The Champion’s guide:
How to get VC funding.
Dr. Gesa Miczaika, Founding Partner of the start-up investor Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund gives an insight on what investors are looking for.
So, you had a really good idea addressing an attractive market, assembled a team to work on it, made progress with building your product and would now like to really scale it. Sometimes this next step requires external capital to be able to make the hires you need to make, continue with your customer development, attract customers with great marketing, etc. If this is your first time as a founder, this step is definitely big. How do you approach this? Who do you contact? What are the steps you need to take?
The process of acquiring external funding requires solid preparation. You will have to approach your network and ask what types of funding are available for your business and what the expectations are for the type of investment you are looking for and how to access it. You will need to understand what documents to have in place to properly pitch yourself and your company. You will probably also want to find out what the adequate cost for the funding is. In any case, you will want to know the do’s and don’ts. This preparation is crucial and will allow you to come closer to your dream of receiving the funding you are looking for.
You don’t know where to start? Here are some events where founders can meet investors and other founders: Slush in Helsinki, Web Summit in Lisbon, Bits & Pretzels in Munich, Start Summit in St. Gallen, Lead today, Shape Tomorrow in Vienna, Vivatech in Paris and Latitude59 in Tallinn.
As part of The Founders Initiative, I’ve put forward Lena Weirauch, who is working on increasing the longevity of machines with predictive maintenance. If you’d like a bit of advice on planning your own new journey, https://medium.com/apxberlin/investment-in-now-what-85933a4ac230.
