Fundraising

The General Partner (GP) and Limited Partner (LP) relationship is built on trust. The best way to establish trust with LPs is through transparency, authenticity, and regular communication. When LP reporting is done well, LPs should easily be able to understand how both the fund and the fund manager are performing and be able to use this information to inform their investment strategies in the future. The best GPs view sending LP Updates as a relationship-building activity and as a fundraising tool — not as a way to simply check off a requirement from their LPA’s. For emerging managers, your relationships with initial LPs are of critical importance for your reputation as a fund manager and future fundraising. This rapport forms the basis of the fund manager’s credibility and will surface again when future LPs are doing diligence on the emerging manager. First-time fund managers will need to have clean data to support their track record and positive relationships with current LPs to set themselves up for success in raising additional funds. The Weekend Fund recently wrote a thoughtful article on How to Write LP Updates with four main takeaways: Send LP updates consistently Go beyond the basics Be authentic Don’t share sensitive information without portfolio founders’ sign-off We’ve translated this guidance into actionable steps that can be streamlined with Visible’s Portfolio Monitoring and Reporting tools below. 1. Send LP updates consistently. Weekend Fund Advice — “One of the biggest mistakes new fund managers can make is not sending LP updates consistently. Most send quarterly updates. At Weekend Fund we send updates approximately every two months. Regular, detailed, and transparent updates builds trust with your LPs, which is particularly important if you want them to write a check into your next fund.” Visible provides fund managers with tools to make sending updates to LPs on a regular basis easier. To start, you can Upload Your LP Contacts (including custom contact fields) via CSV within seconds. Then you can create Custom Lists to organize your contacts. We suggest organizing your LPs by Fund and also by whether they’re a current LP or a potential LP. This means within minutes you have all your contacts organized into custom segments that are useful to you. You can then simply choose which list you want to send an Update to in the future. Visible also streamlines the creation of your LP Update content by letting you choose from an Update Template Library. You can easily pull a template into your account, further customize it as needed, and save it as your own template to use for future updates. 2. Go beyond the basics. Weekend Fund Advice — “Of course, you should introduce new investments, share updates from the portfolio, report performance metrics, and other key updates from the fund, but the best updates go a step further to educate and inform LPs. This might include your analysis on the market, perspective on emerging trends, or learnings from experiments.” Visible’s LP Update editor supports rich text, videos, images, files, and perhaps best of all — custom data visualizations. This means you can visualize your custom fund analytics that will resonate with your LPs and embed them directly into your Update. The data is derived from data hosted within your Visible account and updates your charts in real time. It’s also a great idea to include a market overview section at the top of your update to shed light on how you’re evaluating and staying ahead of the curve in the markets in which you invest. This is a great way to continue to instill LP confidence in you as the steward of their capital. On top of that, it’s important to remember that “many LPs invest in funds as a learning opportunity. The updates are the primary artifact to support that learning.” (Source) You can also stand out to LPs by getting creative and embedding a video recording of your recent portfolio updates directly into your Updates. Open the update below to view an example of how a Visible customer incorporates video into their updates — —> View Update Example with Video Embed 3. Be authentic. Weekend Fund Advice — In general, people gravitate toward authenticity. Writing with personality is more engaging and magnetic. LP updates are an opportunity to share your unique voice and build your fund’s brand. The Weekend Fund incorporates authenticity in their updates through their narrative updates and transparency, but also by including personal photos. Visible lets you embed personal photos directly into your Update in two clicks. —> View the Weekend Fund’s Update Template 4. Don’t share sensitive information without portfolio founders’ sign-off. Weekend Fund Advice — “Fund managers often have inside knowledge into how a company is doing. Some founders are extremely sensitive to information shared about their company, even when the news is positive. It’s prudent to get approval for any non-public information shared with LPs.” Visible recommends explicitly asking for portfolio company’s permission to share information with LPs. One way to do this is by incorporating it into the descriptions of your Request blocks. (How to Build a Request in Visible). Here’s an example below — It’s important to remember that as a GP you’re not only competing with other GPs for LP capital but also with every other asset class. So it’s to your advantage to use every tool in your toolkit to stand out and impress LPs. Over 400+ VC funds are using Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting processes.

For a bonus episode of the Founders Forward Podcast, we are joined by Mike Evans. Mike is the founder of GrubHub and the current CEO of Fixer — Fixer provides skilled experts, solving a variety of home problems in one visit. About Mike Evans Mike shares the ins and outs of his time building GrubHub — from humble beginnings in his Chicago apartment to the IPO 10+ years later. We cover everything from the difference between quitting and giving up, to building a valuable board, to raising capital, and more. Our CEO, Mike Preuss, had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Mike Evans. You can give the full episode a listen below: What you can expect to learn from Mike Evans: The difference between quitting and giving up Why Mike doesn’t like NPS as a metric How a board can be valuable How to build a list of potential investors Why cash doesn’t fix problems How to turn problems into resolutions Related Resources: Hangry: A Startup Journey Mike Evan’s personal website Building Your Ideal Investor Persona

Last week we covered how many investors founders need in their fundraising pipeline. When communicating with 50+ investors during a fundraise, founders need a system to track and manage their ongoing investor conversations. Default Properties At Visible, we help founders do just this with our Fundraising CRM. Like any CRM, we offer default properties for investor contacts (e.g. potential investment amount, star rating, contact date, follow up date, etc). Popular Custom Properties In addition to the default properties, founders are using custom properties to match their fundraising efforts — check out the most common custom properties below to see how other founders are keeping tabs on their pipeline: Min & Max Check Size — In addition to our default check size property, we are seeing founders track min and max check size amount to get a more accurate look at where their round stands. Connection — Warm introductions are valuable when fundraising. Founders are tracking who made/can make an introduction. Data Room Shared — If a founder is moving an investor down their fundraising funnel, chances are a data room will be shared. In order to keep track of who has access, founders are creating a yes/no property to track who has access. Investor Type — We are seeing founders track the type of investor to have a better look at the mix of investors in their pipeline — e.g. strategic, existing, lead, etc. Will They Lead — Finding a lead investor is a must for a fundraise. Keeping an eye on lead investors is a surefire way to help founders stay focused on the right investors. Of course, these are just a few of the custom properties founders are using — we’ve even seen a few founders track an investor’s favorite sports team or personal interests. Learn more about our Fundraising CRM and give it a try below: Learn More Reading List Level up Your Fundraising Process with Email Syncing In order to best help founders stay on top of their raise, we recently launched a BCC tool to help founders sync emails from outside Visible to the respective investor record in Visible. Read more A Guide to Seed Fundraising The team at Y Combinator shares an in-depth guide covering the ins and outs of raising a seed round. Read more Seamlessly Manage Relationships with an Investor CRM On the Visible blog, we break down what founders should look for in an investor CRM and fundraising tracking tool. Read more

Raising venture capital is a numbers game. The Fundraising Funnel At the top of your funnel, you are identifying potential investors through research, direct outreach, and intros from your peers. In the middle of the funnel, you are sharing your pitch deck, meeting with GPs, and perhaps the entire partnership. At the end of the funnel, there are (hopefully) multiple term sheets and negotiations ahead of closing. This process is full of “nos”, “maybes”, and “ghosts.” Inevitably, different investors will pass for different reasons so it is important to have a thorough list to keep the momentum going. Between our own product, the Founders Forward Podcast, and online resources, we’ve found the following benchmarks for how many investors you need in your funnel: How Many Investors Should You Expect to Target 40+ — Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures, “Ideally, you want to have 40–50 qualified and interested investors in your funnel.” Learn more here. 48 — The average # of investors a Visible user has in a Fundraising Pipeline. Learn more about our Fundraising tools here. 50+ — Gale Wilkinson of Vitalize Ventures, “If you don’t have a list and you’re raising now, don’t worry. Spend a weekend and write down who are your top, you know, 50 to 75 that you want to target?” Learn more here. 60+ — Brett Brohl of Bread & Butter Ventures, “You’re going to have to reach out to probably about 60 funds and have about that many meetings to close a round.” Learn more here. 100+ — Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund, “I made up a rule of thumb: 5-100-500. Over 5 weeks, meet with 100 investors to close $500k in your seed round. If you want to close $1m, double all of these numbers.” Learn more here. Before building your list of investors it is important to understand your ideal investor. Once you have an understanding of your ideal investor, check out free databases, like Visible Connect, to find investors for your startup. Give it a try and filter through our 5,000+ early-stage investors below: Find Investors P.S. If you filter by “Verified” that means these investors have personally verified the data in their profile is correct. Related Reads How to Build an Investor List with Gale Wilkinson of Vitalize On the Founders Forward Podcast, Gale Wilkinson of Vitalize Ventures offers countless takeaways to help early-stage founders fundraise — covering everything from list building to ownership benchmarks. Listen now The Fundraising Wisdom That Helped Our Founders Raise $18B in Follow-On Capital The team at First Round Review shares an in-depth guide for running a fundraising process using best practices from their portfolio companies. Read more Building Your Ideal Investor Persona On the Visible Blog, we break down the attributes that a founder should consider when identifying their ideal investor. Read more

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. Being a startup founder is hard. On top of finding customers, hiring top talent, building a product, and managing an acquisition funnel — founders need to secure funding for their business. At a high level, most funding options for early-stage startups are similar. However, there are some nuanced differences based on a company’s vertical or market. Over the last 2 decades, SaaS (software as a service) companies have risen in prominence. At the same time so has the venture capital industry and the funding options available to startups. Learn more about this data from Silicon Valley Bank here. Related Resource: The SaaS Business Model: How and Why it Works Learn more about SaaS financing and funding options below: What is SaaS startup financing and how is it unique? Over the last 2 decades, SaaS startups have become a popular investment vertical for venture capitalists and investors in general. As put by the team at Salesforce, one of the original SaaS companies, “Software as a service (or SaaS) is a way of delivering applications over the Internet—as a service. Instead of installing and maintaining software, you simply access it via the Internet, freeing yourself from complex software and hardware management.” SaaS companies can increase margins and build at scale with a smaller team due to the ease of access for their customers. Naturally, monthly or annual pricing (subscriptions) has become the norm for SaaS companies. These areas combine to fuel investor interest as SaaS companies can efficiently grow and become large, profitable companies. As SaaS is still relatively new, so are the funding options. Over the past few years, the funding options available to SaaS startups have been improved and expanded. Learn more about the common types of SaaS funders below: Types of SaaS startup funders As we mentioned above, the funding options available to SaaS startups have improved and expanded over the last 2 decades. The innovation has led SaaS startups to a plethora of funding options fit for any stage. Related Resource: Valuing Startups: 10 Popular Methods Learn more about the most common SaaS funders below: Venture capital As put by the team at Investopedia, “Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential.” Venture capital has been integral in the funding of SaaS companies. VCs are generally willing to take risks and fund startups with little to no revenue in the hopes the company will create long-term value. However, this comes with a set of pros and cons — learn more below: Pros Venture capital certainly comes with its list of pros. We boiled down the list into a few key points below: No personal capital of the founding team. Getting a SaaS startup off the ground requires some form of capital investment. To help get things started, VC can be a popular option as it does not require capital (or free time) from a founder. VC requires little traction or data. Traditional funding methods (like bank loans) require collateral or some type of traction. VC investors are buying equity in the hopes that your company will grow into a large company. Lastly, VCs offer extensive networks and resources. VC funds need resources and tools to help founders succeed to stand out among their peers. This can be everything from helping with hiring to helping with product strategy. Related Resource: All Encompassing Startup Fundraising Guide Cons Of course, venture capital comes with its own set of cons. We boiled the list down to a few key points below: Giving up equity. In order to secure venture capital, startup founders need to give up equity in their businesses. This can be costly in the long run. VC pressure. A VC fund’s duty is to generate returns for their LPs (limited partners) with the hopes of raising another fund in 10-12 years. Because of this, some of the pressure to exit or change business strategy might fall on the shoulders of portfolio founders as GPs look to generate returns for their own investors. Notable venture capital funders As SaaS has become a hot commodity in the VC funding space, there are thousands of investors out there. Below are a few of our favorites (check out our free investor database, Visible Connect, to find more SaaS investors): High Alpha OpenView Ventures Harlem Capital Bessemer Venture Partners M25 Related Resource: 23 Top VC Investors Actively Funding SaaS Startups Angel Investors As put by the team at Investopedia, “An angel investor is a high-net-worth individual who provides financial backing for small startups or entrepreneurs, typically in exchange for ownership equity in the company.” Related Resource: ​​Venture Capitalist vs. Angel Investor Angel investors invest in a similar style as VCs — buying equity in a business with cash. However, they are often single individuals that write smaller checks and are investing to diversify their assets. Pros Like venture capitalists, angel investors come with their own sets of pros and cons. We laid out a few of the main pros of raising capital from an angel investor below: Like VC, angel investors require founders to spend zero personal capital. This can help alleviate the financial stress of startup and building a SaaS business. Occasionally, angel investors can be strategic investors. Some angels might have expertise in your space or direct experience building a company in your space. This can be incredibly helpful when it comes to developing products, go-to-market strategy, and hiring leaders in the space. Angel investors can be integral in building momentum during a fundraise. Due to their smaller check size and an investment committee, angel investors can make investments quickly. This will help when building momentum in a fundraise. As an added bonus, angel investors often know other investors that can make introductions. Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund makes the case for smaller angel checks below: Cons Of course, angel investors come with their own set of cons as well. We laid out a few of the main cons of raising capital from an angel investor below: Lack of experience. Some angel investors might be new to investing which can create a burden for some founders as they might have more frequent questions and asks for founders. Smaller checks. While we mentioned smaller checks can be a pro of angel investing, it can also be a con. With newer funding instruments, these small checks can be rolled into 1 investment there are instances where many angel investors can create a headache on a cap table. Notable angel investors Angel investors are all around you. Angel investors can be anyone from your dentist to a former boss. However, there are a few angel investors that have made a name in the space: Keith Rabois Kim Perell Chris Sacca Reid Hoffman Accelerators and incubators As put by the team at Investopedia, “An incubator firm is an organization engaged in the business of fostering early-stage companies through the different developmental phases until the companies have sufficient financial, human, and physical resources to function on their own.” Related Resource: What is an Incubator? Accelerators and incubators have made a name in the startup space as a valuable resource for companies just getting started with limited to no customers or revenue. Learn more about the pros & cons of incubators and accelerators below: Pros Accelerators and incubators come with their own set of pros and cons. We laid out a few of the key pros below: Peer networking. One of the major pros of going through an accelerator is the networking opportunities with the other founders. By going through an accelerator you’ll be linked to other founders and have peers to learn from and lean on as you build your business. Investment. Many times, accelerators make the first investment in many startups. Over the course of your time in an accelerator, chances are they will help with introductions to potential investors (or even make follow-on investments themselves). Education. Education and programming is built into most accelerators. Over the course of a program, many accelerators will bring in thought leaders and experts to help hone different skills. Cons Of course, accelerators and incubators come with cons as well. We laid out a few of the key cons below: Equity. In turn for investment and resources during an accelerator, you will need to give them equity in your business. Do your research and talk to past founders to make sure trading equity is worth it. Time. Most accelerator programs take place between 10 and 14 weeks. Traditionally they have been in person but there are various virtual programs. For most founders, this is a serious time commitment and could require moving or relocating. Notable incubators and business accelerator programs Since Y Combinators’ inception in 2005, accelerators and incubators have become well-known in the startup space. Check out a few of the most popular accelerators and incubators below: Y Combinator Techstars Expa To find more accelerators, check out our saved list in Visible Connect, our free investor database. Revenue-based financing As put by the team at Investopedia, “Revenue-based financing is a method of raising capital for a business from investors who receive a percentage of the enterprise’s ongoing gross revenues in exchange for the money they invested. In a revenue-based financing investment, investors receive a regular share of the business’s income until a predetermined amount has been paid.” Pros Revenue-based financing comes with its own set of pros. Check out a few of the key pros below: Maintain ownership. Revenue-based financing does not require giving any equity to investors. This means all existing members on the cap table will not be diluted. Faster funding. As we mentioned above, raising venture capital is very much a process. Due to this, it can take months to receive capital. Revenue-based financing can be procured in a matter of days or weeks. Cons Of course, revenue-based financing comes with its own set of cons too. We laid out a few of the key cons below: Requires revenue. Most early-stage companies likely have little to no revenue (and when they do, it is largely unpredictable). This can make revenue-based financing not viable until later stages. Future payments. Revenue-based financing requires a monthly payment. Most early-stage startups are generally cash conscious and would prefer to make monthly payments. Venture debt As put by the team at Silicon Valley Bank, “​​Venture debt is a type of loan offered by banks and nonbank lenders that is designed specifically for early-stage, high-growth companies with venture capital backing. The vast majority of venture-backed companies raise venture debt at some point in their lives from specialized banks such as Silicon Valley Bank.” Pros Venture debt comes with its own set of pros and cons. We laid out a list of the key pros of venture debt below: Debt over equity. As we’ve mentioned previously, equity is the most expensive asset a startup has. Venture debt allows you to avoid giving up any additional equity. Timeline. Venture debt is commonly tagged on at the end of a venture capital round. Because of this it can move quickly and offer an extended runway for startups Cons Of course, venture debt comes with cons too. Check out a few key cons of venture debt below: Financial covenants. Venture debt comes with a set of required performance metrics. The penalties for missing the required financials can be large for startups. Future funding. Having debt on a balance sheet can be a negative signal for future funders. Alternative types of funding The SaaS funding options above are a few of the most common. However, SaaS funding options have continued to evolve over the last decade. Check out a few different alternative SaaS financing options below: Crowdfunding As put by the team at Investopedia, “Crowdfunding is the use of small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture. Crowdfunding makes use of the easy accessibility of vast networks of people through social media and crowdfunding websites to bring investors and entrepreneurs together, with the potential to increase entrepreneurship by expanding the pool of investors beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives, and venture capitalists.” Bootstrapping Bootstrapping is when a founder (or founding team) starts a company by using their own capital and taking no outside capital. From here, bootstrapped companies generally use company revenue to fuel the growth of their business. Related Resource: Bootstrapping 101: Pros & Cons of Bootstrapping Your Startup Nondilutive Options Over the last few years more nondilutive funding options have been created for SaaS companies. One of the most popular is Pipe. As they put it, “Pipe transforms recurring revenue into up-front capital for growth without dilution or restrictive debt.” Related Resource: Checking Out Venture Capital Funding Alternatives Which is the most popular funding source for SaaS startups? Traditionally, raising venture capital or bootstrapping a SaaS startup has been the most popular funding source. As the options available to SaaS startups, the most popular options will ebb and flow. However, venture capital will likely always find itself as the most popular option as more SaaS companies create outsized returns for VCs (fueling more VC investment into SaaS companies). At Visible, we like to compare a venture fundraise to a traditional B2B sales and marketing funnel. At the top of the funnel, you are adding new investors, nurturing them with meetings and updates in the middle, and ideally closing them as new investors at the bottom of the funnel. Just as a sales and marketing team have dedicated tools — we believe founders should have the same to manage their most expensive asset, their equity. Find investors for your startup, share your pitch deck, nurture them with updates, and track your conversations all from one platform — give Visible a free try for 14 days here. Succeed in your venture capital efforts with Visible Determining the right funding option for your startup is only half the battle. If you’re raising venture capital — finding the right investors and having a game plan to manage your fundraise will allow you to spend time on what matters most, building your business. Find investors for your startup, share your pitch deck, nurture them with updates, and track your conversations all from one platform — give Visible a free try for 14 days here.

At Visible, we are on a mission to help more founders connect with investors — one of our key tools to help do this is “Decks.” This helps founders share any PDF document with potential investors and colleagues. It enables founders to share documents with security and peace of mind, they know who is viewing their document and the amount of time spent. We are regularly asked how to construct a pitch deck by startup founders. While there is no silver bullet when it comes to building a pitch deck, we can share the data and best practices we have seen from other founders. We’ve collected thousands of data points related to pitch deck sharing. Learn more about best practices for crafting and sharing your pitch deck below: The Ideal Startup Pitch Deck Length The biggest theme we identified is that less is more. The ideal deck size for a stakeholder to view your entire slide deck is 12 slides or less. We took a look at all decks that had a 100% completion rate. We found across the data set the average length was 12.2 pages/slides. The average # of slides of a deck uploaded to Visible is 18 slides with a median of 16. Learn more about how the specific slides and content you should be creating in our pitch deck guides below: Tips for Creating an Investor Pitch Deck 18 Pitch Deck Examples for Any Startup How to Pitch a Series A Round (With Template) Sharing Your Pitch Deck A pitch deck can be a powerful tool to help founders tell their story during a fundraise. Check out a few of our tips for sharing your pitch deck below: When to Share a Pitch Deck? There is a popular debate about whether or not to share your pitch deck prior to a meeting with an investor. Generally, we find it best to share your entire pitch deck until after a meeting. This will enable the pitch deck to be a tool for you. It will be 10-13 slides, that can be a refresher for the investors as to what your company is about. The market you are looking to penetrate. Investors can then click through your slides after your meeting as they discuss and weigh the investment opportunity. The Teaser Pitch Deck However, we suggest sharing a short (or teaser) pitch deck with investors before a meeting. This should be around 5 slides and give investors the context they need about your company to have a material discussion about your business in the first meeting. Brett Brohl of Bread & Butter Ventures shares what he likes to see in a teaser pitch deck below: Related Resource: Our Teaser Pitch Deck Template No matter how you decide to share your pitch deck, remember to keep it at a reasonable length for investors to easily digest. As our data points out, early-stage startups should try to keep their pitch deck to 14-15 slides at most. Keep things simple. Be brief. Be clear with your value proposition. The average minutes spent viewing a deck is 19.4 minutes. Make that 20 minutes count. As always, it is important to create the pitch deck that is right for your business. Some may require more or fewer slides than others! Share Your Pitch Deck with Visible Fundraising oftentimes mirrors a traditional B2B sales process. You are adding investors to the top of your fundraising funnel, nurturing them throughout with meetings, email, and updates in the middle, and ideally closing them as new investors at the bottom. Just as sales & marketing teams have tools to understand how leads are engaging with their emails and content, the same should be true for a fundraise. By having a tool in place to understand how investors are engaging with your pitch deck, you’ll be able to spend time with the investors that are most interested in your business. Upload your pitch deck, track the progress of your fundraise with our Fundraising CRM, and share Updates along the way with potential investors using Visible. Give it a free try for 14 days here.

Founding and growing a startup is difficult. On top of developing a great product or experience, founders need to hone all aspects of their business — financing, hiring, etc. Founders are faced with countless funding decisions – none of which come easy. On the Visible Blog, we oftentimes talk about venture capital. However, there are other options that are better suited for some companies. One of which is bootstrapping. Related Resource: Alternatives to Venture Capital Learn more about bootstrapping and what it means for startup founders below: Defining Bootstrapping in the Startup World As defined by the team at Investopedia, “Bootstrapping describes a situation in which an entrepreneur starts a company with little capital, relying on money other than outside investments. An individual is said to be bootstrapping when they attempt to found and build a company from personal finances or the operating revenues of the new company.” Related Resource: Bootstrapping a Beauty Brand with Aishetu Dozie, CEO of Bossy On the VIsible Blog, we generally write about how founders can leverage outside financing (like venture capital and angel investors), to fund their business. Bootstrapping foregoes outside funding and requires a founder to leverage their personal savings, credit, time, and customer revenue. The Pros and Cons of Bootstrapping Bootstrapping can be extremely beneficial for founders. However, the benefits come with real risks. Learn more about the pros and cons of bootstrapping below. Related Resource: Building a Calm Company with Tyler Tringas Pros of Bootstrapping Bootstrapping is a huge bet for a founder to place on themself. By steering clear of outside funding, founders will need to leverage their own time and resources to build their business. However, a founder placing their own resources on the line does not come with the opportunities to benefit. Learn about the pros of bootstrapping below: It Allows Owners to Retain Full Ownership of Their Company One of the downsides of taking on venture funding is the loss of ownership and equity. One of the major upsides of choosing to bootstrap a business is the exact opposite. When choosing to bootstrap a business, founders retain full ownership of the business and will experience all of the upsides in the event of a successful exit or deal. It Makes Owners Create a Model That Works When bootstrapping a business there are no “safety nets.” While most founders do not need a forcing function to help them prove a model, bootstrapping heightens the stakes. Bootstrapped founders are risking their own resources so it is vital that they build a successful business. Path to Profitability A venture capitalist’s job is to create outsized returns for their limited partners. This means that VCs are in search of companies that can grow into huge companies to create returns. Chances are that outside investors will push for quick growth. When bootstrapping, founders will likely have a strict budget and need to grow within their own means. While it can possibly limit the possibility of hypergrowth, it can be a great way to grow sustainability and build a long-term company. Cons of Bootstrapping Just like any funding option, there are cons of bootstrapping as well. Weighing the pros and cons is a great way to help a founder determine what funding option is right for their business. Learn more about the cons of bootstrapping a business below: It Can Be Riskier As we laid out above, one of the biggest perks of bootstrapping a business is maintaining ownership and equity. On the flip side, this means there is no one else to share risk with a founder. When bootstrapping a business, a founder will put their own resources on the line. If something goes south, it not only impacts the business but has the ability to impact a bootstrapped founder’s personal finance as well. Bootstrapping Only Offers Limited Support Being a founder is difficult. There are very few individuals who understand what it takes to find and grow a business. Because of this, it is important for founders to learn from their peers, investors, and leaders in the space. This comes naturally with some funding options. For example, venture-backed companies can lean on investors for help and future capital. For bootstrapped founders, chances are they will have fewer natural networking opportunities with investors and other founders. It Requires Many Strengths When building a company, leaders need to have strengths across the board – they might be a technical founder or great marketer, etc. Many founders, they can lean on co-founders and their investors to help balance their weaknesses. For a solo founder or bootstrapped founder, they will need to rely on themselves across the board. Stages a Bootstrapped Company Goes Through Companies go through different stages and lifecycles. At their core, most startups follow a similar journey. For venture-backed and bootstrapped companies, this journey might look slightly different but is similar at their core. Learn about the basic stages a bootstrapped company goes through below: 1) Starting Stage When starting a bootstrapped business, it likely looks no different than starting any other business. The founder or founding team likely has an idea or big problem they’d like to solve. From here, there are the formalities of setting up a business. However, a bootstrapped founder will have the ability to pursue their new business on the side (or dedicate they full day-to-day). Because there are no outside stakeholders, the pace at which a bootstrapped founder launches is solely up to them. 2) Customer-Funded Stage Once a bootstrapped founder has built a product and determined channels for distributing their product, they can begin to bring in revenue from customers. While bootstrapped founders can work at their own pace, bringing in customer revenue is vital as it is the likely source of financing and future growth. 3) Profitability & Growth If a bootstrapped founder can build a product and find their first customers, the next step is profitability and growth. Because bootstrapped companies use their customer revenue to fuel their growth, it is incredibly important they are wise with their spending decisions as customers grow – they likely won’t have the cash cushion and safety net in the early days. Find Out More Information on Bootstrapping Bootstrapping can be a great way to fund and build a startup for many startup founders. At the end of the day, founders need to evaluate their funding options and determine what is right for their business. To learn more about bootstrapping and funding a business, subscribe to the Visible Weekly. We curate the best resources to help founders hire top talent, raise capital, and build great products. Sign up here.

Fundraising is a challenge. We find that the most successful founders treat a fundraise like a traditional B2B sales process. It is a game of relationships and is important that you are connecting with and finding the most qualified investors for your business — just as a sales and marketing team finds the best leads for their product. Related Resource: 9 Tips for Effective Investor Networking In order to help you better connect and find the right investors for your business, we’ve put together a quick guide below: Understanding the Different Types of Investors First things first, you need to understand who you are talking to. At the highest level, there are different types of investors that are willing to fund privately held companies. From here, you’ll be able to take things a level deeper and identify the specific investor and firms that are best suited for your business. Related Resource: How To Find Private Investors For Startups Check out some of our tips for connecting with different types of investors below: Angel Investors A common type of startup investor is the angel investor. As we put in our post, How to Effectively Find + Secure Angel Investors for Your Startup, “An angel investor is generally a wealthy individual who is looking to invest spare cash in an alternative investment.” A few tips when it comes to connecting with angel investors: Warm introductions — find if anyone in your network can make an introduction Social media — some angel investors might have an online presence. Check out Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to see if there are any in your network VC Firms The most common type of startup investor is a venture capital firm. As defined by Investopedia, “A venture capitalist (VC) is a private equity investor that provides capital to companies with high growth potential in exchange for an equity stake.” VCs are professional investors so it is important to have a strategy when finding and pitching them. A few tips below: Warm introductions — like angel investors, use your immediate network to find introductions to VCs in your network. Existing investors, other founders, and customers can be great sources of warm introductions Cold outreach — If you do not have any connections to a VC fund, you can use cold outreach. To learn more, 3 Tips for Cold Emailing Potential Investors + Outreach Email Template. Events — Many VC funds host events dedicated to founders, or attend larger startup events. Leverage these as an opportunity to meet and connect with targeted funds. Related Resource: Investor Relationship Management 101: How to Manage Your Startups Interactions with Investors Banks Traditionally, banks are a source of capital for businesses. With early-stage startups, bank loans have become less common as they are not able to take the risk on early-stage companies. However, for later-stage and proven startups, bank loans can be a strong funding option. A few things to keep in mind: Strong performance — your business needs to demonstrate a strong track record and predictability that you can pay back the bank Collateral & cash — having high-value collateral and a strong cash position will increase the likelihood that a bank approves your leone. Alternative Investors New funding options have taken the startup world by storm over the last few years. Depending on your business and model, some of the newer funding options can be an option. Check out a few of the common options below (from our post, Checking Out Venture Capital Funding Alternatives) Pipe — As their website puts it, “Pipe turns MRR into ARR.” So how does it work? Pipe looks at your monthly contracts and offers a cash advance on the annual value of those contracts. In turn, they will take a small % of that contract for offering the cash advance. Calm Company Fund — Calm Fund uses their own financing instrument called a Shared Earnings Agreement (SEAL). Essentially, SEALs are geared towards bootstrapped companies that are profitable or approaching profitability. Corl — Rather than explaining it ourselves we’ll let the Corl website explain what they do. “Corl uses machine learning to analyze your business and expedite the funding process. No need to wait 3-9 months for approval. Find out if you qualify in 10 minutes.” 6 Helpful Tips for Connecting with Investors No matter the type of investor, there are common tips and strategies that you can use to connect with investors. Making warm introductions, or connections through people in your network, is typically the best way to get an introduction to an investor. However, attending events, networking with peers, cold outreach, and your current investors are great opportunities. Check out some tips below. Related resource: How to Get Into Venture Capital: A Beginner’s Guide 1) Use the Right Tools or Platform Just as sales and marketing teams have dedicated tools for their process, so do founders that are fundraising. By using a tool to find and connect with qualified investors, you’ll set yourself up for success and smoother fundraise. At Visible, we offer a free investor database, Visible Connect, that allows you to filter by the fields and properties that are most relevant to your business. For example, you can search by their investment geography, stage, market, and more. Give it a try here. From here, you can add your investors directly to a Fundraising Pipeline in Visible. This is the headquarters of your fundraise and allows you to keep tabs on the status of conversations and pitches throughout your fundraise. Give it a free try for 14 days here. Related Resource: A Step-By-Step Guide for Building Your Investor Pipeline 2) Target the Right Investors Spending time on the right investors is a vital part of a successful fundraise. Just as a sales team would only spend time on the most qualified leads, the same is true of a fundraise. By building out a profile of what your ideal investor looks like, you’ll be able to focus on the investors that truly matter to your business. Learn more about determining your ideal investor profile in our post, Building Your Ideal Investor Persona. 3) Build a List Once you’ve determined who the right investors are for your business, you need to build a list. Over the course of a fundraise, you will hear countless “Nos” so it is important to have a list of investors to speak with. For an early-stage company, we generally suggest having somewhere around 50 investors to speak with. Brett Brohl of Bread & Butter Ventures recommends talking with at least 60: 4) Tell a Data-Backed Story At the end of the day, investors want to fund companies that have the ability to turn into huge exits and create returns for them and their LPs. In order to help paint the picture of your potential for growth, you need to use data that helps supplement the story. When discussing with potential investors, you do not need to go overboard with the data you are sharing. Stick to a metric or 2 from your own business that demonstrates traction. You can even share compelling data from the market that shows why you are set up for success. Related Resource: How to Model Total Addressable Market (Template Included) 5) Reach Out Having your assets in place is only half the battle. Having a concise plan and tone for reaching out to potential investors is a must. Generally, finding warm introductions to your ideal investors should be the first line of defense. If you are unable to find warm introductions, don’t be afraid to use cold outreach. Related Resource: 3 Tips for Cold Emailing Potential Investors + Outreach Email Template Learn about what Ezra Galston of Starting Line Ventures likes to see in cold outreach below: As we previously mentioned, chances are you will be talking to 50+ investors over the course of a fundraise. It is important to have a game plan and process in place to track conversations and the status of your raise. With Visible, you can find investors, add them to your pipeline, and track the status of your fundraise all from 1 tool. Give it a free try for 14 days here. Related Resource: How To Write the Perfect Investor Update (Tips and Templates) Visible Can Help You Connect With The Right Investors Fundraising is comparable to a traditional B2B sales and marketing process. Just as any sales process starts by finding the right leads, so should a fundraise. Use Visible Connect, our free investor database, to find the right investors for your business. Give it a try and start searching for investors for your business here.

“Rolling funds, the rise of solo capitalists, crowd syndicates and team-based seed funds all scream one thing in unison: venture capital is growing and getting unbundled at the same time.” TechCrunch Emerging Managers are Venture Capital Fund Managers whose assets under management (AUM) range from $25 – $100M and have typically raised less than three funds. These types of managers are playing an important role in the ‘growing and unbundling’ of the Venture Capital landscape as they oftentimes focus on previously overlooked founders and markets. Emerging managers bring unique perspectives and experiences to the world of Venture Capital which is why startups should have a solid understanding of this type of investor as they start their fundraising journey. How are Emerging Managers Different Than More Established VCs If we compare established fund managers to emerging fund managers, a known investment claimer holds very true, “past results are not an indicator of future success,”– According to Pitchbook research “Nearly 18% of first-time funds nab an internal rate of return (IRR) of 25% while later funds only exceed that number about 12% of the time”. Many respected LPs have also reported that emerging managers tend to outperform more established funds that are larger scale. Other distinguishing attributes of Emerging Managers include: They generally write smaller checks They’re more hands-on with their fewer number of investments They’re focused on brand building They’re agile and less organizationally bureaucratic There has historically been a high-risk bias on emerging managers because of some constraints that they faced in the past with regards to limited partners, but as they “consistently outperform industry benchmarks” you can see that isn’t holding Emerging Managers back from growing rapidly year over year. Why Would You Want Emerging Managers On Your Cap Table Instead Emerging Managers usually come with years of experience from larger funds where they had the chance to learn and work with the big players. Since the IRR of their new funds are the key indicator of success for LPs, they are highly motivated to make their investments successful. As they are also more agile, they are able to bring more innovation and ideas to the table which allows them to recognize and jump on new trends which takes more time for established VCs to react to. The number of Micro VCs, which are also considered emerging managers, jumped 9x from 2012 to 2019, “The underpinning insight was that the “generalist” approach by legacy VC created an opportunity for bespoke firms that could better support founders at the early stage in their respective markets and that this would lead to improved outcomes.” Kaufman Fellows Other benefits of emerging managers include: They have more real-life experience that’s recent and relevant They’re more engaged investors and are more motivated to help you out as they’re establishing their brand “At the end of the day, LPs look for evidence that an emerging manager can, and will, identify the best companies in their area of focus, and be able to win those deals based on their approach, skills, and expertise. The best early-stage VCs bring tremendous value to their portfolio, creating a flywheel of entrepreneur referrals which in turn, fosters that GPs’ success, so they can build the next industry-leading franchise.” Crunchbase Ventures They have more specialized knowledge pertaining to the focus of your startup. “LPs typically look to avoid overfished ponds and overplayed deal channels, so you should make a compelling case for why they should follow you off the beaten path. The best EMs have a unique perspective within their area of focus. The prospective LPs you’re targeting need to agree that the approach and space you’re betting on is an exciting place to spend time.” Crunchbase Ventures They serve as a pathway that enables more diversity in venture. Emerging Managers include more women and racial minorities than in established VCs, which operate with “predominantly homogenous teams” that have been proven to yield poorer outcomes than in diverse teams. “Emerging managers are grinders, hungry for success the way a young underdog is against a perennial winner in the sports world. This tightly aligns their goals with LPs – a strong return means both the manager and their partners win.” Gridline How to Find Emerging Managers Filter investors by​​ AUM that are less than $100M and (pre) seed and Series A funding stage on our Connect Investor database Emerging manager training programs (Recast Capital, Strut Consulting, Kauffman Fellows, and the VCI Fellowship for BIPOC First-Time Fund Managers) Networking Events Emerging manager communities (Transact Global, Raise Global) VC Guide’s List of Emerging Managers Emerging Managers to Check-out Base Case Capital Location: San Francisco, California, United States About: base case capital is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the next generation of enterprise software. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B Recent Investments: Ashby Supergrain Fiberplane Conscience Location: Miami, Florida, United States About: Conscience VC invests into early-stage, science-led consumer companies. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Aqua Cultured Foods Last Gameboard Wayfinder Biosciences Atman Location: New York, United States About: We partner with inevitable people. We provide leverage, access, and acumen through aligned principles. We partner with founders at the pre-seed and seed stages. At Atman Capital, every founder in our egregore is a partner of the fund. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Chico.ai Bamboo Pipefy NP-Hard Ventures Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands About: We support early teams in Europe and the US to build the infrastructure, tools, and decentralized platforms that simplify the way we work, by making technology more accessible and unlock creativity. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: tldraw Universe Energy eDRV Empath Ventures Location: Los Angeles, California, United States About: Empath Ventures is a venture capital firm that mainly invests in psychedelic medicine companies. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Freedom Biosciences MAPS Public Benefit Corporation Pangea Botanica Garuda Ventures Location: San Francisco, Bay Area, California, United States About: Garuda is an angel fund run by full-time operators Rishi Taparia and James Richards. We spend every day on the founder side of the table. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Paragon ConductorOne Arena Lorimer Ventures Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States About: We’re a Brooklyn-based investment firm made up of founders, operators, and financial professionals with experience building and operating businesses from pre-revenue to post-IPO. We bring a founder-first perspective to each startup we back, and strive to be on a speed-dial basis with the founding teams we back. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A Recent Investments: Tyba Circuit Mind OatFi m]x[v Location: New York, United States About: m]x[v Capital is an up and coming early-stage venture fund building momentum for the next generation of cloud disruptors. We bring a founder and operator perspective to the cap table, helping our founders build their vision, product, and teams. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Epoch Mailmodo Postscript Brickyard Location: United States About: Brickyard is an early-stage capital and founder outpost backing builders. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Krepling Joon App IRON Acquired Wisdom Fund About: Acquired Wisdom Fund helps seasoned professionals create scalable technology products. We invest in early stage tech startups. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Achievable NOCAP Sports Angler AI True Wealth Ventures Location: Austin, Texas, United States About: We see value in the impact of women. True Wealth Ventures invests in smart female entrepreneurs, from health innovators to sustainable solution pioneers. Women-led companies have proven they deliver higher returns. It’s time to invest in new perspectives. Thesis: Women-led companies improving either human health or environmental health Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: De Oro Devices Reharvest Provisions Aeromutable CapitalX Location: San Francisco, California, United States About: CapitalX.vc – enterprise focused generalist with $100k – $500k initial checks in preseed/seed. Thesis: Women-led companies improving either human health or environmental health Investment Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A Recent Investments: Simplifyber Impossible Mining Front Finance Overlooked Ventures About: We support founders who operate early-stage technology companies that are historically overlooked and provide them capital, resources, and connections to scale their business. We’ve been in your shoes. We’re tech founders with 10+ years of experience running companies and making deals. Now we’re authentically supporting entrepreneurs with capital and a founder-friendly focus. Recent Investments: Pipe Stagger West Tenth Chingona Ventures Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States About: Chingona Ventures invests in founders from backgrounds and industries that are not well understood by the traditional investor. Thesis: Focus on industries that are massively changing and founders whose backgrounds uniquely position them to create businesses in growth markets that are often overlooked. Focus areas are in financial technology, female technology, food technology, health/wellness, and future of learning. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Cartwheel Sigo Seguros Encantos Forum Ventures Location: New York City, San Francisco, and Toronto, United States Thesis: B2B SaaS; Future of Work, E-commerce enablement, Supply Chain & Logistics, Marketplace, Fintech, Healthcare Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Sandbox Banking Tusk Logistics Vergo Check out Forum Ventures profile on our Connect Investor Database Dream Machine Location: Palo Alto, California, United States About: Dream Machine is an opportunistic seed fund interested in consumer and frontier tech. It is founded by Alexia Bonatsos, the former co-editor-in-chief of Techcrunch and one of the earliest reporters to write about WhatsApp, Uber, Instagram, Airbnb and Pinterest. With Dream Machine, she hopes to help exceptional founders make science fiction non-fiction. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: TTYL BlockParty Powder VamosVentures Location: Los Angeles, California, United States Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A Recent Investments: Miga Health Form Energy Zócalo Health Revent Location: Berlin, Germany Investment Stages: Series A, Series B, Series C Recent Investments: Resourcify Noscendo GmbH Sylvera Spark Growth Ventures Location: San Diego, California, United States About: Spark Growth Ventures is a community driven, early & mid stage, vertical-agnostic, technology venture capital firm. Our mission is to support gritty and exceptional founders in their missions by bringing forth the combined value of our strong community. We are fortunate to have a global network of entrepreneurs, C-level relationships, subject matter experts, world-class talent, institutional investors, high net worth individuals and family offices, many of who are investors in our platform. Our team has several decades of global experience in venture capital, entrepreneurship, innovation, executive & board management, functional leadership and advisory work. Thesis: Capital efficient and scalable business model rooted in tech enabled products and services solving real and large problems. Mission oriented and gritty founders are a must. Investment Stages: Series A, Series B, Series C Recent Investments: Redcliffe Labs Tab32 Placer.ai Nomad Ventures Location: Los Angeles, California, United States About: Nomad Ventures is an LA-based Venture Fund focused on Early-Stage Marketplace businesses. The GPs (Chris Taylor and James Mumma) are entrepreneurs who have helped build some of the fastest growing startups in recent history (Uber, Uber Eats, Opendoor) and they support founders by providing both expertise and capital to build the next big tech businesses. ???? ???? ???? Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Intro Minoan Lunch Climentum Capital About: Climentum Capital is a Venture Capital firm based out of Copenhagen, Berlin and Stockholm. We invest in European startups that can cut down megatons of CO2 emissions in a concrete and measurable way. The fund targets late Seed and Series A investments into the six sectors that demonstrate the largest CO2 reduction potential: – Industry & Manufacturing – NextGen Renewables – Food & Agriculture – Buildings & Architecture – Transportation & Mobility – Waste & Materials As one of the first Venture Capital funds with a double carry structure (with both financial and impact targets), Climentum is dedicated from day one to evaluate and only invest in companies that hold true carbon reduction potential. Investment Stages: Seed, Series A Recent Investments: Entocycle Qvantum Continuum Seed Club Ventures About: Seed Club Ventures is a Venture DAO backing early-stage founders building at the intersection of web3 and community. With a membership of 60+ leading innovators and investors in crypto, we are diverse in our ability to support projects throughout their life cycle. Launched in partnership with Seed Club, the leading network for DAO builders, our mission is to build a community-owned internet. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Guild Stability AI Molecule Capchase Location: New York, New York, United States About:Capchase is the growth partner for ambitious software-as-a-service (SaaS) and comparable recurring-revenue companies. They help founders and CFOs grow their businesses faster through non-dilutive capital, market insights, and community support. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in New York City, Capchase provides financing by bringing future expected cash flows to the present day – thereby securing funding that is fast, flexible, and doesn’t dilute their ownership. Investment Stages: Series B Recent Investments: Fondo Enerex BlogTec Gold House Ventures About: Gold House Ventures is the definitive fund investing in Asian/Pacific Islander-founded companies. We back founders building industry-changing, culturally-compelling businesses by providing a singular suite of services that includes our accelerator, Gold Rush (whose alumni have collectively raised $500 million+); our talent placement vehicle, the Multicultural Leadership Coalition, which partners with leading multicultural funds to increase diversity in Board and Advisory pipelines; media marketing with every major film studio and streaming platform, and access to Gold House’s network of top Asian Pacific leaders across venture capital, media, entertainment, and tech. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B Recent Investments: CreatorDAO Xiao Chi Jie Blossom.team The Fintech Fund About: An early-stage venture fund supporting the best fintech and defi teams. Thesis: The Fintech Fund is a $25M venture fund investing in the top 1% of fintech and decentralized finance startups globally. Our focus is split between more established fintech markets in the US and Europe – for which picks-and-shovels SaaS and infrastructure builders will sell into a growing market of buyers – and emerging markets, where opportunities exist for consumer fintechs to dominate winner-take-all markets. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: TrueBiz GuruHotel Yave Vibe Capital About: Vibe Capital is a $10m Fund that invests in the Web3, AI, and Deep Science sectors at the Pre-Seed and Seed stage. We seek venture-scale returns by leaning in to the volatility caused by the exponential growth of the Web3, AI, and Deep Science sectors intertwining with demographic shifts and climate change. Thesis: Vibe Capital is a $10m Fund that invests in the Web3, AI, and Deep Science sectors at the Pre-Seed and Seed stage. We seek venture-scale returns by leaning in to the volatility caused by the exponential growth of the Web3, AI, and Deep Science sectors intertwining with demographic shifts and climate change. More here -> https://vibecap.co/thesis/ Investment Stages: Pre-Seed Recent Investments: Pipedream Labs Circle Labs Fauna Bio Origins About: We’re a new type of VC firm backing legendary consumer founders with an unfair advantage from pre-seed to seriesA. We invest $100k to $500k in consumer tech startups and also come with the power of influence of our LP’s and their 160,000,000 followers. You can reach us at hello@origins.fund Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A Recent Investments: Matchday Stadium Live Upway Portfolio Ventures About: The PV Angel Fund is backed by a great mix of investors leading UK angels, successful founders, C-level execs, and corporate NEDs who co-invest alongside the fund and provide strategic support to our portfolio companies. Thesis: Co-investing tax-efficient capital in the best UK tech startups alongside lead investors. Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A Punch Capital About: Punch Capital backs early-stage founders who break new ground. Thesis: Punch Capital backs courageous immigrants at the earliest stages. We are honored to be among Weekend Fund’s Emerging 50: signatureblock.co/emerging-50. Investment Stages: Angel, Pre-Seed, Seed Start Your Next Round with Visible We believe great outcomes happen when founders forge relationships with investors and potential investors. We created our Connect Investor Database to help you in the first step of this journey. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out investor fit and profile for their given stage and industry, we created filters allowing you to find VCs and accelerators who are looking to invest in companies like you. Check out all our investors here and filter as needed. After learning more about them with the profile information and resources given you can reach out to them with a tailored email. To help craft that first email check out 5 Strategies for Cold Emailing Potential Investors. After finding the right Investor you can create a personalized investor database with Visible. Combine qualified investors from Visible Connect with your own investor lists to share targeted Updates, decks, and dashboards. Start your free trial here.

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. Building a startup is difficult. Being a founder can almost feel impossible. There are very few people that have been in the shoes of a startup founder. This means that there are very few people that know the difficulties that come along with building and leading a startup. As a startup founder, you are responsible for hiring and retaining employees, securing capital, developing a product, building culture, and more. Chances are you haven’t lead all of those things in the past. Because of this it is important for you to look to the founders and leaders that have been there before to uncover advice. Related Resource: 7 Essential Business Startup Resources Check out our 15 helpful tips for startup success below: 1) Be Persistent Leading a startup is full of ups and downs. Inevitably, things will not go as planned and will feel like everything is headed in the wrong direction. Paul Graham, Founder of YC, coined the term “trough of sorrow” to explain when your startup loses momentum and feels like things are all headed in the wrong direction. In order to navigate troughs of sorrow and down periods, startup founders need to stay persistent. You’ll need to focus on what truly matters to your business and stay the course. Related Resource: The 23 Best Books for Startup Founders at Any Stage 2) Always Be Solution Focused As we’ve alluded to earlier, founders are pulled in a hundred different directions. — whether it be with hiring, fundraising, or developing a product. It is easy to get distracted and spend your time (and your team’s time) working on projects or initiatives that are not core to your business. As a startup founder, it is important to stay focused on your solution and the problem you are solving. As Kyle Wong, the CEO of Pixlee, puts it, “Having a product that does a lot of things but doesn’t do anything well is useless. Your goal should be to definitively say that your product is the best at doing X for market Y. You should ask yourself, “Which customers do I care most about, and what can I do to make their experience better?” Determine what your company is uniquely good at and stay focused on that solution. 3) Invest in Yourself When managing a team, it can be difficult to put yourself aside and continue to invest in the team members around you. As a startup founder, it is important that you take the time and resources necessary to invest in yourself. This will differ from founder to founder depending on they do this. For some it might be setting time off from work to hone other skills, attending leadership conferences, etc. 4) Execution, Execution, Execution Forecasting growth and building a product roadmap is a task in itself. Executing those plans and roadmaps is vital, and difficult. In order for a startup to succeed, the leadership team needs to be focused on execution from day to day to make sure everyone is headed in the same direction. As the team at Basis Set Ventures puts it, “Execution is the only aspect that is consistently correlated with startup success. Across all archetypes, day-to-day effectiveness and whether the founder learns and adapts quickly are most correlated with success.” Check out the image from their Founder Superpowers report below: 5) Focus on Results Going hand in hand with execution is the ability to focus on results. It can be easy to get consumed by the inputs, but if the results are not there it is important to quickly pivot and try inputs and strategies that show real results. Because most startups have a limited runway (cash) it is important to move quickly and stay rallied behind results. If you find a marketing or acquisition channel is not moving the needle, it is important to quickly cut that channel and focus on what is driving results. 6) Build a Reliable Network The startup world is a tight-knit community. Different VC funds and corporations have made it incredibly easy for founders and startup employees to network and help one another. Having a reliable network is a great way to help in all aspects of business building. Connections will be able to make introductions to potential investors, ideal customers, and job candidates. It is important to be thoughtful about the relationships you are building and focus on building trust before pursuing business interests. As the team at Hustle Fund wrote, “Networking wasn’t about going to a bunch of conferences and exchanging business cards. Networking is simply about making friends.” 7) Protect Your Equity Equity is the most expensive asset a startup founder has. It is important to protect and manage your equity accordingly. At Visible, we believe that startup leaders should have dedicated tools for managing their equity — just as sales and marketing teams have dedicated tools to manage their day-to-day. Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. 8) Become a Storyteller Storytelling is a crucial part of building a successful startup. Sure there are more important aspects of business building but being a great storyteller will help immensely with fundraising, hiring, and messaging. As Steve Jobs puts it, “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation to come.” Kristian Andersen of High Alpha joined us to discuss how founders can leverage storytelling to craft their pitch deck for successful fundraise. Learn more here or check out a snippet below: 9) Embrace the Journey Building a startup is a journey. As we mentioned previously, there are many ups and downs when it comes to building a startup. While it can be easy to stay focused on the day-to-day it is important to take a step back and look at the journey. It is easy to focus on the lows but is rewarding to allow yourself and your team to celebrate the wins. 10) Don’t Let Yourself Get Burned Out Building a successful startup requires solving a lot of difficult problems. At times it might feel like you are banging your head against the wall. It is easy to get consumed by a problem and put everything you have into solving it day after day. However, this can lead to burnout and cost you, and your team, in the long run. In order to avoid burnout, it is important to make yourself, especially your physical and mental health, a priority. Learn more below. 11) Make Physical and Mental Health a Priority Launching a startup is an exhausting job and can take a toll on a founder’s physical and mental health. As the team at Starting Line VC puts it, “Building a startup is an exhausting process. It is terrifying, stressful, and confusing. It can also be exhilarating. The highs are higher than any other feeling; the lows depress similarly. As a founder remarked to us recently, “my mood is dictated daily by the performance of our Shopify revenue. If not managed and balanced, these volatile emotions can become unhealthy. Worse, they can affect performance.” Learn more about managing your physical and mental health with Ezra Galston of Starting Line Ventures here. 12) Strategically Plan Out Every Work Day If you’ve been following along, you have probably noticed that focus is a core aspect of startup success. Focus in everything from product development to your daily routine can help a company succeed. By having a strategic plan for each workday, you’ll be able to maintain that focus on the big problems you are solving. Of course, there is no one size fits all strategy to planning out a work day. Find what works best for you and stick to it. 13) Make Different Mistakes Things never go as planned when building a startup. Mistakes are inevitable. The only thing you can do is learn from your previous mistakes and do your best to make them again. Mistakes are a great way to learn, especially as an early stage startup. You can’t let the mistakes weigh you down and have to be viewed as a learning opportunity that won’t happen again. 14) Progress Not Perfection Many times it can be intimidating to put a product, pitch deck, email, blog post, etc. out before it is perfect. However, most startups are strapped for cash and need to balance speed with perfection. Of course, it would be ideal to have every aspect of your product be perfect, but that is not realistic. One of the differentiators of a startup is the ability to move quickly. In order to do so, you need to focus on the progress. Finding the right balance of progress and perfection is key to moving efficiently. 15) Know Your Customers Without customers, a business fails to exist. Having a voice of your customers and a true understanding of their needs is a surefire way to make sure you are building the right product, sending the right message, and hiring the right team members. In order to know your customers, you need to take the time to understand their needs and build relationships with individuals. Building relationships with customers will also reduce the likelihood of churn. Chances are your customers are working through the same things as you and will understand what you are going through. Scott Dorsey of High Alpha stresses that founders should be close to their customers than ever before when working through tough times. From our post, 4 Takeaways From Our Webinar with Scott Dorsey, “During uncertain times, it is more important than ever to be close to your customers. Your customers are going through the same things that you are going through. Establish and preserve your relationship so you can grow together on the other side of the downturn.” Learn Everything You Need to Know About Funding With Visible Boiling down what it takes to build a successful startup into 15 tips is unrealistic. Some things may work for one company and not the other. The only way to truly understand what works for you and your business is by getting out there and doing it. At Visible, we want to be there along the way to help you with all things related to fundraising, investor relations, and metric tracking. Learn more about how we can help with your fundraising efforts here. Related resource: Strategic Pivots in Startups: Deciding When, Understanding Why, and Executing How

Nik Talreja is the CEO and Founder of Sydecar. Sydecar helps you start and run your fund or SPV — so you can focus on making deals, not spreadsheets. Nik is joining us to break down the structure, mechanics, and considerations for founder-led SPVs. Check out the recording below: Webinar Recap Nik joined us on July 12th to break down all things related to SPVs. We’ll cover the ins and outs of raising your first SPV. In this webinar, you can expect to learn: What an SPV is Why founders should consider using an SPV Considerations for a founder-led SPV The mechanics behind an SPV Watch Recording Check out the recording of our webinar with Nik below:

What is a VC Fund? A venture fund is capital that is ready to be deployed by the venture capital firm (or the management company). It’s a funding option that allows VC funds to buy equity in a startup. In turn, a startup gives up a percentage of their ownership with the hopes of growing their valuation and creating a successful exit for everyone on the cap table. The Structure of a VC Fund Capital for a venture fund comes from limited partners, which are generally much larger funds, and are looking to diversity their investing via venture capital funds. Limited partners tend to be either university endowments, sovereign funds, family offices, pension funds, or insurance companies. Then there’s a management company which is responsible for prospecting investments, collecting fees and expenses, branding, and more. AngelList describes it as, “A management company is a business entity created by a venture firm’s general partners (GPs). It’s responsible for managing a venture firm’s operations across its funds.” A general partner is someone who manages a venture fund and likely the management company. GPs oftentimes invest their own money so they have skin in the game. Read the full article on VC Fund Structure here. Types of Venture Capital Funding: Seed Capital Seed funding, which oftentimes includes “pre-seed” funding, is generally the first round of financing for a startup. There typically tend to be funds that specialize in pre-seed/seed-stage financings. Early Stage Capital (Often Series A or Series B) Early-stage capital is often when a company might have some traction and promise that it can grow into a massive company that is worthy of an exit. Expansion Capital Venture funds at this stage are likely huge funds that make fewer investments with larger check sizes. At the point of investment, most companies will have proven success to in turn will raise at higher valuations. Late Stage Capital This might be a final injection before a company sets to go public or to fund expansion into a totally new market. Rolling Funds While they are not typically dedicated to a specific stage (like the examples above) the way they raise financing and treat the general partner to limited partners relationship differs. Startup Fundraising Checklist: Step 1: Determine if VC is Right for Your Business Step 2: Prepare Your Deck, Docs, and Metrics Step 3: Find Investors (Check out our Connect Investor Database) Step 4: Pitch Investors and Take Meetings Step 5: Due Diligence Step 6: The Term Sheet Related Resource: Miami’s Venture Capital Scene: The 10 Best Firms Tiger Global Management Tiger Global Management is an investment firm that deploys capital globally in both public and private markets and beats out all other VC’s in the world with the highest count of unicorn portfolio companies. They are based in New York with a focus in global Internet, software, consumer, and payments industries Some of their recent investments include: Amogy SleekFlow CloudQuery Number of Unicorns in Portfolio Tiger Global Management has 209 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 440 rounds within the last year. SV Angel SV Angel is a San Francisco-based angel firm that helps startups with business development, financing, M&A, and other strategic advice. Some of their recent investments include: Graft Bubblehouse Gilde Number of Unicorns in Portfolio SV Angel has 23 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 57 rounds within the last year. Related Resource: The 11 Best Venture Capitals in San Francisco LocalGlobe LocalGlobe is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments. They are located in London, England and their investment geography is usually within Europe. Some of their recent investments include: Cloudwall Capital &Open Shellworks Related Resource: 15 Venture Capital Firms in London Fueling Startup Growth Number of Unicorns in Portfolio LocalGlobe has 18 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 52 rounds within the last year. Greycroft Greycroft is a venture capital firm located in New York that focuses on technology start-ups and investments in the internet and mobile markets. Some of their recent investments include: Narmi Boulder Care Branch Number of Unicorns in Portfolio Greycroft has 9 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 80 rounds within the last year. Bain Capital Venutre Bain Capital Ventures is a global private equity firm located in Boston, with over $17 billion of assets under management. Since 1984, the firm has invested in over 200 companies, with such notable successes as Aspect Development, DoubleClick, Gartner Group, and Netfish Technologies. Bain Capital Ventures manages a $250 million fund. Bain Capital Ventures partners with exceptional management teams to help early stage companies become long-term leaders in their markets. Some of their recent investments include: Auxilius Magical JupiterOne Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months Bain Capital Venutre have participated in 66 rounds within the last year. Andersson Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz was established in June 2009 in Menlo Park, California by entrepreneurs and engineers Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, based on their vision for a new, modern VC firm designed to support today’s entrepreneurs. Andreessen and Horowitz have a track record of investing in, building and scaling highly successful businesses. Some of their recent investments include: Entropy SCiFi Foods Adim Number of Unicorns in Portfolio Andersson Horowitz has 98 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 241 rounds within the last year. Canaan Partners Canaan Partners invests more than money in a company—they invest their time, experience, knowledge, connections and team-oriented approach. They place tremendous value on creating working partnerships with entrepreneurs and management teams who have the character and the drive to succeed. Prominent among Canaan’s resources is the breadth of operating, managerial and financial experience. Some of their recent investments include: WorkMotion Appsmith Marvin Number of Unicorns in Portfolio Canaan Partners has 6 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 43 rounds within the last year. Anthemis Anthemis Group is a global platform that cultivates change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses. They are located in New York and London and thein investment thesis is to focus on startups that leverage technology to significantly impact the financial system. Some of their recent investments include: Hokodo Kasheesh Kinly Number of Unicorns in Portfolio Anthemis has 5 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 51 rounds within the last year. General Catalyst General Catalyst is a venture capital firm located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that makes early-stage and growth equity investments with a focus in Consumer, Enterprise, Mobile, and Applications. Some of their recent investments include: Guild Vibrant Planet Sanas Number of Unicorns in Portfolio General Catalyst has 72 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 115 rounds within the last year. Related Resource: 11 Top Venture Capital Firms in Boston TCV TCV is a leading provider of capital to growth-stage private and public companies in the technology industry. They are located in Menlo Park, California but invest globally. Some of their recent investments include: Trulioo FlixMobility FarEye Number of Unicorns in Portfolio TCV has 32 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 23 rounds within the last year. Balderton Capital Balderton Capital is an early-stage venture firm that’s based on the principles of teamwork and an intense dedication to building companies of lasting value. They provide superior service to entrepreneurs through a unique, team-oriented partnership. This team approach not only makes it more fun for them to come to work everyday, but more importantly, it benefits their portfolio companies. Instead of competing for resources, they share ideas, contacts and resources. They are located in London, England and primarily invest in European companies. Some of their recent investments include: TestGorilla Request Finance Avi Medical Number of Unicorns in Portfolio Balderton Capital has 13 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 38 rounds within the last year. Forum Ventures Location: New York City, San Francisco, and Toronto, United States Thesis: B2B SaaS; Future of Work, E-commerce enablement, Supply Chain & Logistics, Marketplace, Fintech, Healthcare Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed Recent Investments: Sandbox Banking Tusk Logistics Vergo Check out Forum Ventures profile on our Connect Investor Database RRE Ventures RRE Ventures is a New York-based venture capital firm that offers early-stage funding to software, internet, and communications companies. Some of their recent investments include: Haystacks.ai Domain Money Palm NFT Studio Number of Unicorns in Portfolio RRE Ventures has 13 unicorns in their portfolio Number of Rounds Participated in the last 12 Months They have participated in 17 rounds within the last year. Related Resource: Exploring the Top 10 Venture Capital Firms in New York City Related Resource: Chicago’s Best Venture Capital Firms: A List of the Top 10 Firm Related Resource: Atlanta’s Hottest Venture Capital Firms: Our Top 9 Picks Looking for Funding? Visible Can Help- Start Your Next Round with Visible We believe great outcomes happen when founders forge relationships with investors and potential investors. We created our Connect Investor Database to help you in the first step of this journey. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out investor fit and profile for their given stage and industry, we created filters allowing you to find VC’s and accelerators who are looking to invest in companies like you. Check out all our investors here and filter as needed. After learning more about them with the profile information and resources given you can reach out to them with a tailored email. To help craft that first email check out 5 Strategies for Cold Emailing Potential Investors. After finding the right Investor you can create a personalized investor database with Visible. Combine qualified investors from Visible Connect with your own investor lists to share targeted Updates, decks, and dashboards. Start your free trial here and check out Visibles Fundraising page: https://visible.vc/fundraising

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. At Visible, we compare a venture fundraise to a traditional B2B sales and marketing funnel. At the top of your “fundraising funnel” you are bringing in qualified investors (leads), moving them through the middle of your funnel with meetings, pitches, monthly updates, etc., and hopefully closing them at the bottom of the funnel as a new investor. Ideally, once you close a new investor you’ll delight them with regular communication. Related Reading: An Essential Guide on Capital Raising Software Just as a sales and marketing team have dedicated tools, shouldnt a fundraise? By implementing an investor CRM, you will be able to stay on top of your communication and relationships with both current and potential investors. What is an Investor CRM? As put by the originator of the CRM, Salesforce, “Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.” However, an investor CRM is slightly different. Whereas a traditional CRM is focused on current and potential customer, an investor CRM stays focused on your current and potential investors. Related Resource: Why a CRM is Essential for Investor Relations This means tools to send updates, share pitch decks, monitor conversations, track status, etc. Learn more about the benefits of using a CRM for your investor relations below: Benefits of a CRM Tool for Startups Fundraising is a difficult. Implementing an investor CRM will not be a silver bullet that will close a round of funding for your business. It will help you build a system and organization into your process to improve your odds of success and allow you to focus on what truly matters, building your business. Learn more about the benefits of using an investor CRM for your investor relations below: 1) CRM Gives Real-Time Insight on Your Pipeline Any sales team wants to know the status of their pipeline. The same is true for a founder and a fundraise. Over the course of a venture fundraise, you will likely talk to anywhere between 50 and 100 investors. To give you an accurate idea of the status of your round, founders should have a CRM in place to give you an idea of your current pipeline. For example, for new “leads” a sales & marketing team might give them a 10% chance to become a customer. You can set up the same idea for a fundraise. A new investor might be a 10% chance, an investor after a successful meeting might be 25%, etc. 2) All Investor Interactions and Conversations are Tracked The sheer number of conversations during a fundraise should not be overlooked. As we mentioned, you will likely be talking to 50-100 investors. An investor CRM, will allow you to stay on top of your conversations. Inevitably during the course of a fundraise, investors will pass for different reasons, request you follow up later, etc. A CRM is a surefire way to stay on top of these conversations and notes that will arise during a raise. 3) CRM Ensures You’ll Never Miss a Follow-Up Follow ups and communication are vital to a successful sales & marketing process. The same can be said for a fundraise. Of course, there are companies that be so intriguing to investors that they’ll be ready to write a check after 1 meeting. However, for the majority of companies they will need to run a process for following up with investors. At the end of the day, your job is to create FOMO with your potential investors so they are motivated to move quickly. 4) Seamlessly Monitors Fundraising As we’ve alluded to throughout the post, an investor CRM is the best way to monitor the overall status of your fundraise. Using different stages and properties, you’ll be able to closely monitor the status of your raise. This is not only beneficial to yourself but also your stakeholders. You can share the status of your fundraise with existing investors and advisors so they can help make introductions to potential investors and move you closer to a successful round. 5) Improves Relationships With Investors One of the best benefits of using an investor CRM is that it strengthens your relationships with current investors. We have found that companies that regularly communicate with your investors are 300% more likely to raise follow on funding. By having a system in place to communicate with your current investors you will not only improve your odds of raising follow on funding but you’ll be able to leverage their network, experience, and resources. As a starting point, we recommend founders send a monthly update to their investors. To get the ball rolling, check out a few of our favorite monthly update templates here. Related Resource: Investor Relationship Management 101: How to Manage Your Startups Interactions with Investors Features to Look for in an Investor CRM Most CRMs are tailored to sales and marketing teams. When seeking out an investor specific CRM, look for some of the following details: Seamless Collaboration and Data Sharing Typically, investor relations relies solely on the founder and maybe a handful of other leaders. However, there are opportunities for collaboration when communicating and working with investors. By having a CRM that allows for collaboration and data sharing, you’ll be able to quickly uncover insights about your fundraise and the state of your fundraise. Ability to Integrate with Other Tools A major benefit of using a CRM is that it helps automate tedious aspects of investor relations. Look for a tool that will allow you to connect with other tools and help create more efficient investor relations. At Visible, our CRM directly integrates with a few tools: Our free investor database, Visible Connect Our investor updates tool Our pitch deck sharing tool Zapier Easily Customizable Every fundraise is different. Stage, geography, check sizes, etc. will all dictate how you wan to set up your investor CRM. Look for a tool that allows you to easily customize your fundraise so it is molded to the specifics of your fundraise. Track Communication A key aspect of building trust with current and potential investors is with regular communication. A CRM should be a place where you can keep an eye on how your investors are engaging with your emails, updates, pitch decks, etc. Manage Your Investor Relationships With Visible Find investors, share your pitch deck, send investors updates, and track your investor conversations all from one place. Try Visible for free for 14 days here.

At Visible, we believe that fundraising oftentimes mirrors a traditional B2B sales and marketing funnel. At the top of your “fundraising funnel” you are adding qualified investors (leads), moving them through the middle of your funnel with meetings, coffee chats, monthly updates, etc. with the goal of closing them as a new investor at the bottom of the ideal. From here, you are ideally delighting them with consistent communication. Related Resource: An Essential Guide on Capital Raising Software Just as a sales and marketing team has dedicated tools shouldn’t a founder have tools to manage their most expensive asset, equity? Learn more about how founders can use a CRM to improve and manage their investor relations below. What is the Definition of a CRM? As put by Salesforce, the original pioneer of CRMs, “Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.” However, this definition slightly changes when it comes to investor CRM. Whereas a traditional CRM is used to further your relationship with customers, an investor CRM is used to strengthen relationships with both current and potential investors. Why is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Important for Investor Relations? As we previously mentioned, equity is the most expensive asset a startup founder has. Having a system in place to communicate and build relationships with the stakeholders on your cap table is a surefire way to improve your odds of raising capital in the future. Investors are typically investing thousands to millions of dollars into businesses and they want to know their relationship is being taken seriously. Founders have the ability to stand out from their peers by having a strong system for communicating and building relationships with investors. At Visible, we have found that companies that regularly communicate with their investors are 300% more likely to raise follow on funding down the road. On top of helping with follow on funding, founders can also leverage their investor’s network, experience, and resources. Related Resource: Investor CRM: Seamlessly Manage Relationships and Finances CRM Helps Startups Learn About Their Investors Fundraising is relationship-based. On top of having a fundable business, investors will turn to founders to see how they communicate and lead their organization. By having a system and CRM in place, investors will be able to strengthen their relationships with portfolio companies. This might not seem important when it comes to fundraising, it pays dividends down the road. At the end of the day, investors are human and will value a relationship and predictable communication. CRM Encourages Organization An investor CRM can also be a forcing function to have a fundraising strategy and game plan in place. A CRM will require you to be diligent about the investors are you adding to the top of your funnel and will help you best allocate your time (e.g. taking meetings with the right investors). Additionally, it will require you to have the right assets in place for when an investor inevitably asks for your pitch deck, metrics, references, etc. Related Resource: All-Encompassing Startup Fundraising Guide CRM Software Is Designed to Optimize Investor Interactions Fundraising oftentimes turns into a full-time job for founders. By leveraging CRM and other tools, founders will be able to organize their process and spend more time on what truly matters, building their business. By having a CRM in place, founders will be able to focus their time on efforts on the right investors are the right time. At Visible, we allow founders to share monthly Updates with different lists of investors. This is not only great for current investors but can also be used to nurture investors that might be at different stages of a fundraise. For example, if an investor says your business is too early, you might want to send them a light monthly Update to keep them in the loop on the status of your business. This way when you are ready to seek future funding they will already be familiar with your business and will be eager to write a check. How to Utilize CRM Software for Investor Relations Raising capital for a business is extremely difficult. CRM software will not be a silver bullet to raising capital. You still need to have a fundable business and game plan in place to pitch and close potential investors. Having a CRM in place is a great way to help you spend more time on what truly matters, building your business. Related Resource: Investor Relationship Management 101: How to Manage Your Startups Interactions with Investors Setting up an investor CRM can be highly tailored to your business and can be customized by your stage, geography, market, etc. Check out an example of a Fundraising CRM in Visible here. Manage Your Investor Relationships With Visible Fundraising is a relationship-based game. By having the tools, game plan, and assets in place you’ll increase your odds of a speedy and successful fundraise. Find investors, share your pitch deck, send investor updates, and track your interactions in our investor CRM all from one platform. Try Visible for free for 14 days here.

Fundraising is difficult. We’ve helped thousands of founders raise capital and engage with their investors. Over time, we’ve learned that a traditional B2B sales & marketing process mirrors a venture capital fundraising process. At the top of your “fundraising funnel” you are adding qualified investors (leads), nurturing them through the middle of your funnel with meetings, updates, coffee chats, etc., and ideally closing them as new investors at the bottom of your funnel. Related Resource: All Encompassing Startup Fundraising Guide Just as sales and marketing processes have dedicated tools, shouldn’t a fundraise? Learn more about fundraising software and how it can help you raise capital below: What is Capital Raising Software? First things first, what is capital-raising software? Capital raising software, or simply fundraising software, is a platform or tool that can help founders navigate a fundraise. This means having the tools to find investors, share assets during their raise, and a place to manage and track their ongoing conversations and relationships. Related Resource: The Understandable Guide to Startup Funding Stages Generally speaking, when a founder seeks funding it turns into their full-time job. By utilizing a software stack dedicated to their fundraise, founders will be able to speed up their fundraising process and spend more time on what truly matters — building their business. Learn more about capital raising software and what features to look for below: Features to Look for in a Capital Raising Tool There are few tools that are truly dedicated to the capital-raising process. In the past, founders might just use a hodgepodge of software and tools dedicated to other use cases. This can create a headache as it gets intermingled with day-to-day tasks (e.g. using your sales & marketing CRM for tracking a fundraise). To help you find the tool that is right for you, we’ve laid out a couple of considerations and features to keep an eye out for below: Easy-to-Use Connect With Potential Investor Portal First things first, when seeking out a capital-raising tool, you will want to make sure that the ability to connect and engage with potential investors is there. At Visible, we find that companies that regularly send investor updates are 300% more likely to raise follow-on funding from their existing investors. One of the core ways to engage with potential and current investors is by sharing monthly Updates. At Visible, we have a tool entirely dedicated to sending Updates to your investors. From here you can see how they are engaging with Updates and add potential investors to your lists along the way. Check out some of our most popular Update templates in our library here. Personalized Investor Database Just like any sales and marketing process starts by finding qualified leads and customers, so should a fundraise. Traditional venture capital funds invest in all sorts of geographies, markets, company sizes, etc. so it is important to make sure you are talking to the right people. By having an investor database, you’ll be able to filter and find the right investors for your business. Related Resource: Building Your Ideal Investor Persona At Visible, we have a free investor database, Visible Connect, that allows you to filter investors by the properties we find most important to find potential investors Related Resource: Debt vs Equity Financing Monitors Investor Interactions Any sales and marketing team will have a place to monitor their interactions with current and potential customers (typically a CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce). Having a place to monitor interactions with current and potential investors is a surefire way to improve your odds of funding success. It will also help in other areas where investors can lend a hand as well (e.g. hiring, strategy, promotion, etc.) At Visible, we allow founders to use our Fundraising CRM to track interactions (Deck views, Update engagements, etc.) so they can properly follow up with the right investors at the right time. Learn more about our Fundraising CRM here. Related Resource: Why a CRM is Essential for Investor Relations Related Resource: Investor CRM: Seamlessly Manage Relationships and Finances Host and Share Pitch Decks to Investors While different investors have different preferences when it comes to how, when, and where to share a pitch deck, they will inevitably want to see some form of a pitch deck throughout the process. Having a tool where you can share your pitch deck via link will help you understand how investors are engaging with your deck. Tie this in with the tools mentioned above and you have a platform that can help with every step of your fundraise. Related Resource: Tips for Creating an Investor Pitch Deck At Visible, we offer a tool to help founders share their pitch deck with your own domain and brand settings so you truly own every step of your funding journey. Learn more about sharing Decks with Visible here. How to Utilize Capital Raising Software to Get Funding for Your Startup Of course, software won’t be a silver bullet that magically makes your business fundable. You need to have a fundable business and a gameplan in place to go out and raise capital. Capital raising software is simply a tool that will make the job easier on you as a founder. By finding a tool to help with your fundraise, you’ll be able to spend more time having meaningful conversations with investors, hiring top talent, and building your business. Related Resource: How to Raise Capital Using RUVs Find Investors and Build Relationships With Visible’s Capital Raising Software At Visible, our mission is to help founders succeed. We’ve helped thousands of founders communicate with their current and potential investors. Find investors, share your pitch deck, update your investors, and track your relationships all from one place. Give Visible a free try for 14 days here.