Our mission is to help startups have a smooth and seamless fundraising journey which sets them up for success.
“…particular investors who are going to be on the board for the company, are just as important as who you get married to.”
Marc Andreessen
I am a researcher, founder and startup advisor for the past 12 years.
I have tried many things and have always been around startups and founders. I also have read A LOT about startups and entrepreneurship, both academic and non-academic articles, books, etc.
I have recently noticed two MAJOR problems within the startup ecosystems.
Problem 1: Inability of (high-potential) startups to obtain “smart money”
I have continuously been surprised how difficult it is, even for innovative ambitious startups with good links in the ecosystem, to raise funds particularly what is called smart money.
Even statistics seem to agree: of the 4,000 startups per year, top VCs invested in only 200 of those and of those who raise seed money, only 10% will get Series A funding, according to Andreessen Horowitz.
Those who managed to fund their business are often unable to find better offers (more options) from investors leading them to leave the table rather unsatisfied or unsuccessful.
Why is it like that? There are multiple reasons according to my investigation such as: 1) Not knowing “rules of the funding game”; 2) Lack of good preparation; 3) Lack of relationships and trust; 4) Lack of time given their runway; etc.
Lets now focus on the second problem.
Problem 2: Inability of investors to pick the winning horse (i.e., startups)
Investors receive a lot of proposal each year as on average, a single VC firm receives more than 1,000 proposals per year.
With limited bandwidth and resources, it is difficult for investors to choose the best startups (error type I and II) also given the inherent uncertainty of startups.
Let’s look into some statistics to learn what percentage of venture-backed startups fail.
Generally speaking, for every ten venture-backed startups, around three companies fail, four businesses manage to repay the investment amount, and one business survives while generating sustainable returns.
This means only one out of ten investments survives while generating sustainable returns for the investors.
Do you see the problem in the ecosystem? I guess not so hard to notice it, right?
What do we do to solve this issue?
We provide investment suggestions for startups enriching their knowledge through carefully written blog posts that are based on many years of experience and research.
The blog posts are written to help you effectively to prepare for the fundraising process (including bootstrap) which is a major step toward growing your startup.
We talk about various types of investors, seed and series A investment, the preparation and negotiation process, etc. so we approach it from different angles and open this “black box”.
Moreover, we are always interested to get “our hands dirty” by providing fundraising advisory to your startup though for example mentorship sessions. The first session is on us and free for the startup!
Lastly, we have a network of truly global investors (mostly family offices and corporate investors) that are always willing to review top-notch startups that have validated their solution/product.
If the investment advisory sounds potentially interesting, do get in touch with us via the Contact Us form.