#10 from 10 – The FREE course for raising capital from VC firms and angel investors

How to identify the right partner and make your own list

When searching for a venture capital fund that is a good fit for your venture you must concentrate on identifying the right partner in the venture capital firm. These funds are composed of individual partners and associates. The partners will make the decision of who is funded and they will usually take a seat in the Board of each firm they fund.

These partners like to invest in a field they are familiar with or even experts in so they can understand the marketing potential and the opportunity, if there is one. They want to be able to add value and help the venture they will invest in grow.

Finding the partner that has relevant experience in your field may not be that hard as all the investment funds usually have a list of their partners on the website together with their bio, credentials and their contact info. After you have identified the right partner, decide if you will contact him online, offline or if someone else should introduce you.

You will not want to find the right partner in the wrong investment firm so make sure you get a state of the art database like this one. The list is everything. You are wasting your time if you do not have the right list of venture capital firms and no matter how good are your teaser emails or presentations they will not work because they are targeted to the wrong people.

The first thing you have to do to be successful is to purchase a list of VC funds. Then narrow your list by the market sector each investment fund is interested in, the stage of development they usually invest in and their geographical location. Most of them invest no further than 200 miles from their headquarters. You can watch out for other criteria also, like who are the main partners, what is their portfolio, their assets (how deep are their pockets) and how fit are they to your business, but only after you create your initial list.

The third important step is to make sure the VC is active. You can do that by checking press releases or reading their official website in full. Chances are that if they have not made a deal in over a year they are not active.

You would not have this problem with an updated list of investors. Get the updated list of 4600 investors from VCReporter and search for the right investor without wasting precious time. You can categorize companies by their interest in one particular domain, by their location or by the investment stage they prefer when investing. Most entrepreneurs fail to get funding because of aiming the right marketing weapons to the wrong targets.

You now know what are the steps you have to follow to obtain funding for our company and what are the successful methods. Don’t waste them on the wrong VC firms.