Any entrepreneur looking to raise capital is well aware that it’s not going to be easy. Successfully convincing an individual or an institution to part with their money in service of your business plan is going to take more than just the plan itself: it will require strategy, finesse, and more than a little bit of luck.
Sadly, bottling luck and giving it to our clients is beyond the scope of our services, but ensuring that they have a strategy in place to raise capital is something we help them with on a daily basis.
At Naseba, we have spent over a decade building and leveraging a network of investor contacts. Our constant interactions with the investors has helped us create a cheat sheet on some of the best practices for capital raising.
Below, we’ve condensed 3 of the most common pieces of advice from investors into a list that we hope any entrepreneur or business case would find useful. The list is based on the research by our investor analysts and on prevailing best practices from around the world.
- Never stop perfecting your pitch.
Do you think you have the perfect pitch? Think again. The moment you stop working on and improving your pitch is the moment that you’ve given up on your business. There will never be a magic set of words that compels investors to hand over their wallets (and we would know – because if they existed, we’d already be giving them to our clients). But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t constantly be looking for ways to improve not only the words you’re using, but how you deliver them. Practice won’t make perfect, but it can help you make money.
- Find the right advisers.
At every stage of the capital raising process, receiving advice from the right people is absolutely essential. And who are the right people? The ones with experience and connections. You might notice that I didn’t bring up trustworthiness, and that’s because being “trustworthy” is an irrelevant concept here. Your Uber driver might be a trustworthy soul, but he’s not the right person to ask for financial advice.
The right advisers are experts and professionals who have built an extensive network of connections with investors and have been involved in previous capital raising efforts. These are the people who will be able to give you sound advice based on their years of experience, their in-depth research of investment trends, and the insights they’ve gained from their close relationships with high profile investors.
(Apropos of nothing, I’d like to mention that we here at Naseba have spent 14 years building a network of contacts with liquid investors in growth markets, have successfully organised over 700 business facilitation platforms involving 80,000 executives, and have an entire team of investor analysts who conduct daily research calls with investors.)
- Attend capital events – and make an impression.
By that we don’t mean “make any old impression”. We mean: be prepared, be polished, and be professional. Showing up to a capital event armed only with your pitch and your big idea is a recipe for disaster. Instead, do as much research as you can before the event to identify which attendees are most likely to be interested in your business. Learn as much about those specific attendees as you can. Find out what their investment mandates are, and tailor your presentation to fit those mandates as much as possible.
At the event, ensure that you secure some one-on-one time with your shortlist of chosen investors, so that you can pitch them privately and in person.
Or, alternately, find a company that will do all of the above for you.
The articles linked below describes two such instances where private one to one meetings between investors and companies seeking capital have resulted in successful investment deals.
- Canadian company raises capital from Middle Eastern investors
- Saudi Investors of Riyadh Valley acquired stake in California firm Solexel for $70 million
Based on our success building an efficient cap-intro model through our investor introduction platforms, many investors have asked us to seek business cases that are generating revenue or at least are at the proof-of-concept stage.(View testimonials)
If you are interested in being considered for this platform, submit your business case here.
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