Start-Up Guide for the Technopreneur: Financial Planning, Decision Making and Negotiating from Incubation to Exit, + Website

Chapter 5

Successful Fundraising

You must determine who, when, and how many prospective investors to approach in an informed manner. You must prepare and perform funding presentations professionally, clearly, in accordance with knowing your investor (KYI) objectives, and with a strategic perspective. A variety of prospectus documents and types of funding presentations are required and certain actions and analysis must be performed following each presentation. Your funding presentation to prospective investors makes an impression that will affect their perception of you as a future business partner. This perception is critically important not just in securing funds from them but in their expectations as a stakeholder afterward.

The chapter begins with a discussion on planning funding presentations by asking who and when to make a funding presentation too. A descriptive listing of the different types of prospectus documents and the significance of each follows. Then the different types of funding presentations are presented, with an examination of the content, customization, and performance of formal presentations before we identify postpresentation actions to be pursued.

Planning Funding Presentations

Devise a simple plan for soliciting funding to answer three questions:

1. Who are the prospective investors to be approached?

2. When should I approach them?

3. How many should I approach at once?

Answer the first question based on the fundraising stage you are currently in, the ...