Seed-investment clarifications
Hi guys,
First of all I'd like to commend you - this site is packed with interesting news (I specifically like the aggregator), and it's nice to see more informative sites destined for the Israeli entrepreneurship community.
On to my question - I am working with several partners on a Web 2.0 start-up, we've got a prototype done, an executive summary, have a document we wrote for ourselves for the idea (not really a business plan yet), getting a presentation ready, and we are planning on meeting with investors soon and present our project.
The project is in its seed stage, we want financing in order to develop a beta from the prototype, as well as file for patents, conducting more market research, etc.
However, we have the following questions:
- Are we expected to have a financial projections section in the presentation (and/or exec. summary), including how much money we want for the seed round, how we are going to spend it, etc. ?
- Since we are in seed funding stage - can we get by without providing a full business plan, but simply with a presentation + exec. summary, and use part of the seed funding for creating a 'professional' business-plan? (and then we can have a startup-round of funding to launch the project/company)
- Can you recommend any good investors (angels/VCs) for the web 2.0 startup field?
Cheers!
P.S. - it would really be great if we have articles here that explain the expectations per funding round (seed, startup), what is a necessity and what is optional (business-plan, financial forecasts, etc.), and good methods to obtain those
Clarifications
Thanks for the feedback.
Relating to your questions:
1. A primary financial analysis of the venture is a must. It does not have to be accurate- as a matter of fact it can't be. But you need to show that: you understand the business; there are prospects of it becoming a real business; most important: you know what to do with the money and what will it bring you to (use of funds).
2. From our experience a "full business plan" is not needed. What you need is:
a. Executive summary-2-3 pages.
b. Presentation- up to 20 slides.
c. Excel document with the financial projections.
d. Prototype/ demo.
3. You can check our companies listing for investors. Most of the VCs have a pre-seed stage programs for web companies. The classic option is lightspeed Gemini Internat Lab. Angels are harder to find, you need to use your network to find them.
Hope it calrifies things a bit, good luck & enjoy!
Financial data examples?
Thanks for the detailed response!
Are there any resources with example financial-projections + use of funds (excel spreadsheets maybe) for web 2.0 startups (or startups in general) you would recommend on learning from?
It would greatly assist people without prior experience in this field.
I afraid I don't know about
I afraid I don't know about general examples, but it may be worth searching for..
If you can't find anything, send an email and I'll try to find for you a spreadsheet we used.