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Understanding Venture Capitalists: How to Get Their Attention… And Approval

venture capitalists

It might be surprising, but a lot of venture capitalists understand the situation of would-be entrepreneurs who are looking for investors who will finance their startups. The reason for this is simple: these people who now have millions of venture capital funds stashed in banks also started as a small company owner who experienced the challenges of looking for someone who is interested in providing financial support.

They might have followed the traditional venture capitalist model or used personal means – such as credit cards and personal guarantees – to raise significant amount of money. But one thing is clear – most venture capitalists understand the position of startup owners. And this shows their true nature when it comes to dealing with these kinds of partnerships.

Unlike the common conception that they are all too powerful and very difficult to please, venture capitalists are also human. And because most of them have experienced and succeeded in this industry, the requirements that they ask from startup owners should be seen as reasonable and realistic. Here are some of the traits that startup owners applying for financial support should have:

Passion – Those who are passionate, enthusiastic, and confident with their startups usually get not only the attention, but also the approval of investors.

Intelligence – Knowledgeable would-be entrepreneurs always have the advantage. Venture capitalists think that intelligence is tied with the success of the company.

Defensibility – Having a great concept is one thing, but being able to defend it at different levels is another. Most of the time, investors will point problems on the concept submitted by the startup owner. He or she must be able to defend the idea and convince venture capitalists that the problems can be resolved.

Contrarianism – Investors are waiting for the next big thing. Thus, unique ideas that have huge potential almost always get the nod of venture capitalists. After all, nobody wants another social networking site, not if we already have Facebook. We want something new.

Perseverance and Persistence – Startup owners who exhibit determination on their ideas always get the attention of investors. Consistent follow-ups and immediate response to queries sent by the potential investors show how important the deal is for the entrepreneur.

Humility – Despite the need for passion and determination, startup owners also need to have an ounce of humility. One must keep in mind that even the best actors or athletes have to follow the orders of their directors and coaches, respectively.

Aside from the traits enumerated above, would-be entrepreneurs should also understand what goes in the mind of venture capitalists. Usually, it only involves two things: fear and greed.

As noted earlier, investors want to put money on proposal that will be as big as Facebook. Because of this, they are afraid of letting a potential project go (fear). Also, venture capitalists look at the things that they will get once they finance a startup. This includes profit, recognition, and a powerful position within the company, among other benefits (greed).

In the end, it all comes down to these two. And startup owners might want to use these to their advantage. Of course, it would not be easy. Venture capitalists are experienced people who will know if they are being manipulated. But having the knowledge of what they want is something that could spell the difference between failure and success.

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Branding a Business to Imprint Angel Investors

Branding

Branding is one element addressed in the marketing section of the business plan. It’s also the image presented to angel investors when searching for business funding. Contrary to popular belief though, branding is not just about a trendy logo or elaborate advertising. It’s the element that represents you as the business owner, the quality of your products, and the level of customer service. Brand is composed of your individuality and your company’s value.

Branding is a complex concept which is one reason why it’s often reduced down in people’s minds as being mostly about advertising. The assumption is that if the target market is aware of your logo, then branding efforts have been successful. However, it goes much deeper than advertising, which is why your business plan must present more than an advertising plan to potential angel investors.

Business brands is about the quality and value that underpins the entire business. It’s the projected image, but more importantly it’s the tie-in for everything the company does or will do. business brand is a broad brush that covers marketing, pricing, the level of customer service and the business culture. Branding pervades the business plan and is not simply one element in the marketing plan.

Common question angel investors ask always concerns brand. What do you want your brand to project to the marketplace? Is it quality, innovation, creativity, problem solving or all of the above? Branding is important to startup companies as well as established companies. In fact, branding for startups can perform an important job for startups on limited budgets by making advertising efforts more effective. Clear and distinct branding differentiates the company in the minds of customers, thus giving the company more value for marketing dollars spent.

Before preparing a business plan to present to angel investors, make sure the brand is well defined. Branding is not just advertising. It’s the element that ties your entire business together.

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Array Behavioral Funded $25M for Virtual Health Care and Innovative Technology Enhancement

Behavioral

Array Behavioral Care, a Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based provider of telepsychiatry assistance to alter access to quality behavioral health care through innovative technology applications. The company’s services include assessment, screening, diagnosis, consultations, and medication management, which can implemented and executed in various settings, enabling hospitals to provide convenient, affordable, and readily accessible mental health services to their patients.

Array Behavioral Care was funded $25 million led by CVS Health, which entered Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, Health Velocity Capital, Harbour Point Capital, OCA Ventures, HLM Venture Partners, OSF Healthcare, and other prestigious angel investors.

The company plans to use the budget to rise in new and existing markets through improved service offerings and operations, innovative technology, and new levels of partnership to develop access to high-quality behavioral care.

The Array has consistently been a strong mental health care provider within Aetna’s network. Array uniquely provides psychiatry and therapy across the continuum of care by serving hospitals, clinics, and individuals directly at home. Array will scale faster to give more keys to quality, convenient behavioral care in new and existing markets through improved benefit offerings and procedures, innovative technology, and the development of the training team.

CVS Health Ventures, Managing Partner and co-founder Vijay Patel said Array’s long record in virtual behavioral maintenance and its commitment to quality stand out. In addition, their partnership and investment can enhance entry to these services, which is essential, with the need for mental health services increasing enormously in recent years.

Virtual resolutions can also help psychiatrists, therapists, and other clinicians who are often loaded with excessive administrative work that detracts from the time finished providing direct patient care. At Array, clinicians have a help team of clinical, functional, managerial, and specialized specialists who support providers operating at the top of their licenses, combined with care units, and likewise practice as they would if they were physically present with the patient.

By: K. Tagura

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Qualytics Funded $2.5M to Empower the Data Quality for Enterprise

Enterprise

Qualytics an Orlando, FL-based developer of an enterprise data quality surveillance platform designed to monitor and actively defend against data pipeline corruption. The company’s technology includes a data firewall that captures erroneous data at the source and prevents it from entering downstream. Data platforms combine it with data pipelines, data flows, and surveillance hubs and use machine learning to automatically create data rules and adapt those rules through supervised workflows, enabling firms to detect and respond to anomalies in real time with active measures such as message-level quarantining.

Qualytics was funded $2.5 million led by Tech Square Ventures, with participation from Engage, SaaS Ventures, Knoll Ventures, and GRI Ventures. Including Inner Loop Capital, Propel Baltimore Fund, Maryland Momentum Fund, The LegalTech Fund, Gaingels, and prominent angel investors. The new investment will raise the company to meet increasing demand from Fortune 500 enterprises deploying Qualytics as their data quality platform.

Gorkem Sevinc, co-founder and CEO of Qualytics, said most companies need to learn the quality of their data. Managing enterprise data quality at scale is an ever-growing need in a world of data-driven findings, insights, and innovations. Their unknown approach applies ML-generated record-level data quality rules to determine anomalies as close to the source as possible. It enables our customers to address their data quality proactively. As they partner with impressive investors, they will resume catering to enterprise customers’ needs and fuel the growth of Qualytics on their exciting journey.

The partner of Tech Square Ventures, Bill Nussey, said they are excited to invest in Qualytics to address significant issues in enterprise data quality. The Qualytics team has built a fantastic product to support data teams and subject matter experts to manage and collaborate on data quality at scale. Qualytics is a rare early-stage company launched by veteran founders with startup and enterprise experience working on a large and growing problem.

By: K. Tagura

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Unique Ways to Funding Your Small Business

funding

If you’re a startup, there is nothing surprising in facing teething troubles.  But none of these challenges or troubles is as big or critical as funding your business. That means finding investment to get your business off the ground is, without a doubt a daunting task.  From production space, buying goods to renting office, and hiring staff, turning a simple idea into a business practically requires funds and money.

Unless you are wealthy enough to finance your business or your benevolent relative has left you a lot of money, you probably have to find ways to fund your business.  Luckily, there are some smart ways you can resolve this problem. Here are some of those unique ways to help you fund your business.

How Can You Fund Your Small Business?

1.     Crowdfunding

One of the easiest way to find your business enough funds is crowdfunding- which is a practice of raising funds from different forums or people.  It is an alternative finance and a kind of crowd sourcing.   Luckily, there are plenty of crowdfunding options available for you right on the internet.

When asking for investment funds for your businesses from a variety of investors, it is highly recommended to come up with an impressive pitch. The success of your crowdfunding campaign depends more on how you pitch the idea than it does on the idea itself. Of course, you need a team with you to plan out your crowdfunding campaign.

A common reason why startups choose this method of funding is because of the flexibility of options. Venture capitals are known for being strict with their investments. They will demand more equity in your business than you will ever have to offer through a crowdfunding model. They usually focus more on their returns than the success of the startup. The situation is quite the opposite when you go with the crowdfunding option.

2.     Angel Investors

Angel Investors is no doubt one of the unique funding options among all as they are always looking for innovative ideas to invest in the business. Originally business giants like Yahoo and Google were also used this funding option. It is worth noting that taking funds from Angel Investors requires entrepreneurs to give them some equity share in the company.

3.     Small Business Loans (SBA)

This funding option is a result of the U.S government’s interest in rampant growth of the small business industry.  The s Small Business Administration, in this regard, offers a wide range of loan types and business investments to help business owners get started.  Exploring the SBA loan options is a great way to kick start your business, if intend to run an educational institute or non-profits set-up.   For easy funding, you might want to request for SBA grants.

4.      Venture Capitalists

Much like angel investors, the funding option invest money in up-and-coming- businesses that have high potential to not only grow but also monetary returns.  In addition to that, Venture Capitalist looks for equity share in the business it invests money in. The investors are also interested in getting a right in company’s directorial decisions.  In short, VCs make money through their investments and consider having some control or authority in the business is the best way to do that.  It is always better to investigate this funding option thoroughly before opting it.

5.     Microloans

 Reserved specifically for small non-profit businesses, finance institutions grant microloans to entrepreneurs who don’t qualify for a bank loans. Microloan organizations, instead of giving donations to the non-profit companies allow entrepreneurs to invest in various economic opportunities.  Microloans are also a popular financing option in developing nations.

6.     Personal Financing

There is no denying that investing in a startup entails a lot of risks and these risks are what prevent traditional lenders from giving loans to business owners. This becomes even more skeptical if business owner doesn’t invest his/her own money in the startup.

7.     Purchase Order Financing         

 There is an array of factors that affect the cash flows of any business. These factors may include supply and demand and seasonality.  For examples, sometimes a company is unable to complete the orders due to fewer funds to buys inventory and material to make the products.

In situations like these, purchase order financing can be the panacea to the problems. It helps companies extend advance to purchase material they need to make products. Purchase order financing collect back money when products are sold.  If your business deals in manufactured goods, it stands a chance to makes 20% more on its sales by opting purchase order financing.

8.     Vendor Financing

If your bill payment record is contingent on your product selling record, you may take the benefits by negotiating longer payment terms with the vendors.  Vendors, typically require payments on invoices within thirty days before imposing penalties and late fees.  Negotiating longer payment terms will allow you work with more cash in the interim.

This is even more important if your business has a longer sales cycle than thirty days. That means if sales cycle takes  forty to forty-five days from  purchasing to selling goods, you will not be able to make invoices payment within a  month.  In that case, you need negotiations to avail vendor financing to benefit your sales cycle.

Final Thoughts

In a nutshell, investments and business funding are of paramount importance no matter what industry you want to get into. If you lack sufficient finances, it is important to weigh all options you can choose to give a kick start your business.  Given that, the mentioned funding options are great to consider if they suit your requirements.

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How to Avoid Financial Problems for Your Startup?

Startup

There is no denying that starting your own business in an established niche is exhilarating. However, at the same time, you cannot eliminate the risk factors involved. As a startup, you have to deal with a plethora of problems, with an endless stream of administrative tasks. Not only does it require a lot of your attention but also time and critical thinking to manage business finances.

When you launch a new business, you require sufficient capital to cover all the expenses, and also funds to run your business before it turns a profit. This reason is why it is important that you work with a proper financial plan that can ensure your leap into the business world that is secure and realistic. Once you are sure that your business has enough finances, you will be able to maximize the chances of success.

Here are some tips to help startups and entrepreneurs manage financial problems:

Tips to Avoid Financial Problems for Startups

Avoid Taking Expensive Credits

Whether you’re an established brand or thinking to set up a startup, you need to make optimal use of your business funds. You need to establish some financial goals that can help you build a progressive business portfolio to benefit your business.

Remember that it is the growing period of your business, and the credit cost plays an important role. Your foremost financial goal must be to set up interest core at a minimum price to attain profitability and reduce costs.

Keep Expenses Low

Business is in the survival stage in the initial phase, so keeping expenses fixed or low is a wise move. Expenses play a critical role in helping you maintain steady business revenue. 

Always try to plan large expense, including taxes, payrolls, and cost materials for products, interest, utilities, and operating expenses in advance. Managing these expenses may help you reduce the financial burden. Moreover, low expenses will ensure your cash flow is running smoothly, even on a tight budget.

Keep a Balance between Personal and Business Finances

This important step can help you avoid financial problems. Once you register your business, make sure you set up a commercial business account. To put it simply, use different banks for your business and personal accounts.

Keeping business and personal financial accounts separate can make accounting straightforward throughout the year. Also, you can easily calculate your taxes as well as eliminate the cash crunch situations startups face due to unexpected withdrawals. This also means you need to avoid withdrawing money for personal use from the business account.

You can use different credit cards and loans for your startup but avoid using them for personal expenses.

Consider Insurance

You might not like the idea of insurance and paying a big amount for your startup, but you cannot deny that your business actually needs it. Do some research about what suits your business needs for managing business finances and building a profitable portfolio. This step is imperative to evaluate which type of insurance can provide your business with long-term financial security.

Prioritize Payments

To keep financial problems at bay, entrepreneurs need to draw a line between less important and essential costs for at least the first six months. This helps entrepreneurs project where they need to inject the cash flow. They can start by reducing unnecessary expenses and adjusting the budget.

Prioritizing payments may also help you determine the key issues, such as business overspending. Once entrepreneurs take a closer look, they will find ways to become more cost-savvy with their business expenditures.

Invest in Advanced Technology

The next important thing to avoid financial problems is to invest in the right technology. To retain a prominent position in the business world, analyze your competitors’ strategy, and upgrade business operations. Use online software to track finances and also establish a strong online presence.

Using bookkeeping software for developing budgets, paying taxes, and understanding your business financial position is a great idea. Almost, all large-scale businesses have a separate finance department that uses professional software.

However, your business is in its infancy, but if you don’t embrace technological advancements gradually,   running a business efficiently will become challenging.

Manage Money Movement

Regardless of what stage your business is at, outlining payment terms is important to manage business finances efficiently. The best way to do this is to track money movements, from supplier costs to product purchasing. Make sure you consider both the legal and the financial sides of monetary transactions to trace money movements.

This way, you can figure out which business areas are performing efficiently and where you need to invest fewer funds. The data is useable for not only tracking progress but also developing a reasonable budget.

Negotiate Your Business Needs with Vendors before Finalizing a Contract

Don’t hesitate to negotiate whenever you are signing a deal. Successful entrepreneurs know what rates can benefit their business and how they can achieve them. They carefully examine purchase terms, such as grace periods or payment penalties, which can help them negotiate a great deal.

Maintain an Emergency Fund

Once you know how important it is to negotiate the right prices with vendors for managing business finances, you need to set aside emergency funds to ensure the success of your startup entity. Know that your sales will not be consistent throughout the year. This part is where you need to have some emergency funds, particularly for the off-season, to maintain a steady cash flow. 

For emergency funds, take out a proportion of your profits or income every month (particularly during high sales) and keep it for off-month expenses.

Bottom Line

While starting your own business is exciting, it entails a myriad of challenges, especially when it comes to handling business finances. If you’re facing these same issues and want to be prepared, try implementing the tips mentioned above to help you move towards a bright future.

Financial stability in business leads to better money management and success opportunities, and thus, these factors are crucial for the success of any startup.

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Parallel Bio Funded $4.3M to Enable Advancement of Biotechnology through Human Immune System

Immune

Parallel Bio, a Cambridge, MA-based Operator of a biotechnology company, intended to design and engineer tools to change how diseases are cured. The company’s platform deploys human immune organoids to rapidly accelerate the discovery and development of immunotherapies, cell therapies, antibody therapies, and vaccines, enabling medical professionals to access novel insights into human biology.

Parallel Bio was funded $4.3 million led by Refactor Capital, with participation from Y Combinator Jeff Dean and other strategic angel investors of Breakout Ventures. The acquisition capital has helped it to establish the viability of its immune-system-in-a-dish venue and accelerate the rate of drug discovery and development—several biotech-focused reserves: and senior executives at global pharmaceutical companies.

CEO Robert DiFazio and chief scientific officer Juliana Hilliard, Parallel Bio has developed a platform replicating the human immune system in a drug discovery and development dish. Parallel Bio’s platform merges immune organoids with artificial intelligence and robotics to uniquely illustrate organoids as people. As a result, its platform is the leading technology of its type to model the immune systems of entire people and the only immune technology that has the needed complexity.

Parallel Bio achieved important scientific and business milestones this year, enabling it to get its immune venue to market to medicine and biotechnology partners.

Zal Bilimoria, the founding partner at Refactor Capital, said Parallel Bio has the idea and technology to cure the disease, which starts entirely through the human body. In addition, it is building a new drug discovery and development platform that upends a century-old support for animal testing. Parallel Bio’s method promises to shave billions of dollars of waste and years of extra waiting from the drug development procedure.

By: K. Tagura

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Why It Is Not Advisable to Not Have a Business Plan

Plan

When you start a business, different people will advise you differently on how to turn your venture into a success. While it looks natural to have a business plan beforehand, do not be surprised if you find some people telling you to not have one. According to some, having a business plan limits you in your exploration and prevents you from taking risks. That might hold true in some cases, but that’s not how it is for everyone. Having a business plan is a sensible step, but if you are on the fence about whether to have one or not, here are some disadvantages of not having a business plan to help you make a well-informed decision.

Why Not Having a Business Plan Is Not Advisable

1.      There Is Nothing to Achieve

Milestones have to be an integral part of any venture. When you don’t have any milestones and targets, there is nothing for you to achieve. Having no business plan is the first sign of your non-seriousness with your business. If you could not take out time to create a detailed plan, how can one expect you to manage your business – an activity that could require even up to 16 hours of continuous working at times? The problem with having nothing to achieve means you will have no strategies for your expenses, profits, revenues, etc.

How would you ever know how much you should spend or not spend? Why would you invest in marketing when you don’t have any goals?

2.      There Is Nothing to Interest Investors

There might be some proponents of the idea that a business does not require a business plan, but there are still more people who believe in having a business plan. Investors always need indicators from entrepreneurs to judge their personalities and potentials. Business plan is one of the strongest indicators of a person’s potential of doing a business. When you ask investors for a certain amount of money, the first question they ask is why you need that money or what you need that money for. Your answer to this question can make it or break it for you.

In fact, that is not the only question. They will follow up this first question with a lineup of crucial follow-up questions. For example, if you tell them you will invest the money in marketing, they will ask you about the type of marketing you are aiming for, the return you expect and the costs of customer acquisition. How can you answer all those questions if you do not have a business plan?

3.      Your Marketing Will Go Awry

One of the damages of not having a business plan is your marketing plans going awry. Entrepreneurs have more power to them today than they ever had before. These days, startup owners have internet where they can collect information about their customers in the startup stages. Collecting customer information helps them create buyer personas and target their audience with appropriate marketing. Here are some pieces of information you will have to collect.

  • What age group and gender my product appeals best to?
  • What interests my target age group and gender?
  • What platforms is my target audience most active on?
  • What is the average buying power of my target audience?
  • What type of content best attracts my target audience?
  • What expectations do my potential customers have with my product?
  • How can I personalize my marketing to my audience?

That’s just few of the many questions that you have to get the answers for to make your marketing endeavors profitable. However, all of this homework is a part of your business plan.

4.      Your Team Won’t Share Your Vision

It is crucial for a business’ success to have a team that shares the same vision and endeavors to achieve it. Several studies and researches have proven that employees do not perform at their best when they don’t understand the vision well. You must define clear and vivid targets to your employees for them to know exactly what they have to do to be of value for the company. What you have to realize is that telling your team the vision of the business is not enough. It is a broad concept and does not define the action plan to your employees.

What you have to do is break the process of achieving your vision into small parts. These small parts are the milestones and within each milestone the role of your team is clearly defined. In short, break the entire pursuit of vision into small missions, and explain the role of every team member to achieve a milestone.

5.      You Won’t Know When to Exit

One of the biggest mistakes most startup owners and entrepreneurs make is that they don’t know when to exit. If you can close down your business before it starts hurting you financially, that’s a form of success. The true failure is when you cannot realize that your business is hurting you and you keep burning dollars for its success. An integral part of a business plan is defining favorable and unfavorable conditions for the business to exist.

In a business, you have to define a deadline before which you must see positive results. You have to define a time frame within which you can continue to invest in your business. However, you have to draw a line to make it clear when you cannot continue anymore. If you have been running your business for six months and the money has been going out of your pocket, it might be an indicator that it won’t work for you.

Conclusion

A business plan should be considered a part and parcel of a venture. It is not an optional component because your success rests on it. If you are looking forward to starting your business, it is advisable that you sit down and take time to write and review your business plan. If that is too much for you, hire a professional to write it for you.

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Eion Funded $12M to Build Up the Carbon removal Technology Distribution for Economic Beneficial

Carbon

Eion is a Princeton, NJ-based originator of fine-grained mineral material invented to terminate carbon permanently and at scale while delivering economic benefits to rural communities. The company’s product rapidly captures and holds carbon dioxide when applied to agricultural soils, providing farmers and the agricultural industry with a supportable pathway to decarbonization.

Eion was funded $12 million, led by AgFunder and some strategic angel investors of Ridgeline. New and returning investors contain SLVC, Carbon Removal Partners, Mercator Partners, Trailhead Capital, Orion, and Overture.

This budget round will help Eion to continue to make out its distribution partnerships and expand the availability of its patented CarbonLock™. This nature-based soil amendment removes atmospheric carbon dioxide permanently and verifiably through improved rock weathering on farming soils. The company will also employ the funds to draw high-impact talent to make out its financial, commercial, and science teams.

Adam Wolf, Founder, and CEO of Eion, said Eion’s technology allows permanent carbon removal on agricultural soils, but their vision is much broader. Eion seeks to leverage carbon removal to diversify agriculture and maintain land productivity, enhance margins for farmers, help the bedrock of American businesses in our supply chain, and boost rural vitality.

Tom Shields, Partner at AgFunder, said Eion’s CarbonLock™ solution delivers farmers a low-disruption way to help decrease carbon in the atmosphere. They are keen to work with Eion to accelerate the usage of carbon removal as a crucial part of addressing climate change.

Brandon Harris, Principal at Ridgeline, also states that Eion’s rare combination of solid agricultural co-benefits for farmers and high capability for checkable carbon removal positions the company to be a leader in the future.

By: K. Tagura

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Black Sheep Foods Funded $12.3M to Scale-up Global Production of Plant-based Meat

Meat

Black Sheep Foods, a San Francisco, CA-based. Producer of plant-based meat intended to provide an environmentally sustainable alternative to animal meat. The company’s products are a plant-based alternative to ground lamb. They are made using analytical chemistry from soy protein, coconut oil, and natural flavors. They enable consumers to lessen their carbon footprint by choosing the cheap lamb alternative with the same taste.

Black Sheep Foods was funded $12.3 million led by Unovis, alongside Bessemer Venture Partners, AgFunder, other strategic angel investors, and KBW Ventures. It intends to use the funds to raise production for its debut lamb produced from plants for global distribution.

Sunny Kumar, co-founder, and CEO of Black Sheep Foods said their senses associate meat with a form, a texture, and a flavor. The surface has been the focus of meat innovation, and the taste is a white space. The debut lamb produced from plants includes more depth of flavor, richness, and delicious aromatics than other meats, full stop. They’re in the business of giving consumers access to the most delightful meat variety, using plants instead of animals.

Charles Billies, CEO and Founder of Souvla, said they are incredibly thoughtful when selecting a plant-based meat partner. Since launching Black Sheep Foods’ product in their restaurants last year, they’ve been seriously impressed with its integration into their menu and the overwhelmingly positive response from their many loyal guests. They stay keen on the fate of their product offerings and this vital action in the years to come.

The company says Black Sheep’s lamb has gained a following in the Middle East. Prince Khaled calls the lamb “shockingly good.” But, he says, as someone who grew up with the taste profile in Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t believe the authentic mouthfeel and flavor. With preference being a vital aspect of customer adoption, Black Sheep Foods will easily overwhelm plant-based meats.

By: K. Tagura

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