New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Given the fact that your capital need is $250k - $500k, that puts you in the realm of angel investors and seed capital investors. While there are many angel investors in the U.S., it can be a long and difficult process, especially if you do not know any personally. You can find a few of my relevant blog posts at this link on angel investors.

There are far fewer seed capital investors (organized as funds) and it is far harder to qualify for an investment from them.  Here are a few relevant posts on the subject of seed capital investors and venture capital investors: timing, checklist, questions to ask, and just say no.

One of my favorite ways to tackle the capital issue at your stage is to encourage you to structure a strategic alliance with a larger, well-capitalized company in the market space that would have a lot to gain by adding your new product. In your case, for example, it might be a manufacturer that is looking to add new products to its product lineup, have manufacturing, distribution, and sales capability in place and may be interested in partnering with you to take your product to market. That alliance may be a capital investment or even a licensing deal. I would think that spending some time exploring that notion with the larger manufacturing companies or distribution companies in the medical products space would garner you much more traction than spending the same amount of effort trying to raise capital from folks that don't know you. The other benefit of this approach is that it is excellent due diligence for you on your product and its market viability. Here are a few related blog posts on this process: taking an invention to market, make the most of an idea, how to negotiate a license deal, selling your invention, all about royalty agreements, and how to facilitate a fast, low-cost investment.