The VC Minute is my segment on the Startup of the Year podcast where I share a quick snippet of advice related to startup fundraising.
Let’s talk about finding investors to target.
Fundraising needs to be treated like a sales process. You need to know who you’re going after, why them, and how to approach them. But it starts with knowing who you’re targeting.
Generally speaking, you want to cast a wide net and start with the lesser known investors first. If you’re going to go after a big name investor, it’s best to wait until you’ve honed your pitch on others. So let’s build that list!
Signal.NFX.com is where I send most startups. It’s a free online platform for VCs to list themselves and for startups to find them. While you’re at it, you should visit another NFX site, The Company Brief and make a company brief that you can forward along.
Visible.vc is an investor relationship hub, so it’s only fitting they have a searchable database Head over to connect.visible.vc to search for free.
OmniValley.co is a great resource with a searchable database focused on investors outside of the Bay Area, but they have some Bay Area VCs as well.
FundBoard is a new, free search tool built by an experienced startup leadership team that knows the struggles of finding the right investor. They are regularly updating the product to include new features. [added Feb 2021]
If you’d like access to our network of investors, then apply to Startup of the Year. We hold weekly office hours that are only open to applicants. There’s no cost and no catch, except to be part of the Startup of the Year program.
Listen to the whole episode here:
Startup of the Year Podcast Episode #0034 – Cooper Harris of Klickly
On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we catch up with Cooper Harris, the founder, and CEO of Klickly, an A.I. impulse-payments platform. Cooper invented a payment layer that leverages machine-learning to make purchasing directly within digital UIs possible. This significant innovation creates a huge efficiency in the market – the platform’s machine-learning identifies payment situations and uses sophisticated cross-origin calls to facilitate the transaction.