energy into product, into customer acquisition, into metrics.

And we've watched investors evaluate them–not just on those metrics, but on everything they see.

A website

That clearly communicates value reduces friction in the sales process.

A brand

That's coherent across touch points signals strategic thinking.

A pitch deck

That feels polished signals execution rigor.

These aren't cosmetic advantages. They're foundational credibility signals that compound during fundraising.

The problem was that most founders didn't have the budget or bandwidth to address this.

Full-time designers cost too much.

Freelancers were chaotic and inconsistent.

Design agencies didn't understand founder constraints or Series A timelines.

There was a gap between what founders needed and what the market offered.

We decided to build something different.

A design partnership specifically built for seed-stage founders racing toward Series A.

Everything about how we work–our pricing, our team structure, our async-first operations, our focus on strategic clarity–is built around founder reality.

We aren't a design agency that happens to work with startups. We are a startup designed to serve startups.

How We Think About Design

Strategy First, Aesthetics Second

We don't ask "What should this look like?" We ask "What are we trying to communicate?"

Strategy drives every design decision. When positioning clarity comes first, visual design becomes the vehicle for that clarity, not decoration on top of it.

Your pitch deck needs to communicate why you'll win.

Your website needs to clearly articulate your value.

Your product interface needs to signal that you've thought intentionally about user experience.

Strategy first. Design follows.

Founder-Centric, Not Designer-Centric

We've been inside the founder mindset.

We know you're time-starved. We know you're managing dozens of competing priorities. We know that "creative process" language makes you nervous when you have 12–20 months to raise.

We design for your reality, not for designer ego.

That means async operations. That means no long meetings to discuss "creative direction." That means one point of contact who knows your business. That means speed. That means we respect your constraints.

Speed Matters. But Quality Never Gets Sacrificed.

You need results in weeks, not months. But we won't ship work that undermines your Series A conversations.

Our design lead conducts quality control before every delivery. Speed comes from clarity, async operations, and dedicated focus. Not from cutting corners.

We've built systems that let us move fast without sacrificing the polish that signals execution rigor to investors. That's the combination founders need.

Continuity Over Chaos

Every time you hire a new freelancer, they restart the learning curve.

They don't know your business, your market positioning, your Series A strategy. They don't remember why you made certain design decisions last month. They have to re-onboard, re-learn, re-ask questions. That overhead costs you time and money.

We solve this with a dedicated design lead who owns your entire visual story.

One person ensures coherence across everything. Month after month, that continuity compounds. Your design becomes stronger because the person driving it understands the full context.

Who We Are

Raise Studio is a distributed team of designers, strategists, and founder-advocates.

We're product people, brand strategists, UI/UX designers, web designers, illustrators, and motion designers. We work asynchronously across time zones so you get coverage and continuity.

We've experienced the panic of "we have 2 weeks to redesign our website before Series A meetings."

We understand the constraints, the urgency, and the stakes.We're not designers who happen to work with startups. We're startup people who happen to be excellent at design.

More importantly:

We've worked inside startups.

We've felt founder pressure.
We've watched startups pitch.

We've iterated on narratives and designs under deadline pressure.

Founding Team

Max and Hooman co-founded Raise Studio after a decade inside product orgs and design partnerships — watching designers fight for strategy seats and founders fight for design that actually moved the needle. Raise Studio is what they wished they'd had on either side of that table.

Max Fadaee, Co-Founder

Max Fadaee

Co-Founder

Max led product, engineering, and design teams for over a decade. Built and scaled multidisciplinary teams. Owned multi-year strategies. Shipped at the scale of millions across enterprise software, SaaS, fintech, eCommerce, and consumer platforms. Knows what investor-grade execution looks like from every angle of the org chart.

Hooman Abbasi, Co-Founder

Hooman Abbasi

Co-Founder

Hooman has been leading product design across SaaS, fintech, eCommerce, and consumer platforms for over a decade. Led design teams. Built design functions from scratch. Scaled design systems that moved retention, satisfaction, and conversion. Mentors founders on the brand and UX choices that align with business goals and investor readiness.

Our Core Beliefs

Design Is Strategic Leverage

Design-led companies outperform the S&P 500 by 211% over 10 years (DMI Design Value Index). They grow revenue 32% faster than peers over 5 years (McKinsey, study of 300 companies). Investors evaluate startups on metrics and on the capability to deliver them.

Design is how you signal that capability.

When your pitch deck is polished, it signals you can execute. When your website clearly articulates value, it signals you've thought strategically about your market. When your product interface feels intentional, it signals you care about your users.

These are credibility signals. They're foundational, not peripheral. The founders who understand this distinction raise Series A faster.

Founders Deserve Better Partners

Seed-stage founders operate under compressed timelines, limited budgets, and extreme resource constraints.

Design partnerships should be built around those realities.

That means month-to-month pricing with no contracts. That means async-first operations so you're not stuck in meetings. That means one point of contact so you don't have to manage multiple people. That means fast turnarounds without sacrificing quality. That means we understand you're racing against the Series A clock, and we respect that urgency.

Most design firms aren't built this way. We are.

Strategy + Visual Design Win

Polished design that doesn't communicate clear positioning is wasted effort.

It looks good, but it doesn't move your Series A conversations. Conversely, clear positioning without professional design execution signals incompetence. It tells investors you couldn't be bothered to polish things.

The magic happens when brand strategy, positioning clarity, and design excellence work together.

You get coherence. You get credibility. You get results.

Continuity Beats Transactional

You can't build brand coherence with a rotating cast of vendors. You need someone who knows your business, remembers your decisions, understands your market, and ensures every new project reinforces the last one.

Continuity compounds value.

Month 1 with us is good. Month 3 is significantly better because we understand your strategy deeply. Month 6 is where the real leverage appears because all the work is aligned around a shared vision.

That only happens with dedicated partnerships.

Proof of Our Impact

The founders we partner with are all racing the same Series A clock. Here's what changed when they treated design as a strategic signal to investors — not a line item.

The strategic insights provided were invaluable, transforming our approach to design.
Jordan Smith, CEO at InnovateTech
60K+
Satisfied clients
3M+
Design iterations
Explore more
[background image] image of architectural plans (for a construction company)
Their design leadership accelerated our growth and investor interest.
Taylor Johnson, Founder at TechWave
70K+
Projects completed
4M+
Design assets
Discover more
image of financial consultations
Their expertise in design strategy is unmatched, delivering exceptional results.
Alex Lee, COO at FutureVision
80K+
Design solutions
5M+
Creative concepts
Learn more
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How Investa turned design from output into direction

From an idea with no product to a funded, award-winning trading app, shaped by a design partnership that changed how the company makes decisions.

Read the case study

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