Our Series A fund raising experience
Boyan Ivanov
co-founder & CEO
History of fund raising
Pitch in Vienna
11.2012
First intro to ‘VC A’ 01.2013
LH demo day
03.2013
US Trip 04.2013
London ‘VC A’
05.2013
BkVF pitch
‘VC A‘ offer
06.2013
TechCrunch SF pitch 07.2013
‘VC A’ TS DD start 08.2013
Pirate Summit
‘VC A’ – end of DD 10.2013
Angel round
‘VC A ‘IP DD
11.2013New
Investor (NI)
Angel round closes
12.2013
Declined ‘VC A’
ClosedNI
01.2014
~14 months
History of amounts sought
€200-250
$245-310k
€2m / $2.5
$500k
₤550k /
$800
€700-800k
$100k
06’12 11’12 02’13 04’13 06’13 07’13 10’13 11’13
$1+ m
Some statistics
Spoke to 50-70 Business Angels
Spoke to ~50 VCs / Investors
Hundreds of calls
Thousands of emails
~14 months
Estimated – $30-40k of funding related costs
Some ideas
Prepare well – look beyond the formal criteria of VCs
Some ideas
It is all about people – research them even more
Oh, sh*t!
Some ideas
Traction is good. Competition and scarcity are even better
Some ideas
EU vs. US
- Closer to ex-bankers than VCs
- Risk focused
- Easier to get
- Understand technology better
- Potential focused
- (Close to) impossible to get from Europe (“start packing”)
Some ideas
Get good advisors
Source: http://animatedtv.about.com/od/clonewars/ig/Star-Wars--Clone-Wars/Yoda.htm
Some ideas
Never mind the media
Blah-blah-blah
Some ideas
Turn your weakness into strength.
Some ideas
Check references…and take it seriously!
Some ideas
Be very selective on how and who you spend your time on.
Some ideas
Prepare for a marathon – 12+ months
Water, CASH, CASH, water…
Q & A
Blaž Triglav
- Having gone through that experience, do you think you could have saved any time if you did it again?
Dragos Andronic- Deck?