Hello there! Vagan, the founder of Raizer, is on the line 👋

Raising funds can be a challenging task for startup founders. However, by adopting the correct approach you can enhance your chances of success. Drawing upon my extensive 7 years of experience in successful fundraising, I want to offer you valuable tips to walk you through the real efficient fundraising process, whether you're a first-time founder or a seasoned entrepreneur.

Here are 10 steps into your successful fundraising:

1. Define Your Fundraising Goals. Start by determining the amount of capital you really need and its intended use. Develop a simple straightforward financial plan that outlines your post-fundraising runway and the goals you plan to achieve with the funds. It's crucial to ensure that the funds raised will suffice to:

- reach significant milestones required for the next round and secure time for the next fundraising round, or

- attain profitability and sustainability. During this goal-setting process, don’t think about average venture capital metrics or typical funding round amounts, as these metrics vary widely from one company to another. Sometimes $300k can be enough to move your project to sustainability, while in other cases, you might need $15m just to get started.

2. Craft Your Ideal Investor Profile. Once you've established your fundraising requirements, define the characteristics of investors who are likely to provide you with the funding and who might have an interest in your specific industry. Consider factors such as the type of investor (venture fund or angel investor), focus VC stage, expected investment size, geographical preferences, target industries, and other criteria.

3. Compile a Bullet List of Your Unique Advantages. Now that you have a clear investor profile, prepare a bullet list of compelling reasons why you and your startup deserve investors' attention. Create this list before generating any documents to gain a realistic understanding of your current standing and whether you have sufficient merits to be able have secure funding. In this list, you may include notes on:

- Your personal background and achievements, such as successful exits.

- Evidence of product-market fit.

- Impressive metrics related to your client base, waitlists, and other relevant customer indicators.

- Comprehensive market insights (maybe something that is not known by everyone).

- Unique marketing strategies and partnerships you have in your pocket.

- Any other critical factors that provide a light into your project as an attractive investment opportunity.

4. Craft a Unique Pitch Deck. Once you’re sure of your list of unique advantages, it’s time to proceed and create a compelling pitch deck that tells your story. Create your pitch deck like a narrative book, and avoid the strict adherence to templates. Don’t hesitate to be unique and creative. Maybe you wanna stop the presentation on slide No. 3 and forward investors to the product demo, or maybe something else. Anyway, ensure that your pitch deck incorporates all the key advantages outlined in the previous step. And structure deck you’d like to real without blind following everyone.

5. Create a List of Perfect Investors. Take the time to assemble a list of highly targeted investors who align with your startup's needs. Use multiple filters to limit this list to no more than 300 potential investors. Take in mind, that investors in this list are your ideal investors, and your startup should be able to secure investments from them, in another case it’s better to return to step 3 and work on enhancing the number of advantages your project offers to become more appealing to the initially identified target investors.

At Raizer, we simplifies the process of finding the perfect investors for you and your startup. We offer 8 powerful filtering options, including VC Type, Industry, Geography, Location, Stage, Diversity, Leading, and Investor Title. Additionally, our robust search feature allows you to research investors already on your list and obtain their personal contact details for outreach.

6. Outreach Investors and Maintain a CRM List. Now your preparations are complete. Begin reaching out to your perfect investors. Utilize any available connections, especially warm introductions if possible, as they can significantly boost your chances. If warm introductions to someone are not available, consider reaching out through email, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Be sure to establish a CRM funnel for your fundraising process. You can use a classic CRM platform or a Notion datatable to keep track of your interactions. With cold outreach, more than 60% of responses come after the second or third contact, so using CRM is crucial to make things right.

7. Meet with Passion. The next significant step is the investor meeting. It may be counterintuitive, but if an investor agrees to meet with you, they are already genuinely interested in your startup. What investors really looking for – is that understanding of you as a person. They want to learn more about who you are, your belief reason in the original idea, your core values, and your ability to keep meaningful conversation. Your key task is to be enthusiastic, maintain a positive attitude, and ensure that you come across as someone trustworthy and relatable. After the meeting, the investor will form his opinion about your startup based on their interaction with you, which will either lead to opportunities or raise concerns and red flags.

8. Maintain 100% Accuracy Post-First Meeting. Okay, now the real game is on. You need to be 100% accurate with investors and all the words you say. Immediately follow up with investors as promised, and provide only accurate data and insights. Never break your commitments or be tardy. Throughout the process after the first meeting, investors take note of every interaction, both positive and negative. Punctuality and reliability are paramount, as investors evaluate whether they can envision a long-term working relationship with you spanning 3-7 years.

9. Forward Conversations to Deals. Mostly, investors may be eager to discuss your project indefinitely, so it's crucial to recognize the right moment to steer discussions toward terms and legal agreement. Investors should understand that you are expecting a decision and are not willing to waste time in fruitless discussions or false expectations. Typically, 3 meetings are the maximum required to finalize the decision and start discussing deal terms. Do not overlook this moment; remember that YOU ARE leading the deal and must take a proactive approach.

10. Stay Focused Until Funds Are in Your Account. Refrain from celebrating prematurely; your journey isn't complete until the funds are securely in your bank account. Even after signing documents with an investor, deals can still fall through. Maintain your focus, use your time wisely to enhance your list of unique advantages (as outlined in step 3), and expand the pool of target investors engaged in discussions. More options will lead to more committed investors who act swiftly to become part of your project ahead of other interested parties.

I hope that this comprehensive guideline will assist you in your fundraising. It's essential to maintain a clear understanding and broad perspective on the entire process. At Raizer, we are delighted to assist founders in connecting with their ideal investors and in the creation of innovative and impactful products for humanity. Good luck!