What you need to attract investment? Or who?
At once I will say that all the information below is my personal observations and conclusions.
Having worked for some time in an investment company, I realized how far this business segment is not structured, how undeveloped it is. The funny thing is that in the country there is a huge amount of ideas (especially in IT), a huge number of people (if we talk about private, sole investors) with money, eager to invest them somewhere, but no - they cannot find each other ...
Of course, things are different with the funds, the funds are easier to find ... However, there are two things here: first, the funds (especially the Russian ones) rarely invest in startups. It is difficult to talk about the reasons, there are a lot of them ... Many startups want to get money quickly, and when dealing with a foundation, you rarely make a deal faster than in a year.
Secondly, in order to receive funding from the fund, you must convince ALL of the decision-makers.
')
Thirdly, the funds do not invest even for a little long time: they must have a strategy of exiting the transaction in a couple of years, so under the contract you usually have to buy out their share in three years. But you can not save so much money by that moment! And you can just not be interested in this.
Fourthly, if you are not expecting an exponential growth in turnover / profit, but you need a small amount (for example, I recently received an answer to a query about a promising company that needs $ 4 million, and from the IT fund that the scale is chalk).
And honestly, the fund will never have close relations with you or delve into the problems of your business, but a private investor can become your mom and dad in one person, give valuable advice (these are usually very experienced people in business), yes and agree to much more favorable and convenient conditions. Although, of course, this is not always the case.
Only, as I said, it is much more difficult to find private investors. And here, companies like ours can be most useful. Such companies have established customer bases, both private and foundations, they always penetrate into the business to find, pull out all the most interesting aspects and indicators of your ideas and business, give you valuable advice, because they, like you , interested in your money.
In addition, such offices can attract not only investors, but also borrowed capital. For example, you attract a part from investors, and a part (after all, why give someone your share in the business), with money already raised, you take from credit organizations. And here you will have to be alone too, because you must be able to do business with them, too ...
I work in the company Beford Investments , which is engaged in attracting funding for investment, development projects, business development projects, including start-ups, and also deals with transaction support, business valuation, preparation of documentation, presentations for investors, corrects strategy, if necessary , consulting - in general, the whole package in this area. The company operates in many industry areas, including IT. Do not count for advertising: IT start-ups are of little interest to us, because we work for a percentage of the amount, and in this segment the amounts are small compared to, for example, raw material projects. I cite this information only so that you understand where my opinion comes from.
At this point I’ll probably finish today, and if it became interesting for someone, and you want to know what information you need to provide to investors, banks, how to present it, or maybe something else, please write in the comments, and I I will try to supplement my post with this information!
UPD. I dragged the topic from “Startups” to “I am promoting”, because the people immediately began to minus. I scratched my head and decided that it probably looked like PR, although I honestly didn’t have this idea. If possible, I ask those who did not like the article to leave comments about the reasons. Thank.
UPD2. Sorry, many errors and typos first overlooked - probably it's time to sleep. Thank you variable for pointing out some of them.
Having worked for some time in an investment company, I realized how far this business segment is not structured, how undeveloped it is. The funny thing is that in the country there is a huge amount of ideas (especially in IT), a huge number of people (if we talk about private, sole investors) with money, eager to invest them somewhere, but no - they cannot find each other ...
Of course, things are different with the funds, the funds are easier to find ... However, there are two things here: first, the funds (especially the Russian ones) rarely invest in startups. It is difficult to talk about the reasons, there are a lot of them ... Many startups want to get money quickly, and when dealing with a foundation, you rarely make a deal faster than in a year.
Secondly, in order to receive funding from the fund, you must convince ALL of the decision-makers.
')
Thirdly, the funds do not invest even for a little long time: they must have a strategy of exiting the transaction in a couple of years, so under the contract you usually have to buy out their share in three years. But you can not save so much money by that moment! And you can just not be interested in this.
Fourthly, if you are not expecting an exponential growth in turnover / profit, but you need a small amount (for example, I recently received an answer to a query about a promising company that needs $ 4 million, and from the IT fund that the scale is chalk).
And honestly, the fund will never have close relations with you or delve into the problems of your business, but a private investor can become your mom and dad in one person, give valuable advice (these are usually very experienced people in business), yes and agree to much more favorable and convenient conditions. Although, of course, this is not always the case.
Only, as I said, it is much more difficult to find private investors. And here, companies like ours can be most useful. Such companies have established customer bases, both private and foundations, they always penetrate into the business to find, pull out all the most interesting aspects and indicators of your ideas and business, give you valuable advice, because they, like you , interested in your money.
In addition, such offices can attract not only investors, but also borrowed capital. For example, you attract a part from investors, and a part (after all, why give someone your share in the business), with money already raised, you take from credit organizations. And here you will have to be alone too, because you must be able to do business with them, too ...
I work in the company Beford Investments , which is engaged in attracting funding for investment, development projects, business development projects, including start-ups, and also deals with transaction support, business valuation, preparation of documentation, presentations for investors, corrects strategy, if necessary , consulting - in general, the whole package in this area. The company operates in many industry areas, including IT. Do not count for advertising: IT start-ups are of little interest to us, because we work for a percentage of the amount, and in this segment the amounts are small compared to, for example, raw material projects. I cite this information only so that you understand where my opinion comes from.
At this point I’ll probably finish today, and if it became interesting for someone, and you want to know what information you need to provide to investors, banks, how to present it, or maybe something else, please write in the comments, and I I will try to supplement my post with this information!
UPD. I dragged the topic from “Startups” to “I am promoting”, because the people immediately began to minus. I scratched my head and decided that it probably looked like PR, although I honestly didn’t have this idea. If possible, I ask those who did not like the article to leave comments about the reasons. Thank.
UPD2. Sorry, many errors and typos first overlooked - probably it's time to sleep. Thank you variable for pointing out some of them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/124772/
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