More and more businesses are looking for investors to fund a global expansion. More and more investors are looking for businesses ready to go globally. The business landscape is changing rapidly, and small businesses are expanding internationally right along with the big corporations. The internet can probably be named as the primary motivator for this trend because it made it so easy to communicate with people around the world. Orders can be placed with a click of the mouse. Governments recognized the opportunities this created and have created laws and regulations that promote global business.
Naturally, investors want a piece of the action. They are looking for companies that can successfully expand through globalization because the opportunities are unlimited. Of course, participating in international trade can be expensive so it’s not a decision made lightly. Yet there are so many advantages to expanding internationally that it makes sense.
What are those advantages? For one thing, a business can increase sales and thus profits which makes the company more attractive to investors. Other reasons include gaining greater market share, spreading risk by expanding market access, stabilizing seasonal sales cycles and establishing a foundation for unlimited growth. All of these reasons are exactly what can make a business attractive to investors.
Of course, expanding globally takes money. There are import and export fees, expanded production costs, higher shipping costs and the expenses associated with new promotions like marketing and travel. Investors will balance the higher costs to the expected increase in revenues and profits before making a decision. Investors will also weigh the risks associated with the global expansion. This balancing act though is one that the business should have already mastered in the business plan.
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Lonestar Data Holdings is a St Petersburg, FL-based space startup that provides space data services intended to extend terrestrial data services to the moon. The company supports space operations with data analytics, archival services, and broadband relay to terrestrial public and private clouds, providing archival and edge services to customers.
Lonestar Data Holdings was funded $5 million seed financing round. The funding was led by Scout Ventures and joined by Seldor Capital, 2 Future Holding, The Veteran Fund, Irongate Capital, Atypical Ventures, other strategic angel investors, and KittyHawk Ventures.
According to Lonestar Data’s CEO Chris Stott, the funding will accelerate the company’s data management platform development and expand its team. In addition, the company aims to help businesses streamline their data operations and better use their data.
The new investment is a significant milestone for Lonestar Data, enabling the company to scale its operations and grow its customer base. The company’s data management platform has already gained traction among businesses looking to improve their data operations. The new funding will help Lonestar Data further establish itself as a leader in the data management space.
Brad Harrison, the Scout Ventures Founder and Managing Partner, commented that they believe that expanding the world’s economy to encompass the moon, which happens to be the Earth’s most stable satellite, is the following whitespace in the New Space Economy. Data security and storage will be necessary to lead the new generation of lunar exploration.
Overall, this news is a positive development for Lonestar Data and the broader technology industry. It highlights the continued interest and investment in companies that provide innovative solutions to businesses’ data challenges.
By: K. Tagura
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Andrena is an NYC-based company that provides internet distribution services designed to offer high-speed internet at reduced costs. The company works directly with internet providers who provide internet for universities, hospitals, financial services, and other users with heavy data needs and leverage their existing fiber networks to deploy a series of antennas to blanket geography with internet access, allowing customers and businesses to tap into a faster network wirelessly.
Andrena was funded $15 million led by Dragonfly Capital and backed by existing investors FJ Labs, Afore Capital, Castle Island Ventures, Chaos Ventures, KohFounders, and J Ventures as new strategic angel investors, Blockchange Ventures, Moonshot Research, and EV3. The company plans to use the funds to expand its service to hundreds of thousands of homes, resuming to bridge the gap between access and affordability with a premium solution.
Andrena opens a special end-to-end wireless delivery for building residents, operations, and the surrounding neighborhood. The outcome is a city-wide wireless network that delivers building owners with a next-gen Internet amenity at no cost while providing an affordable, pleasing Internet option for their residents and the surrounding community.
Neil Chatterjee, Co-Founder and CEO of Andrena, said that in building a new affordable Internet solution, they created a system that simultaneously caters to luxury apartments. They believe that solving the connectivity needs of both properties can usher in the next generation of the internet.
Anirudh Pai, Partner at Dragonfly Capital, said they value the mission of Andrena and the seamless experience they provide for residents and commercial tenants in partnership with forward-thinking real estate property owners and managers. In addition, they believe the company’s business model and mission will foster more significant equity and inclusion.
By: K. Tagura
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Puzzle, a San Francisco, CA-based, is a developer of a financial infrastructure platform intended to enhance speed, trust, and confidence in making accounting decisions. The company’s platform equips financial data in real-time and more intelligent infrastructure. In addition, it includes advice from venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and other higher directors, helping startups to enhance and upscale their financial performance.
Puzzle was funded $15 million and was conducted by General Catalyst, XYZ, Felicis, FOG Ventures, Sterling Road, Kapor Capital, and angel investors Gokul Rajaram, Eric Reis, Ayo Omojola, Village Global, and OnDeck. The company plans to use the new investment to expand its operations and development efforts.
The company was established at the end of 2019. Over the years, it has operated with over 500 startups to make and purify the latest software. Today the company is arising from beta with service generally available to any interested customer.
CEO and co-founder of Puzzle, Sasha Orloff, calls his company the first innovative accounting software, which combines a streaming financial data platform connected to a general accounting ledger.
This combination brings abilities of other inheritance accounting software, creating it manageable for founders (and their finance teams) to make a scalable foundation for fundraising, taxes, and improving business health – all in one place, in real-time and in-depth. The Puzzle is the modern complement to these solutions and what one founder described to them as their missing piece of a modern finance stack.
Puzzle believes accounting and finance are the underrated superpowers that set apart the following outstanding businesses. Still, leaders are held back by legacy software that needs more speed, collaboration, and intelligence for today’s fast-changing economy.
Starting with companies as their first accounting software, they want the next generation of ambitious founders to build their businesses with them on Puzzle. The world needs creativity, and Puzzle exists to set them up for prevailing victory.
By: K. Tagura
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Writing your business plan is probably one of the most important business duties you will assume. If you follow a quality business plans template you will cover the basics of the plans, but there are still common mistakes made by entrepreneurs that hurt their cause. It is reminiscent of the teacher in school who gave you the parts of the essay for easy outlining and then marks points off because the essay is too long or too boring.
Following are some of the most common errors made in business plans. Some of them are simple errors, but that doesn’t minimize their importance. Other are mistakes usually made due to lack of experience. Either way, these mistakes can hurt the effectiveness of the overall business plan.
Including more than one business model in the false belief that more information and more strategies are always better (not true!)
Lacking cohesiveness throughout the business plans
Difficult to read due to illogical or poor layout (another reason to use a business plan template)
Including unsupported projections or estimates
Not fully analyzing the competition
Failing to prepare all required sections of a business plans (making your plan look amateurish or as if you are hiding something)
No value proposition separating your business from the competition
Not letting anyone else read your business plan and provide feedback before submission
Making the business plan difficult to read because it is written using mostly hard-to-understand industry or discipline terms (i.e. your funder may not know much about technology so using technical jargon will make the plan too difficult to understand)
Showing lack of understanding of the niche market to be served
These are certainly not the only mistakes, but they are some of the most common. You want to avoid writing a business plan that is too long and tedious, is not well written, and is boring. Though funders are often professionals looking for the next great business investment opportunity, they are also human. Grammatical errors and boring prose can quickly discourage anyone reading the business plan. It seems your essay teacher was right all along.
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Quino Energy is a San Leandro, CA-based startup provider of energy services intended to offer scalable, long-lifetime grid energy storage for a fully renewable future. The company’s storage services are ideal for grid resiliency applications such as microgrids, transmission and distribution deferrals, and renewables storage at scales ranging from homes to large solar farms, enabling the chemical industry to store for the future.
Quino was funded $1.25 million from the funded group Energy Revolution Ventures, Doral Energy Tech Ventures, TechEnergy Ventures, and other confidential strategic angel investors. The new funding intends to use for different scales and demonstrate its in situ, zero-waste battery electrolyte production process. That turns dyestuff chemicals from coal tar into long-lifetime battery reactants using the flow battery system as the chemical reactor.
The Managing Director of Energy Revolution Ventures, Peter Robson, was incredibly impressed with Eugene Beh, the CEO of Quino Energy, and his team’s technology, which significantly improves battery cost, lifetime, and safety. Robson believes Quino will recreate a crucial role in the latest Age of Electrochemical Power, and they are excited to support Eugene and his team on their journey.
Eugene explains that their technology allows a 100% domestic supply chain without any dependence on critical minerals, saves jobs by developing a significant further use for coal that doesn’t apply to searing it, and revs the decarbonization of our economy all at once.
Additional for Guy Yavin, Investment Director at Doral Energy Tech Ventures. They align with Quino’s mission of developing a cheap, neat, and efficient flow battery, relying on inexpensive organic materials. The need for more special minerals and metals has carried back the scale-up of new battery technologies and the deep adoption of storage technologies to be embedded within renewable projects. Quino’s multi-hour battery can potentially increase the reliance on renewable energy electricity, and they are looking ahead to sustaining the team in this venture.
By: K. Tagura
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The ideal business plan is composed of more than just history, marketing and financial sections. It should also convey the value proposition to the angel investors you approach about business funding. Typically, angel investors are sought after a business has been established so it’s possible to show real products, actual customers and a working business model. However, the angel investors will want to know how you define the company’s value proposition.
The business value proposition is developed with the marketplace in mind. The value proposition defines why people in the target market should buy your products or services. It defines what benefits purchase of the goods or services will provide or what problem will be solved by product or service use. It sounds like the statement would be long, but it should be kept short which forces the business owner to concisely explain the value the company is bringing to the marketplace and the relevance of the product to the customer. If it takes a long winded explanation then there’s good chance the business owner has not fully developed the business concept.
The value proposition is important to the angel investor because it concisely differentiates the business among its competitors and reflects an alignment of business operations with the market. The value proposition must also reflect specific results or performance and is not a generalized statement that any business could use. For example, a consulting business could say that it can help customers get a high return on investment , but that would be a weak value proposition. A strong value proposition would say that the business can demonstrate customers will experience an improvement of 15% Return on Investment (ROI) by using the company’s state-of-the-art proprietary software.
Angel investors expect a business plan to have a value proposition that quantifies market results and also states the source of its competitive advantage. That should never be a problem if a company is serious about success.
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One of the important components of a business plan is clearly defining objectives. Stephen Harper in Starting Your Own Business (McGraw Hill) writes, “Objectives can be viewed as dreams with a deadline.” The point he is making is that objectives should be specific in terms of projected amounts and timeframe.
For example, you would not write an objective like this: The business will grow over the next 5 years. You would write it like this: Sales are expected to be $2 million in 5 years and the business will be one of the top 5 niche market leaders. The dreams you have for the business should look ahead and establish where you want the business to be positioned or how much growth is expected within a set period of time. The dreams should also be reasonable, based in facts and business reality, and achievable.
For example, if you plan on opening 5 franchise businesses within 10 years (1 every 5 years) the objective should be stated as such. However, you should also be able to support plans for opening these franchises in the competitive analysis section of the business plan. If the market is already close to being saturated, those 5 new franchises may be difficult to open. When objectives are focused and sensible, the business plan will become a living breathing document that supports your dream.
If you are having trouble setting objectives for the business plan, there are some questions you can ask yourself to develop focus. Ask yourself what your ultimate goal is 5 years from now. Picture yourself as an entrepreneur 5 years from today and imagine the level of business success you want to succeed. Ask yourself questions like how many sales people you hope to have working and how much market share you want to gain. Picture yourself as successful and put your definition of success in writing.
Objectives will become clear when you take the time to look into the future. Though a business plan is not a crystal ball, it is a driving force with strategies for achieving success. Set clear objectives first and the rest of the business plan will be a lot easier to develop.
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ShiftMed, a W-2 healthcare workforce management marketplace based in McLean, VA, secured $200m in funding. Panoramic Ventures led the round with participation from Blue Heron Capital, other strategic angel investors and Audacious Capital.
Travel nursing rates become unsustainable as in continue to exceed the national healthcare providers’ budgets. The sector has grown from $8B to more than $13B in the span of 2 years (2020-2022). As a result, travel nurse providers are bleeding hospital system budgets while demoralizing in-house teams by paying lower rates.
Led by Todd Walrath, ShiftMed’s CEO, said that their expansion is the next-generation workforce management platform that connects hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living providers to the highest quantity and quality of licensed nurses. It helps healthcare providers manage their resources dynamically by giving them access to marketplaces situated locally with more than 350,000 credentialed W-2 healthcare employees. In addition, health systems can utilize mobile and cloud-based software that offers workforce optimization, providing their staff with a cutting-edge, integrated solution that improves retention, opens up part-time employment alternatives, and lessens dependency on travel agencies. Access to more local employees is also made possible via ShiftMed.
ShiftMed said the funds would be used to expand and narrow that gap in needed personnel. Its mobile and cloud-based software provide different perks to nurses—for example, guaranteed shifts, almost instant pay, and health benefits. While for hospitals and other healthcare organizations, it provides access to additional local staff and opens part-time work opportunities.
Today, the company said it grew about 8x compared to previous years in the last two years. Its app reached 1,500 enterprise partners across 110 markets and over 350,000 credentialed nurses and aides.
By: E. Pascual
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When you are looking forward to starting your own small business, you will have to familiarize yourself with a lot of new ideas. One of the important concepts that every business owner must be aware of is business valuation. So, what is business valuation, what is its importance and how do you do the valuation of a business? Read on to know.
Business Valuation
As the name clearly suggests, business valuation is the act of finding the value of your business in the market. It is just like finding the value of a house when you are about to sell it. You can use multiple methods to find the value of your business. However, it is always in your best interest that you hire a professional valuator to do it for you. They know multiple methods of valuation and will make sure that the final valuation is error-free.
The Importance of Business Valuation
The first thing you should know is that it is imperative to do the valuation of your business not for one but many reasons. The first reason that comes to mind is the selling of a business. When you want to sell your business to someone, you have to set a price for it. Sometimes, the owner of a business would want to plan succession i.e. the transferring of shares to an heir. The buy sell-agreement that they use for transferring the shares to their heirs requires them to know the value of the business.
If you have ever pitched your business to an investor, you must be aware of the fact that they always ask for business valuation. They are trying to assess a few different things based on the valuation you give them. First, they want to know how much their investment is worth. Secondly, they want to know whether or not you are fair with your investment demand if you are offering them equity for their contribution.
The Three Business Valuation Methods
Even though there are other business valuation methods as well, you will be reading about the three most common ones.
1. Valuation Based on Market Value
You also call this method the relative valuation method. It is a fairly straightforward way of knowing how much your business is worth. The valuators have to look at other businesses in the market that are similar to yours. They look at their selling prices and determine the value of your business based on those prices. Now, as simple and plain as this method sounds, it does not always work. For example, you don’t find the records of sole proprietorships that easily. So, when it comes to the valuation of a sole proprietorship business, finding records of similar businesses can pose quite a challenge.
2. Valuation Based on Business Future Earning Potential
This is an ingenious way to know the value of a business and one that helps you a great deal when it comes to obtaining investments from interested investors. This is quite a realistic approach but pitching it to investors can be a daring task.
First, you have to make sure that you have done proper calculations based on your current and past records to come up with the future earning potential of the business.
Secondly, you have to stand confidently with your decision because investors would often question you and your integrity a lot when they deem that you have valued your business much higher than you should have.
Capitalization of past earning is quite a frequently used approach to do this type of valuation wherein you look into the past financial reports of your business, smooth out any extraordinary earnings or expenses, and find the product of the normalized cash flow with a number referred to as capitalizing factor. It is not the only method used for determining the value of the business under this category. Another frequently used method is based on discounted future earnings.
3. Valuation Based on Assets
It is clear from the name that in this type of valuation you find the worth of the business based on the assets it owns. Once again, there are multiple ways to approach this valuation too. A common way to do this type of valuation takes liquidation of the business into account i.e. calculate how much money you would have if you sold every asset that your business owns and then subtract every liability from that sum. The other way is based on the ongoing status of the business wherein you look at the total value of your assets on the balance sheet and subtract your existing liabilities from them.
Once again, it is the sole proprietorship that poses challenges when it comes to doing the valuation of a business using this approach. Why the valuation of sole proprietorships is difficult using this method is because the owner in this case does not use the assets for business purposes only but personal as well.
You now know from the information given above that it is imperative for you to complete the valuation of your business. Whether it is for legal purposes or to sell your company at the right price, knowing the right value of your business is crucial. In the end, you should prepare your business financial documents regularly to help you find its value with convenience.
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