Raising Capital
Blog
|
New Venture Lab Member AgStrong Wins Whole Foods Supplier Award I was pleased to get the call recently from New Venture Lab member Robert Bruce Davis that his company, AgStrong, was awarded the Whole Foods Market Outstanding Innovator Award, one of only ten supplier awards announced this week. For many New Venture Lab members, AgStrong will be a... |
|
|
Raising Small Amounts of Capital One of the most frequent questions we get at New Venture Lab is how to raise relatively small amounts of capital. The amount sought from NVL members usually ranges from $25k to $500k. Believe it or not, raising small amounts of capital is actually harder than raising large amounts of... |
|
|
Venture Capital Returns Outperform Public Equities Venture Capital as an asset class has outperformed the public stock market average return by 3.1x over a 20-year time horizon according to the National Venture Capital Association and analysis by the Cambridge Associates based upon data from 1,327 U.S. venture capital funds and their pooled... |
|
|
I'm Not Convinced That Crowd Funding Works for Startups The concept of crowd funding and Christian crowd funding in particular seems to be a hot topic right now as several NVL members have asked me about it recently. So here goes…I think crowd funding like Kickstarter works well for small projects where the “investors” get a CD, MP3,... |
1 comment |
|
Institutional Equity Financing Equity Financing is usually invested based upon the future prospects of a company and the anticipation of a future exit event that will provide acceptable returns to the investment fund. At the Growth Stage, Equity Financing is typically in the form of growth-stage Venture Capital invested by... |
1 comment |
|
Stages of Growth and Capitalization One of the most pressing concerns for entrepreneurs of early-stage and middle market companies is the question of the capital formation process and how to adequately finance their companies to support their growth plans. The types of financing available to entrepreneurs vary widely and are... |
|
|
The Best Angel Investor The best angel investor is one who…....knows the process well and has made enough angel investments to know what they are getting into…knows you well and is willing to write a check to invest in you and your business…knows your industry well and can create tremendous value with their... |
|
|
Are You Selling Product or Are You Selling Stock? As an entrepreneur, your most precious resource is your time and how you invest it. You can invest your time trying to get customers (by solving their problems) and/or you can invest your time trying to get investors. The more time you spend getting customers (selling your product), the less time... |
|
|
How to Facilitate a Fast, Low-Cost Investment in Your Company I get many requests and questions from entrepreneurs about how to raise capital and it is a difficult process to be sure (see these various posts and downloads to learn more about the overall process.) One creative way to raise capital -- and keep all of your ownership and control -- is to raise... |
|
|
Venture Capital Investing Down More Than 50% How should an entrepreneur respond to the fact that raising venture capital -- which has never been easy -- is getting harder now that funding levels are way down and now that the limited partner investors in venture capital funds are failing to make their capital call commitments? Venture... |
|
|
Raising Capital for a New Clean Fuel Technology Company I am raising capital for a new startup that has acquired three different technologies for the 18-wheeler diesel truck market. The technologies all provide significant fuel savings and cleaner emissions and can be installed individually or all together for additional fuel savings. I like the... |
1 comment |
|
New Venture Lab Successfully Raises Venture Capital for NVL Member New Venture Lab is pleased to announce that is has successfully managed a venture capital raise for AgStrong, LLC, whose founder and CEO, Robert Bruce Davis, is a New Venture Lab member. New Venture Lab was also an investor in the round that included several other venture and “angel... |
2 comments |
|
Tips on Raising Money for Your Startup A successful entrepreneur that I invested in several years ago recently posted this very succinct list of tips on how to raise money for a startup: In as few words as possible, here are 20 ideas to help with the money-raising process: 1. Research the process. Others have done it. 2. Assuming... |
2 comments |
|
Worst IPO Market For Venture-Backed Companies in 30 Years Early-stage companies that have raised venture capital to fund their operations -- known as venture-backed companies -- have just been handed some pretty bleak news. Not a single venture-backed company had an initial public offering (IPO) during the second quarter of 2008. According to... |
|
|
Cautions on Angel Investors Angel investors are wealthy individuals that make individual venture investments in start-up companies. They typically invest $25,000 to $250,000 and often are the intial venture funding source prior to a larger institutional round of $1 - 5 million or more. But not all angles are saviors,... |
|
|
Just Say No to Venture Capital There is a constant stream of entrepreneurs that ask me to invest in their idea or ask me advice about how to raise venture capital for their business plan. In many cases, they should just say no to venture capital. There are a lot of benefits to raising venture capital such as the ability... |
1 comment |
Q&A
|
Raising Seed Capital for a Healthcare Products Company I’ve developed an innovative product for the healthcare industry, specifically for the hospital environment that improves patient health and safety while lowering the healthcare provider’s time and cost. We are looking for $250k to $500k to fund the manufacture of the first few prototypes... |
1 comment |
|
What Questions Should You Ask a VC When Getting to Know Them and Their Firm? I'm raising a seed round for a consumer web startup. Getting good interest from VCs. What questions do I need to ask of them to gain insight into how well we'd work together? ... |
|
|
Raising Capital for an Alpaca Farm We are interested in starting an Alpaca farm. Do you think this is something investors might be interested in investing in? ... |
2 comments |
|
How to Raise Early-Stage Capital While Minimizing Dilution I need to raise capital for my software startup and I have investors ready, willing and able to invest in the range of $1m - $2m, but my dilemma is that I have a couple of significant events that are likely to happen in the next several months (major initial customer commitment and a major channel... |
1 comment |
|
Raising Money for a Services Business I am planning on launching a home services business and need to raise $50,000 to fund the business. The uses for the money include a professionally-designed logo, marketing materials, a killer website and a new truck with the company's name and logo painted on it to present an overall... |
3 comments |
|
Raising $5 Million for Online Community One of my Board members referred me to your site because we are currently raising funds. We are a little out of the direct investment league for NVL as far as I can tell. To date, we have raised almost $3MM of friends and family and we are seeking $5MM more to monetize the community we... |
|
|
Raising Venture Capital for An Internet Company I am the CEO of a successful and profitable content-based Internet company that leverages licensed content over a proprietary technology infrastructure developed over the course of the past several years that I believe to be best-in-class. I am considering leveraging my extensive technology... |
1 comment |
|
Investing Your 401(k) in a New Business Venture The presentation Creative Models for Raising Capital mentioned using a 401(k) to fund a start-up. Could you point me in the direction of more in-depth resources for researching this issue? ... |
|
|
Time to Raise Venture Capital How long does it take to raise capital?... |
|
|
Preparation to Raise Capital What do I need to do before beginning to raise capital?... |
|
|
Presentation Outline Can you recommend an outline for me to develop a capital raising presentation? ... |
|
|
Investor Elevator Pitch What is an "elevator pitch" and what do I need one for?... |
|
|
Capital for a New Aircraft Design Business Plan A friend of mine has a wonderful business plan for a new break-through design for aircraft. According to his plan he needs to raise $18 million. What recommendations do you have for him? ... |
1 comment |
|
Checklist for a Venture Capital Investment Do you have a checklist of all the items or negotiated terms that I need to think about in terms of a venture capital investment? ... |
|
Downloads
Links
| National Venture Capital Association |
|
Quotes
|
Reliance on External Financing Entrepreneurs rarely have the capital to see their ideas to fruition and must rely on outside financiers. - Josh Lerner, professor of Finance and Entrepreneurial Management, Harvard Business School ... |
|
|
The Positive Impact of Angel Investors They are not called "angel" financiers for nothing. In a new study, scholars William Kerr, Josh Lerner, and Antoinette Schoar find that angel funding is positively correlated with "higher survival, additional fundraising outside the angel group, and faster growth measured through growth in Web site... |
|
|
Bhaskar Chakravorti on the State of Venture Capital Investment in start-ups fell 33 percent in the fourth quarter of last year [2008]compared with that of the previous year. Only six venture-backed companies were able to go public last year in the United States. - Bhaskar Chakravorti, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and partner at... |
|
|
Proverbs 22:7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (KJV)... |
|
Select a Topic
Do we not have what you’re looking for? You can request another topic. We are constantly adding new resources, so check back frequently.
You can add your own comments to any blog post or any Q&A post.
Your comments will be accompanied by the first and last name you used to register.
We are constantly adding resources, so check back frequently for new items.
Additional resources offered by New Venture Lab:
- subscription-based HD video of our Christian entrepreneurship training course
Startup Financial Model Website
The Startup Financial Model a detailed, multi-sheet, completely integrated, easy-to-configure Excel-based business plan model for those who are planning or running a startup or small business and want an excellent financial model to enhance their business plan and capital-raising efforts. This companion site of ours includes step-by-step video instructions and customers choose what price they pay.
Save thousands of dollars on legal fees by using our forms (organized by topic) and then only pay your attorney to review, rather than write an agreement from scratch.