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The Benefits of a Family Office

The Benefits of a Family Office

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    Closing the Investment

    September 12, 2018

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 7: Closing the Investment After initial interest, the investor often proceeds through due diligence and will ask for documents on your business, including legal entity filings, articles of incorporation, patent filings, tax returns, before closing the investment. In any due diligence exercise, ninety-five percent of the documents will come from the startup any way therefore, it makes sense to start building what is called a due diligence box or data room, from the very start. There are many checklists on the web that you can download and use as a guide to building out your list. For early-stage startups, there will be a number of documents that simply don’t exist. For example, if you don’t have a formal board of directors, there are no board of director reports to include in the data room. One final word about due diligence: it’s for serious investors only. A serious investor has had several discussions with you before asking for the due diligence, and there’s at least a soft-circled investment figure on the table. If the investor is not that far along, then it’s premature to hand over data room access. Continue discussing their interests and concerns before proceeding. Read more on the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    How to Engage the Investor

    September 5, 2018

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 6: How to Engage Investors for Calls and Meetings In looking at how to raise funding, a crucial step is to engage investors. We can begin by contacting investors online. After several mailers, you should be able to assess who is engaging with your deal and who is not. For those who are opening your mailer and viewing your deck, you now take them to the next level, which is a conference call and later a meeting. The key to setting up a call with an investor is to offer new information that they cannot get through a mailer. This includes confidential information such as actual client results. Detailed information about your customers is not something that most put in mailers, so investors will appreciate the fact that this is for direct offline communication. Investors are seeking new information about their sector and appreciate sources of information that can inform them. Other sources of information to offer the investor include trends in the industry, challenges in the sector, what to look for in startups, new startups coming up that are investor-worthy, competitive information, and takeaways from a recent conference. As a startup operating in the thick of things, you have access to information that is quite valuable. Read more on the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Developing Rapport with the Investor

    August 29, 2018

    2 min read How to Raise Funding Step 5: Developing Rapport with the Investor When I ran angel networks using the dinner club model, I had entrepreneurs come in to pitch my investors. Ninety percent of them would go away, and we would never hear from them again. We had no idea what happened to them. About ten percent of them, though, would come back and give us updates and reminders about their deal. By and large, those were the startups that raised funding from the group. One of the key steps when considering how to raise funding is building a rapport with someone. This starts with introductions and awareness and continues with ongoing communication to a level of familiarity. In sales, it takes seven touches to close a deal. So too, does it take seven touches to close an investor. For substantial fundraises, it may take even more. The key here is that you must build a relationship with the investor before the funding, not after. If you already have investors, think about how much you know about them. How long did it take to figure those things out? In most cases, it will be the same with your investor prospects. Read more on the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

    Research the Investors

    August 22, 2018

    1 min read How to Raise Funding Step 4: Research the Investors for Prospective Fit In fundraising, most startups think it’s the startups who pitch, and it’s the investors who ask questions and run due diligence. The reality is that startups should be asking as many questions as the investors and should also be running due diligence on the investor.  It’s important to research the prospective investors and qualify them for a fit for your deal based on their investment criteria and track record for funding. In your analysis, you should separate them into A, B, and C, investors, with A being the ones that fit best and you want, B are the ones that have some fit, and C’s are the ones that don’t fit. There are many venture capital funds, accelerator programs, and other forms of fundraising on the market. All claim to be “founder friendly,” have a great program, and talk about how they are the best. How do you know who to pursue? The startup should be analyzing the investors for their fit to the startup deal. Do they invest in companies like yours? Do they have expertise in your area? What exactly can they do to help? There are tools available to help understand the funding landscape, such as Crunchbase, which tracks venture funding and makes the results available to subscribers. You can track what companies are getting funded, as well as sectors. You can see which venture groups are active and doing deals and which are not. In your analysis, you should keep track of what investors are funding and what valuations they are providing. This will give you some indication of what valuation you should negotiate for. The operative word here is “negotiate.” As the saying goes, “You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate.” And knowing what to ask for is the first step to a successful negotiation. Read more on the TEN Capital eGuide: http://staging.startupfundingespresso.com/how-to-raise-funding-eguide/ Hall T. Martin is the founder and CEO of the TEN Capital Network. TEN Capital has been connecting startups with investors for over ten years. You can connect with Hall about fundraising, business growth, and emerging technologies via LinkedIn or email: hallmartin@tencapital.group

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