Angel Academe - increasing female investment’s Post

Raising seed stage capital is a marathon, not a sprint. As a startup CEO, here are my insights into the timeline to close a round of funding from VC's, Strategic, Angels and Syndicates. 🔍 Investor Research (1 month) Reviewing the list to find the right investor fit, I reviewed an initial list of 4,000 to ensure that I wasn’t wasting any time on pitching to the wrong investors. (see previous post on investor fit) 📅 Preparation Phase (1 month) I spent time building out the data room (on Notion), building the finances, modelling out the investment spend, creating a short and long form deck. I wanted to make sure I was ready at a moment's notice to share more information. 👥 Initial Outreach Phase One (1 Month) Networking and making initial connections with investors. This phase included attending pitch events, leveraging LinkedIn, and getting introductions while building a network and refining the outreach message (constantly iterating). 👥 Initial Outreach Phase Two (1 Month) I ran two phases of the outreach as it was just too many to keep the momentum going all at once. I also had a lot of No’s and I was concerned the top of the funnel was drying up so we kicked off a second phase. 💬 Pitching and Meetings (5 months) Pitching to investors, answering questions, and providing additional information. Be prepared for multiple rounds of discussions and due diligence. ✍️ Negotiation and Closing (2 months) Finalising terms and conditions, negotiating the valuation, and closing the deal. This stage can be the most intense but it was also the most rewarding. These were some of the most difficult conversations I had to endure. In total, it took me 11 months to raise seed stage capital including the preparation ahead of outreach and pitching. Patience, persistence, and building a strong network are crucial. Remember, every "no" is a step closer to a "yes." Keep pushing forward! https://lnkd.in/eP_v6w7z Sarah Turner Marla Shapiro Amy Lewin Agata Leliwa Nowicka Karina Vazirova FemTech Lab Jamie Gannaway Hugo C. Portfolio Ventures M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund Mayfield Fund Navjot Virk John Hinshaw Darren Carpenter CA HERMESA Monik Pham The ICE Network Emily Castles Blair Pusey Sally Guyer Francois Mazoudier #startup #entrepreneurship #seedfunding #venturecapital #startuplife #femalefounder #SaaS #investmenttimeline

For all female founders raising capital. I’m publishing the raw data from my pitching process with Deployed – over 420 VC firms, 143 meetings; 196 “no” and raised ~$5M over the pre-seed and seed rounds. I am a meticulous note keeper and data junky. As I have moved on from Deployed as CEO, this now gives me the opportunity to talk more about funders and founders. Here is my data on my first round of the process to get meetings from an original list of 4,000 in a Sankey diagram. ✂️ I shortlisted 420 funders 📣 I reached out to 342 funders ❌ I got 196 first nos 🙋🏼♀️ I met with 143 A couple got lost along the way. I will be digging into this data over the coming weeks and I will update with more insight based on my *meticulous notes* 😁 Future topics I will cover: - What the numbers mean: how many meetings, how much prep, how much time and duration-stats. - Choosing the right market - European fundraising in context: Sitting next to the biggest pile of money, Europe is not it. - Down-selecting: How I selected who we emailed for meetings and pitched to from 4000 potential funders. - Warm Leads - the No’s and the Yes’s: How a warm lead is most definitely a better strategy than cold outreach (what my data suggests). - Wrong questions, wrong time: the importance of asking, and being asked, the right questions for the stage and thesis. - Preparation: I used DocSend, and here are the numbers of when VCs would go into the document, and where they would spend their time. This is eye opening 👀 - First and last pitch analysis: Of the 143 pitches that I made, further analysis of the process to reach the final lead and follow on investors. You gossip junkies - I won’t be calling anyone out, and I’ll reflect on what I wish I knew from the start. The material will be written for both funders and founders as balanced as I can possibly be. Share in the comments below any other topics you want me to cover. #vc #startup #femalefounder #fundraising #womenintech #womeninenterprise #venturecapital #data Thanks Francois Mazoudier & Marcela Donatello. Elizabeth Stokoe Dana Kanze Ladi Greenstreet Sally Guyer Angel Academe - increasing female investment HERMESA Amrock Ventures Ltd M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund Navjot Virk Mayfield Fund Portfolio Ventures Karina Vazirova Jessica Lin Marla Shapiro Sarah Turner Amy Lewin https://lnkd.in/esE3Ee7j

This is not the first wonderful and caring founder to share their fundraising statistics and insights with peers 😍 Over the last year, Quoroom has reposted at least three of them and we are not getting tired of highlighting how important it is for any fundraising to have an investment pipeline of hundreds of investors 📜 Btw it has the same importance at the later stages if you want to pick the best term sheets for your scaleup. #funding #startup #capital #investorCRM

The final chart! Over the last 8 weeks, I broke down my process from start to finish and here are the final results: 👍🏻 1 co-lead lead investor Amrock Ventures Ltd 👍🏻 1 follow-on co-lead Investor M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund 👍🏻 1 new VC investor Portfolio Ventures 👍🏻 2 Angel syndicates with multiple new angels Angel Academe - increasing female investment HERMESA 👍🏻 4 new HNW individuals Starting with a list of 4,000 potential investors, this was certainly a marathon, and I learned a lot to change from a sprinter’s mentality. I also now understand why VCs are particularly interested in investing in second-time founders, as I would have managed the process entirely differently from how I did it this time. Through this journey, I’ve gained invaluable insights into the dynamics of fundraising and the intricacies of investor relations. It’s been a rollercoaster, but the experience has sharpened my approach and strategy for the future. I now know one thing very clearly: there is enormous inefficiency in how VCs get deal flow, how those first meetings are run, and a material deficit of strategy for founders in how they interact with VCs. Over the summer, I’m excited to launch a fresh perspective on this process with Dana Kanze on optimising for better outcomes when under-represented founders are asked prevention questions. We’ll also be incorporating Elizabeth Stokoe research on how founders can ask better questions to VCs and how VCs can ask more insightful questions during those crucial first meetings, using question science for more considered answers. Stay tuned for more updates and insights! Watch this space! Amy Lewin Agata Leliwa Nowicka Emmie Faust Jamie GannawayKayleigh Ciara Kuptz Deployed Mayfield Fund Hugo C. Matthew Goldstein Navjot Virk Microsoft for Startups Sally Guyer Karina Vazirova FemTech Lab Nairy McMahon Jamie Moore Raph Crouan Sarah Turner Marla Shapiro https://lnkd.in/ezH2edr2

Before all regression prediction analysis is better to know the story.

This is great data to support what I'm seeing anecdotally in the private capital markets. Companies that are Series B and later showing growth are still receiving funding but there is a funding gap in the earlier growth stages. https://lnkd.in/gNdSCWkc

Check out this article including Renata Quintini!

Summer’s secondary surge didn’t last, but 2024 should be strong #startup  #fundraising  #angelinvestor  #investments  #VentureCapital  #vc #Entrepreneurship  #venturefunding  #investing #TechNews #Innovation #technology  https://lnkd.in/epDZd_xy

Is the music fading for tech startups? Last year saw a decline in the number of new unicorns, with only 69 emerging and a combined valuation of $95 billion. This pales in comparison to the peak of 2021, which boasted an impressive 509 unicorns valued at $1.15 trillion. At the same time, the global stock market has been on a tear despite a lot of headwinds including interest rates and geopolitical concerns. In fact, the S&P 500 closed above 5K for the first time ever last Friday and big tech has led the charge. Companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and NVIDIA all have a market cap of over $1 trillion and are showing no signs of slowing down. What happens going forward? Will the big keep getting bigger? Or will we see a reversal? Analysis here: https://lnkd.in/exwKT3HS #TechStartups #Unicorns #MarketTrends #StockMarket #BigTech #Innovation #StartupEcosystem #Entrepreneurship #Investing #TechIndustry #MarketAnalysis

I know my experience consulting for startups over the years has been an incredible asset over the past year of this adventure with VocalBrain. The corporate world definitely had it's valuable lessons also, especially studying all the anti-patterns that block innovation.