recently rated:

Rated by 5

1.0 1.0 1.6 1.0 1.0

1.1

Boston Harbor Angels

 

$$$$$ Boston, US East

top rated funds:

Rated by 22

4.8 4.7 4.6 3.5 4.4

4.4

Foundry Group

Certified

$$$$$ Boulder, US Central

Rated by 11

4.8 3.5 4.1 4.3 4.1

4.2

Silverton Partners

 

$$$$$ Austin, US West

Rated by 13

3.9 4.7 4.2 3.9 4.3

4.2

Rincon Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Barbara, CA, US West

Rated by 20

4.3 4.2 4.1 3.6 4.4

4.1

New Atlantic Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Reston, US East

Rated by 10

4.3 4.3 4.0 4.0 3.0

3.9

Andreessen Horowitz

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 30

3.3 4.1 4.1 3.9 4.0

3.9

Leapfrog Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 40

3.5 3.9 4.3 4.0 3.8

3.9

True Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 11

3.9 4.2 3.2 3.6 4.0

3.8

Mangrove Capital Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Luxembourg, Europe

Rated by 43

3.8 4.1 3.4 3.6 4.1

3.8

RRE Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 32

3.9 3.8 3.7 3.4 4.0

3.8

Altos Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 31

3.9 4.1 4.0 2.8 4.1

3.8

406 Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 64

3.9 3.8 3.8 3.4 3.9

3.7

First Round Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 27

3.8 3.6 3.8 3.8 3.6

3.7

FLOODGATE

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 105

4.7 3.7 3.7 3.0 3.5

3.7

Sequoia Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 11

3.5 3.8 3.7 3.5 3.8

3.7

IDG Ventures SF

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 11

3.6 3.7 3.6 3.8 3.4

3.6

Flywheel Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Fe, US West

Rated by 20

3.5 3.3 3.8 3.6 3.9

3.6

DFJ Mercury

Certified

$$$$$ Houston, US Central

Rated by 16

3.6 3.5 3.8 3.5 3.5

3.6

August Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 10

4.0 3.8 3.9 2.8 3.7

3.6

Updata Partners

 

$$$$$ Red Bank, US East

Rated by 62

3.7 3.6 3.4 3.4 3.9

3.6

Trinity Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 21

3.5 3.6 3.6 3.2 3.4

3.5

Wellington Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Munich, Europe

Rated by 12

3.2 3.6 3.4 3.0 4.2

3.5

DN Capital

 

$$$$$ London, Europe

Rated by 19

3.8 3.1 3.4 3.2 3.3

3.4

Draper Richards

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 14

2.8 3.5 3.7 3.2 3.7

3.4

Merus

 

$$$$$ US West

Rated by 48

3.7 3.5 3.1 3.4 3.2

3.4

Menlo Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 31

3.3 3.3 3.2 3.6 3.7

3.4

Clearstone Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Monica, US West

Rated by 16

3.9 3.7 2.9 2.9 3.6

3.4

Versant Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 11

2.9 3.6 3.7 3.3 3.6

3.4

OpenView Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 10

3.6 3.4 3.9 2.7 3.3

3.4

DFJ Esprit

Certified

$$$$$ London, Europe

Rated by 13

3.0 3.8 3.5 3.2 3.4

3.4

Fidelity Growth Partners Europe

Certified

$$$$$ London, Europe

HomeShowcaseTermsAdviceOpenDiscussCoFound

Sign-upHelpFor VCsFor MediaAdvertiseTop VCsBanned VCs

Recently, I shared this outline & pitch deck example with the Capital Factory companies in Austin, Texas; you may find example slides, download the PPT template file, and read descriptions / discussion for each here:

http://kipmcc.wordpress.com/2009/08/0...

1. Title Slide

* The get everyone in the room and sitting down slide; Don’t roll forward from here until you have everyone in the room and paying attention if you can help it.

2. Agenda + Company Overview

* Make sure you’re covering what they want to cover; ask if you’re missing anything before launching into the pitch
* This is also the slide to give a quick summary of your company. This summary is important because it will give any other partners at the firm you talking to a “snap shot” of you’re company after you’re gone; it’s helpful for other partners in the firm to have at-a-glace info on what you do, in what market, company details, and so on.

3. Market + Market Context

* Why is your market interesting? Are there any compelling dynamics currently at play?
* How do you fit in? This can help set up your unique competitive advantage / “secret sauce” slide.

4. One-slide company overview: THE SLIDE

* In many cases, your entire pitch will be an interactive conversation while sitting on a single slide; this should be that slide.
* Done right, this allows you to describe what you do, who you do it for, why that’s important and your vision for the future.

5. Business Model; How we make money

* How, exactly, does your company make money? Do you have any examples of this working so far?
* Does any part of your business act as a “loss leader” for another, more valuable part?
* Do you have two models running simultaneously? is that good or bad & why? Make sure you clearly describe and delineate between them…and hopefully describe how they benefit and support each.

6. Progress, Mile stones, look into the future

* What you’ve accomplished so far?
* What you plan to do in the near future? In what timeframe?

7. Competition & your company’s “Secret Sauce”

* You relative to others in your space.
* The question that you must answer well: if your company is successful, how will you defend its business from competitors who see your success and want some or all of it for themselves? What can you do differently? What can you do uniquely and realistically for how long? What CAN’T (or is really really hard to) be duplicated? What is your special tech, model, process, team advantage or unique solution?

8. Current Partners, Customers & Pipeline

* Who are you working with today? Who will be your customer tomorrow?
* How, exactly, do you acquire customers? How much does it cost to acquire them? What is your average deal size? How could your business increase the average deal size? What is the average deal size of other companies in this same market? Does this information align with the Market Size / Market Context data from Slide #3 ? (hint: it should) Once you have a customer, can you sell them MORE stuff more easily? Why / why not / how much / when will you have it to sell? What is the expected life-time value of a customer (be careful to think about this relative to the cost to acquire a customer)?

9. Financial Details (revenue, expense, HC, projections)

* What is your current and future headcount (this equates to your burn rate as headcount is almost always the biggest expense)?
* what is your current monthly/quarterly burn rate and how does that ramp over time?
* what is your current revenue and how does that ramp over time?
* How quickly are you approaching a cash-flow breakeven point?
* What’s your revenue run-rate 12 months from now? What’s the net loss / gain over the same period?

10. Funding “ask” + use of proceeds (timing, other firms)
11. Team Overview
12. Thank you, questions, contact info (no example slide)

High-level guidelines:

* Create your own deck! Create a deck that allows you to tell your story according to your style; name the slides what you want; tell your story with text or pictures (within reason)

* Don’t leave out critical information! This outline is my suggestion of a “critical information” list; no rational investor will fund your company without knowing the information suggested by this outline.

* Proactively answer big-ticket questions! If there are obvious, elephant-in-the-room sort of questions regarding your business: address them before they get asked. This is always a better way to go.

* Be passionate and informed! Investors invest in the team – show them your passion and be sure to know data from adjacent or competitive markets, companies, and models.

* Finally, it’s really important to have enough white space in your presentation format. I like a white background because it prints and projects cleanly. I like titles that are single-line and as few words as possible; and I try to keep the text/image area “middle part” of the slide as open as possible. In general, right angles are easier to make look clean than circles but your mileage may vary. Less is more when it comes to the presentation template.

We are being invited to travel to India where apperently it is much easier these days to get some angel funding. One of us (a 2-person founding team in the US) is from India and would have strong credibility there. On the other hand, most of our market and prospects who have given us Letters of Intent (large players in the healthcare space) are all in US.

It is probably not quite as easy and also wondering if the SEC requirements etc. would cause the effort to be a huge legal and otherwise time-consuming exercise.

Also, we know of several entreprenurs - including some with deep ties to India- who have been taken advantage of by the investors, in terms of IP and market positioning.

By the way, we have gone through the usual abuse of entreprenurs by the established angel groups in the US and will prpbably shut down the business in the next 60 days if we don't get funding.

As it is becoming harder to raise capital from venture capitalists, existing investors are facing situations where they need to lead new rounds in their own portfolio companies. This presents a big problem for valuations, especially if an investor only has convertible debt. Recently, I've heard a few stories about existing investors promising to lead a round, then pulling out or dramatically changing the terms. Worse, investors will sometimes string you along with a singed term sheet until you are out of cash, and then completely change the deal to take control.

Here are some tips if you think that you are going to need money in the next 18 months.

Know where insiders stand: You need to know where if your insiders will participate or lead a new financing event, and you should also ask them what their specific expectations are for your company performance. Assume that any inside round will be flat.

Pursue other options: Even if your insiders agree to lead a round, you should do your best to have an alternative financing option available. You will never get a fair price for your equity from insiders, since they are pricing, selling, and buying the equity at the same time and since they see all the warts and bruises.

Raise now, not later: Don't wait to raise money. Raising will take twice as long and will be twice as hard in this market. Try to raise enough capital to operate for more than 48 months, if you can.

When in doubt, do debt: If things are not moving fast enough and you have only three or four months worth of cash left, press your existing investors to do a convertible debt round that will give you eight to twelve months of low growth operating capital.

Insider sheet to attract outsiders: If everything else is failing, you may want to have your insiders draft a term sheet with a lot of room for new investors to participate. It's often easier to find outside investors with a "legitimate" term sheet in hand.

Good luck!

How are early stage biopharma companies getting funded these days" We have good pre-clinical data and are working to raise funds for a Phase I clinical trial. We've talked to several of the larger coastal funds who (for the most part) have been polite but consistently call us too early, which is consistent with their investment history in the sector. We need to raise between $5-7 million and are not on one of the coasts. This seems like an awkward space. I've had the opportunity to present to several of the top-tier VCs. Most of whom have been interested, engaged and polite BUT the truth is that their track record indicates they are not doing these deals. Their biopharma deals tend to be later stage and greater than $15 million. I understand deal flow but it seems like a waste of everyones time and gets back to the question "who funds early stage biopharma" Advise is greatly appreciated.