Fundraising

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. Fundraising is difficult. On top of building a fundable business, founders need to find the right investors, build relationships, successfully pitch their companies, and more to close a round. In order to better help founders find the right investors, we’ve built a totally free, community-sourced investor database, Visible Connect. SaaS startups and SaaS companies are commonly funded by different VC funds and angel investors. The list below is an active list of 60+ SaaS investors that are investing in seed rounds (some invest in later stages as well). The list uses our data from Visible Connect – we focus on key information like check size, investment location, fund size, and more. The link to “View their profile” will display firm information like their thesis, check sizes, focus, recent fund size, etc. In order to better help you track your raise, you can also add investors directly from Visible Connect to your dedicated fundraising pipeline in Visible (Learn more about tracking a raise in Visible here). Recommended Reading: The Understandable Guide to Startup Funding Stages North America SaaS Seed VC Firms Lightspeed Venture Partners About: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that is engaged in the consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets. Location: Menlo Park, CA Check size: $1-$100M Recent investments: Flink, Netskope, AnyVision To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Struck Capital About: Founder-First Capital for Innovative Entrepreneurs who want to Change the World. Location: Lose Angeles, CA Check size: $500k – $5M Recent Investments: Sendoso, BlackCart, Brainbase, Mojo Vision To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Runway Venture Partners About: New York City-based early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in post-product-market fit software-enabled businesses. Location: New York, NY Check size: $500k – $1M To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Cowboy Ventures About: Cowboy Ventures is a seed-stage focused fund investing in digital startups. Location: Palo Alto, CA Check size: $500k – $750k Recent Investments: Drata, Hone, Contra To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Redpoint Ventures About: Redpoint Ventures partners with visionary founders to create new markets or redefine existing ones at the seed, early and growth stages. Location: Menlo Park, CA Check size: $4M – $5M Recent Investments: Hex Technologies, Orca Security, R2C To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Moment Ventures About: Early-stage venture capital firm investing entrepreneurs reimagining how we work. Location: Palo Alto, CA Recent Investments: Rune Labs, Flowspace, Rafay To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Elizabeth Street Ventures About: We are an early-stage investment firm focused on the digital consumer and next-generation brands that improve daily life. Location: New York, NY To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> SV Angel About: SV Angel is a San Francisco-based angel firm that helps startups with business development, financing, M&A, and other strategic advice. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $250k – $3M Recent Investments: Valora, Outschool, Census To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Matrix Partners About: Matrix Partners is a venture capital firm focused on seed- and early-stage investments. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $5M – $20M Recent Investments: LightForce Orthodontics, Sequin, Kolide To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Contour Venture Partners About: invests in companies focused on information technology, and the application of innovative software solutions into the financial services, enterprise SaaS and vertical B2B SaaS sectors. Location: New York, NY Check size: $500k – $1.5M Recent Investments: Cutover, HowGood, Movable Ink To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Harlem Capital Partners About: Harlem Capital is an early-stage venture firm that invests in post-revenue tech-enabled startups, focused on minority and women founders. Location: New York, NY Check size: $500k – $1M Recent Investments: Repeat, PreShow Interactive, Stuf To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> TechNexus About: We build ecosystems by finding, funding, and accelerating technology ventures in collaboration with entrepreneurs and enterprises. Location: Chicago, IL Check size: $50k – $5M Recent Investments: Catch Co., Rollick, Krisp To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Moai Capital About: Seed Capital for Impassioned Entrepreneurs. Location: San Mateo, CA Check size: $25k – $100k To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Quake Capital About: Investing in big ideas, killer startups, and extraordinary people. Location: New York, NY Check size: $150k – $250k To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Battery Ventures About: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments. Location: Boston, MA Check size: $10M – $75M Recent Investments: Postman, Amplitude, ServiceTitan To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Fuel Capital About: Fuel Capital is a California-based early-stage venture fund focused on consumer, SaaS, and cloud infrastructure companies. Location: Burlingame, CA Check size: $500k – $1M Recent Investments: Specto, ConductorOne, Goodcover To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Illuminate Ventures About: Illuminate Ventures invests in early-stage high-tech companies delivering enterprise cloud and mobile solutions. Location: Oakland, CA Check size: $250k – $1.5M Recent Investments: Bedrock Analytics, Copper, Pex To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Luma Launch About: Luma Launch is a multi-million dollar early-stage fund with a Launch Program aimed at surfacing the most notable startups and entrepreneurs. Location: Santa Monica, CA Recent Investments: Trust & Will, Boulevard To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Susa Ventures About: Susa Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, investing in a growing family of dreamers and builders. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $1M – $1.5M Recent Investments: Nelo, Ascend, Centaur Labs To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> NextWorld Capital About: NextWorld Capital focuses on the enterprise technology sectors that are transforming existing markets and defining new ones. Location: San Fracisco, CA Check size: $1M – $10M Recent Investments: Honeycomb, Aircall, Stampli To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Primary Venture Partners About: Primary Venture Partners (previously High Peaks) is a seed-stage VC firm based in NY, focused on eCommerce and enterprise SaaS. Location: New York, NY Check size: $1M – $7.5M Recent Investments: Stellar Health, FlyMachine, Orum To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Blumberg Capital About: Blumberg Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in a range of technology companies. Location: San Fracisco, CA Check size: $1M – $10M Recent Investments: Hunters, Zone7, Trulioo To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Boldstart Ventures About: Boldstart Ventures is a first check investor for technical enterprise founders. Location: New York, NY Check size: $250k – $2.5M Recent Investments: Synk, Replicated, Cape Privacy To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Founder Collective About: Founder Collective is a Massachusetts-based seed-stage venture capital fund that helps entrepreneurs build their businesses. Location: Cambridge, MA Check size: $400k – $1.5M Recent Investments: Verve Motion, ULesson, Smalls To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Costanoa Ventures About: Costanoa Ventures backs tenacious and thoughtful founders who change how business gets done. Location: Palo Alto, CA Check size: $1M – $15M Recent Investments: Lively, Cresicor, Aserto To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Engage Ventures About: Engage Ventures is venture fund and platform established by 11 of the most influential corporations in the world. Location: Atlanta, GA Check size: $650k – $25M Recent Investments: Chain,io, Verusen, Voxie To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> I2BF Global Ventures About: I2BF invests in startups at the convergence of hardware&software technologies erasing the boundaries between the physical and digital world. Location: New York, NY Recent Investments: Shopmonkey, Portside, Inbox Health To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Uncork Capital About: Uncork Capital is a seed-stage venture firm that commits early, helps with the hard stuff, and sticks around. Location: Palo Alto, CA Check size: $750k – $2M Recent Investments: Crossbeam, Groove, MakersPlace To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Founders Fund About: Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm investing in companies building revolutionary technologies. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $500k – $150M Recent Investments: Cover, SUPLERLASTIC, Chronosphere To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Freestyle VC About: Freestyle Capital is a seed-stage investor and mentor for Internet software startups. We’re the ones you come to when you want more than just a check. Location: Mill Valley, CA Check size: $1M – $7.5M Recent Investments: HiveWatch, Creator+, Ease To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Chloe Capital About: Chloe Capital is a seed stage VC firm investing in women-led innovation companies across North America. Location: Ithaca, NY Check size: $100k – $250k To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Moonshots Capital About: Seed stage venture capital firm that invests in extraordinary leadership. Location: Austin, TX Check size: $500k – $1.5M Recent Investments: Gretel AI, Wildfire Systems, Cart.com To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Romulus Capital About: Romulus Capital is an American seed- and early-stage venture capital fund that invests in technology companies. Location: Boston, MA Check size: $500k – $5M Recent Investments: Ceres Imaging To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Upfront Ventures About: We invest primary in the US but have a 20-year history of funding companies in Europe. Our managing partners (Yves Sisteron & Mark Suster) are both dual citizens of France & UK respectively. Location: Santa Monica, CA Check size: $1M – $20M Recent Investments: Bevy, Ynsect, Rally To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> SignalFire About: We use humans and technology for the hardest parts of building a company at every stage — recruiting, expert advice, and a corporate network. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $500k – $4M Recent Investments: PlanetScale, Stampli, Ro To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> CRV About: CRV has been a leading investor in early-stage technology companies for almost half a century, backing nearly 400 startups in its history. Location: Palo Alto, CA Check size: $1M – $25M Recent Investments: Cord, Postman, Tribe To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Acceleprise About: Acceleprise invests in early-stage B2B SaaS and enterprise technology companies and unifies the global technology community through mentors. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $50k – $1M To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Floodgate Ventures About: Floodgate backs the top .1% Founders before the rest of the world believes in their movements. Location: Palo Alto, CA Check size: $1M – $10M Recent Investments: Almanac, Around, IRL To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Obvious Ventures About: Obvious Ventures brings experience, capital, and focus to startups combining profit and purpose for a better world. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $250k – $6M Recent Investments: Dexterity, One, SINAI Technologies To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Switch Ventures About: A community of talented founders who switched from the common path. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $50k – $5M Recent Investments: Mode Analytics, Luxury Presence To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Wing About: Wing is a purpose-built venture capital firm founded by two industry veterans with a different perspective on what it takes to create enduring companies. Location: Menlo Park, CA Recent Investments: Lumigo, Drop Capital, Around To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Arthur Ventures About: Arthur Ventures invests in early-stage B2B software companies located outside Silicon Valley. Location: Minneapolis, MN Check size: $1M – $10M Recent Investments: Athennian, Stream, Cybrary To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Homebrew About: Homebrew provides seed-stage fund and operational expertise for entrepreneurs building the bottom-up economy. Location: San Francisco, CA Check size: $750k – $2M Recent Investments: Canopy Servicing, Z1, Orum To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Connetic Ventures About: Connetic is reinventing the VC industry by turning tables on intuition and biases to a more data-driven approach. Location: Covington, KY Check size: $100k – $800k Recent Investments: TCare To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> High Alpha About: High Alpha creates and funds companies through a new model for entrepreneurship that unites company building and venture capital. Location: Indianapolis, IN Check size: $1M – $3M Recent Investments: SINAI Technologies, Encamp, Rheaply To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> M25 About: Early-stage VC investing in startups headquartered in the Midwest across a wide variety of industries. Location: Chicago, IL Check size: $250k – $500k Recent Investments: Blumira, Breeze, Cashdrop To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Europe SaaS Seed VC Firms Startup Wise Guys About: Startup Wise Guys is the leading B2B startup accelerator in Europe. Location: Tallinn, Harjumaaa, Estonia Check size: $20k – $270k Recent Investments: Vochi To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> NDRC About: NDRC is a business that transforms entrepreneurial teams and ideas into startups with early investment and research help. Location: Dublin, Ireland Check size: $135k – $500k To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Newfund Capital About: Newfund is an entrepreneurial VC firm focused on early-stage investments in France and the United States. Location: Paris, France Check size: $300k – $1.5M Recent Investments: FairMoney To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Peak Capital About: Peak Capital is an Amsterdam-based venture capital firm. Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Recent Investments: Route To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Notion Capital About: Notion is a London-based venture fund focused on the SaaS-based and cloud computing markets. Location: London, UK Check size: $1M – $7.5M Recent Investments: Admix, Fiberplane, Dixa To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Act Venture Capital About: Act is a VC firm focused on the most promising technology companies. Location: Dublin, Ireland Recent Investments: Umba, Provizio, Buymie To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Portugal Ventures About: Portugal Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in seed rounds of Portuguese startups in tech, life sciences, and tourism. Location: Porto, Portugal Check size: $57k – $1.7M Recent Investments: Jscrambler, DefinedCrowd To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Main Incubator About: Main Incubator is an accelerator that in fintech startups and provides seed and Series A investments. Location: Frankfurt, Germany To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Frontline About: Frontline Seed is a fund for early-stage businesses with global ambitions. Location: London, UK Recent Investments: Koyo, Localyze, Qualio To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Asia & Australia SaaS Seed VC Firms Jungle Ventures About: Jungle Ventures is a Singapore-based Venture Capital Firm that invests in and helps build tech category leaders from Asia. Location: Singapore Check size: $1M – $50M Recent Investments: Evermos, KiotViet, Dat Bike To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Right Click Capital About: Right Click Capital is a venture capital firm backing ambitious tech startups in Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia. Location: Sydney, Australia Check size: $100k – $20M Recent Investments: Beam, Qwilr, Myriota To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Qualgro VC About: Qualgro Venture Capital invests in B2B technology startups in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, at Series A and Series B. Location: Singapore Check size: $1M – $20M Recent Investments: ErudiFi To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Speciale Invest About: Speciale Invest is an early-stage investor focusing on Tech-driven/Deep-tech ventures. Location: Bengaluru, India Check size: $100k – $1M To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Strive VC About: We will help each ambition come true through aggressive hands-on accumulation that embraces the entrepreneurial desires. Location: Tokyo, Japan Recent Investments: Raena, Hasura, BeaTrust To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> South America SaaS Seed VC Firms NXTP Ventures About: NXTP Ventures backs early-stage technology companies led by extraordinary entrepreneurs throughout Latin America. Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina Recent Investments: VU To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Monashees About: A Brazilian venture capital firm active globally that invests in entrepreneurs committed to creating innovative solutions for a new world. Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil Recent Investments: Flieber, Yaydoo, Pipo Saude To learn more, view their Visible Connect Profile >>> Related Resource: 7 Prominent Venture Capital Firms in Brazil How to Find More Active Seed Stage Investors As the venture landscape continues to shift, seed and pre-seed rounds are starting to become standard. This means that there are more funding options for more startups. The investors above are all venture capital firms but funding options go beyond VC for startups: Angel Investors — Like venture capitalists, angel investors buy equity in startups. An angel investor is generally a wealthy individual who is looking to invest spare cash in an alternative investment. As we wrote in our post, How to Effectively Find + Secure Angel Investors for Your Startup, “This means that an angel investor may have alternative motives (personal interest in the problem, product, founders, etc.) whereas a venture capital firm is focusing on maximizing their returns.” Friends & Family — When raising capital from friends and family, it is incredibly important to be transparent during the process. Early stage companies are generally a very risky investment and can lead to a loss of capital. Consider who has expendable income in your immediate network when reaching out. Crowdfunding — Over the last few years, crowdfunding has become a more popular way to raise equity financing. As the team at Republic defines it, ‘Crowdfunding is a way to raise money from a large number of people. Large groups of people pool together small individual investments to provide the capital needed to get a company or project off the ground. Individuals, charities or companies can create a campaign for specific causes and anyone can contribute.” Related Reading: 6 Types of Investors Startup Founders Need to Know About You can use Visible Connect to filter and discover new investors for your SaaS business. Check out all of the seed stage investors in Visible Connect here. Perfect Your Seed Round Pitch With This Slide Deck Once you find your target investors and kickoff your raise, you will likely need a well-prepared pitch deck to share with investors. As we wrote in Our Favorite Seed Round Pitch Deck Template, “there are certain expectations for an early-stage/seed-stage startup to present in their pitch deck. Founders should tailor and adjust their pitch based on who they’re reaching out to, but great seed round pitches come down to a few core things: a succinct but exciting story, an exceptional team, product potential or traction, and a growth plan.” Learn more about building a great seed round pitch deck here. Streamline Your Seed-Stage Fundraising Process With Visible Finding investors for the top of your fundraising funnel is only half the battle. Use Visible to find investors, share your pitch deck, and track the progress of your raise. Give Visible a free try for 14 days here.

Digital Currency Group Monthly Update Template With the price of Bitcoin surging and digital currencies taking center stage on major news networks many companies in the space are having difficulties separating their growth with industry growth. Our friends at Digital Currency Group are one of leaders in the digital currency/blockchain space. Their portfolio of companies has accounted for an impressive 70% of industry funding to date. As the industry continues to grow the team at DCG put together an investor update template for their portfolio companies to use. With the appeal of blockchain/digital currencies at an all time high the template is aimed to allow founders to separate their success from that of the entire industry. At DCG, as investors and company builders, our skill is our ability to recognize patterns. Without clear data and insight, it’s very difficult for us to guide and support our companies. More importantly, the old adage, “top of mind, tip of tongue” certainly holds true. The more companies share with us, the more we are able to support them, and the more we can tell everyone in our network about the great things they’re building. – Meltem Demirors in “The Next Round: How to Build Growth Stories with Data” The DCG Template below is broken into 7 sections that give investors the information needed to help companies as much as possible. In addition to the 7 sections DCG offers 3 key points for sharing information with investors and stakeholders: Keep it simple and short – bullet points are easy to read Be extremely specific Include charts where you can Check out the DCG Template Here >>>

There is quite a bit of controversy over when and how to send your pitch deck to potential investors. Some investors will tell you to send the pitch deck as soon as possible, others will say send a teaser deck, and some will say wait until you have a meeting with partners to send your pitch deck. No matter how you decide to send your pitch deck, we’ve laid out a template for sharing your pitch deck for when you’re ready.

An Investor Update Email Template for Potential Investors Often regarded as a periodical duty, fundraising can often get buried behind day to day tasks of a CEO. By treating fundraising as a recurring task, you’ll be able to stay on top of your fundraising at all times while keeping potential investors engaged. Jason Lemkin often compares fundraising to a sales funnel and lays out the following 3 duties: Meet as many good, new VCs and investors to the top of the funnel as you can, every week, every month, every quarter; Nurture those VCs over time, so when the time comes to raise another round, some of the prospects are pretty far down the path of wanting to invest; and Make sure your existing investors are your champions. That they are singing your praises. With endless amounts of content for updating current investors and finding potential investors we wanted to see how we can help with, “Nurturing those VCs over time“. By sending over a quick email on a monthly basis to potential investors you’ll be able to build a relationship and pique their interest when it comes time to fundraise. How exactly do you keep potential investors engaged? We have found it best to send out a short update on the state of the business and industry. Share a promising metric or two showing strong growth in the business and any significant wins/improvements. If possible, address any concerns with the industry, team, product, etc. that you have discussed in the past with numbers. Hundreds of emails land in investor’s inboxes so be sure to include a quick snippet of what your company does and any personal notes. By committing to future fundraising efforts now, you will save countless hours when you are ready down the road. You can find our Update template for nurturing potential investors below. As always, If you’d like us to drop the template into your Visible account feel free to shoot us a message to support@visible.vc and we would be happy to do so.

By now, it’s obvious to most experts: the Series A crunch is a reality and a burden on many founders in need of a capital boost. The boom in seed funding and the stagnation in Series A funding has created greater competition when founders return for the next round. Quick and easy results can set false expectations—especially for first-time founders—for just how hard it might be to succeed in future fundraising efforts. Couple this distorted view with the false belief that startups are getting cheaper and a cash-strapped business could be cooking up a recipe for disaster. Is it any wonder then that about two-thirds of startups fail to raise a Series A round? To best prepare for your future round, consider the following tips to stand out from the competition: Prepare strong unit economics early If seed rounds are more about inspiration, Series A rounds are closer to an interrogation. You’re no longer able to coast on an ambitious vision and a smart team to get a deal done. As a founder, it’s essential to provide proof that your unit economics are working and the model will work at scale once the business receives its next capital infusion. Being able to share your current customer acquisition costs and lifetime value and demonstrate how those numbers have tracked over time will earn you an advantage over many of your Series A startup competitors. You’re placed with the burden of proving your model is solid, so start financial planning early so you’re not surprised when you’re hit with questions about metrics when it’s time to raise. Get investors interested before you raise If you’re ready to raise a Series A but you haven’t established any relationships with VCs that can make it happen, it could be too late. You may have outlined a strong path for scaling your business, but it’ll tough to earn attention quickly unless you’re already on an investor’s radar. Take informal meetings regularly when you’re not fundraising. Share your story with investors before you ever start looking for Series A cash. Partners and associates at VC firms are hunting for their next deal. Don’t hesitate to reach out to them directly if you feel your business isn’t getting the attention it deserves after its seed round. By familiarizing VCs with your offering, you could be lining up potential suitors if the time is right. Just make sure to preface each meeting as an informal “informational” session, so they know you’re not looking to raise already. Call on your angels Your current crop of angel investors should be able to connect you to eager VC firms if you have trouble drumming up interest on your own. Rely on their network as much as yours. Founders who don't update investors on their progress & problems never engage their biggest supporters — & fail 95% of the time. #realtalk — jason ? ?? ❤️ (@Jason) October 30, 2016 But don’t just keep your investor’s Series A responsibilities to introductions. Make sure your regular updates provide an opportunity for investor to challenge your company’s metrics and help you reach important milestones that will make your business an attractive target when it comes to the Series A round. Your monthly and quarterly updates can serve as a vetting exercise that prepares you for the investors you don’t have yet. As Jason Calacanis tweeted recently, “Founders who don’t update investors on their progress & problems never engage their biggest supporters — & fail 95% of the time.” Maintain proper expectations Many investors caution against aiming your sights too high early. This could set you up for failure in the future. “A simple piece of advice: It’s much easier to increase a round size than to decrease it,” Josh Kopelman wrote. Setting a fundraising amount at $10 million and subsequently reducing the round to $5 million will send a signal to investors that something isn’t right with your company and could quickly cool their interest. Unfortunately, too many founders worry about what other companies are raising instead of focusing on what their business truly needs and determining with their investors’ advice the right number to go after. Losing ideal terms on improper expectations is an unforced error. Set a timeline and stick to it Attracting interest from investors doesn’t mean raising money on their timeline. It’s their job to spot the next great startup and get in on deals early in the process to wedge out their own competitors. As a result, investors will often pressure founders (with their kindness, of course) to meet before they start an official fundraising process. Not only can that decrease their competition, but it likely puts them in a position for the most VC-friendly deal. Don’t let it happen. Talking terms before you need the cash can compromise your business, as your company may not have earned enough traction to receive the offer you’ll ultimately deserve when the time is right to raise. In fact, not only should you delay serious fundraising conversations until you’re ready for term sheets, you should be thinking of creating greater time restrictions as well. When you’re ready to raise your Series A, set a firm deadline for the process so investors know how long they have to secure a deal and that you’re serious about getting it done quickly. Meet with all interested parties (if possible with your schedule) over a two-to-three week period and schedule second meetings quickly after. It’s not an unreasonable ask, nor will your deadline be arbitrary. The business got where it is today because you worked on the business instead of spending unnecessary amounts of time on fundraising. You don’t need to have flexible timeline. Plus, if you’ve driven enough interest in your company, adding a time restraint will increase the competitive atmosphere in the round and provide you better leverage in the process. Get them to agree the timeline if they are interested in moving forward in the process. Prove that now is the time If you can demonstrate strong unit economics, have the right amount of interest and a solid timeline, now it’s back to the basics: painting a picture of future success. Fundraising will always mix a little art into the science. In order to demonstrate that your startup is at an inflection point and ready for major scale, share your vision for how your startup will continue to grow in the market over time. Share examples of how your software has become an invaluable tool that’s saved your clients 10x what they paid. Lay out a plan that gets investors excited that you’re well on your way to hitting future milestones. In a Series A round, these intangibles won’t be worth more than hard metrics, but don’t forget that you’re adding members to your team when attracting investors. Part of closing any deal will always rely on convincing them that they should bet on you.

By now, most startup founders are exhausted by the seemingly endless talk of a tech bubble and the inevitable wave of destruction that never seems to arrive. It may not be time to hit the panic button, but the ever-present buzz around bubbles provides a reminder that any business built without a strong foundation will be (and has always been) vulnerable as the favorable tides turn. What Is Unit Economics for Startups? A Crash Course Eventually, all the delusions of grandeur you may have developed around your startup must be tested with a real financial model that’s easy to communicate to your investors. Sure, in the early days, you can attract capital by telling ambitious, untested stories of rapid growth and high margins. But when the rubber meets the road, the success of your business can’t be dependent on a series of hypothetical. Instead, you need to satisfy investors with an easy-to-explain model that demonstrates a formula for growth. That starts with a grasp on your company’s unit economics. Unit economics are the foundation that sustains your business as it scales. If you understand your unit economics, you understand what needs to happen and what needs attention in your business in order to hit your goals. This is essential when it becomes necessary to determine how much you can invest in the business to get an expected return. With positive unit economics, you’ll develop your projected return on investment and also make forecasting easier in the future. No matter what stage your business is in, you need the following basics: How much direct revenue is coming in? What are the costs associated with the business? What’s our unit of measurement? (one customer per unit for SaaS companies) Then you can begin to paint a picture for your investors of your company’s customer acquisition efforts and lifetime value projections that hopefully provide a high margin return on their investment. Triple-digit revenue growth is meaningless if you’re not providing a path to earn real margins on the customers you are acquiring. As Sam Altman notes, many of the poorly constructed startups he sees today rely on wild assumptions untied from traditional unit economics considerations: infinite customer retention projections, an implausible reduction in labor costs or a highly doubtful steep drop in the cost to acquire users. “Most great companies historically have had good unit economics soon after they began monetizing, even if the company as a whole lost money for a long period of time,” Altman said. Related Resource: Our Ultimate Guide to SaaS Metrics What are the Components of the Unit Economics? To best track and understand your unit economics you need to understand the individual components. Learn more about the components that are used to calculate and influence your unit economics below: The Unit Depending on your business model, how you classify a “unit” might differ. For a software company, this could be one customer. For a company selling a physical product, this could be one product. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) A crucial aspect of your unit economics is understanding the value of a single customer. LTV is simply the lifetime value of one customer (or average order value (AOV) for an ecommerce store). This not only helps inform your unit economics but can help teams develop go-to-market strategies and product decisions. As an example for a startup company, let’s say their customer’s lifetime is on average 22 months and they pay $100 a month. That would be a lifetime value of $2,200. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) As we wrote in our guide, Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): A Critical Metrics for Founders, “CAC is the sum total of the amount that it takes your business to acquire a customer, including time from your sales representatives and marketing and advertising expenses.” Customer acquisition is important when calculating your unit economics because you need to understand what it to takes to acquire a customer. Related Resource: Customer Acquisition Cost: A Critical Metrics for Founders Lifetime Value (LTV) vs. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) In order to better understand your acquisition efforts, you can calculate your LTV:CAC ratio. As we put in our guide on LTV:CAC ratio, “to make your cost to acquire is worth the lifetime value of the customer, it’s helpful to check the ratio between both. LTV:CAC ratio measures the cost of acquiring a customer to the lifetime value. An ideal LTV:CAC ratio is 3 (your customer’s lifetime value should be 3x the cost to acquire them). “ Customer Payback Customer payback period is exactly what it sounds like – the amount of time it takes to payback the acquisition of a new customer. For example, let’s say it costs a company $500 on average to acquire a new customer and they pay $100 a month on average. That would be a payback period of 5 months ($500 CAC/$100 MRR). Note: This is the simplest form of calculating a payback period — there are formulas that take into account gross margins. Churn Rate According to Investopedia, “churn rate is the annual percentage rate at which customers stop subscribing to a service or employees leave a job.” Churn rate influences your lifetime value which in turn influences your unit economics. If you can improve churn, you’ll be able to improve your unit economics. Retention Rate Going hand in hand with churn rate is retention rate. Being able to retain and grow your existing customer base is a surefire way to improve every aspect of the economics around your business. What is the Most Important Aspect of Unit Economics? Your business model will dictate the different components and aspects of your unit economics. However, the most important aspects will boil down to how your business and acquisition model scales. Unit economics for certain business models may make sense from day 1 — for example, if you are going after large contract sizes and building a custom solution. On the flip side, there are models that will take years to make sense — for example, if you have a smaller margin business that requires massive scale and customers. No matter how you slice it and dice it, investors want to understand that your business has the ability to turn to profitability and grow efficiently with the product and acquisition efforts you have in place. How To Calculate Unit Economics for Your Business Now that we understand what unit economics are and why they matter to your business. We need to find a way to calculate and track them specific to your business. Method 1: Defining the Unit as One Item Sold Calculating your unit economics based on a single item is sold is very straightforward. You simply take the revenue per unit and subtract the costs to sell 1 unit. Method 2: Defining the Unit as One Customer When calculating the unit economics for one customer (or one software user). You use the customer acquisition cost and lifetime value metrics we mentioned above. You can use the LTV:CAC ratio to understand this relationship or subtract your CAC from LTV to understand the profitability of a single customer. Example Unit Economics Table Here’s a sample model we developed that helps you demonstrate your company’s financials. Below, you can see the secondary performance indicators to include to develop a wider look at your company’s unit economics: Scenario A Average Contract Value (ACV) $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 Gross Margin 85% 85% 85% 85% 85% 85% 85% Gross Profit $4,250 $4,250 $4,250 $4,250 $4,250 $4,250 $4,250 Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) $14,286 $14,286 $14,286 $14,286 $14,286 $14,286 $14,286 Sum of all Sales & Marketing Expenses $500,000 $500,000 $500,000 $500,000 $500,000 $500,000 $500,000 Number of New Customer Added 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 Churn Rate 8% 8% 8% 8% 8% 8% 8% Expansion Rate 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Lifetime Value (LTV) $53,125 $53,125 $53,125 $53,125 $53,125 $53,125 $53,12 It’s wise to have this level of detail available to investors in your regular updates. With a model like this you can help answer some of the most pressing questions facing your startup: Are you maximizing retention rates to justify the cost to acquire? Are you delivering the expected conversion rate on the money you’re spending to attract new leads? Is the revenue per user outpacing the cost to serve? As your business scales, are you seeing an expected decline in churn rate? Why Should Startups Use Unit Economics? Having a clear vision and path to profitability is a must for any startup. At the end of the day, if a startup fails to be able to pull a lever to generate profit, it will cease to exist. Learn more about why you should track and monitor your unit economics below: Identify Obstacles to Profitability Early? As we previously mentioned, solid unit economics is the path to profitability. By modeling your unit economics in the early days you’ll be able to paint a picture of your potential for profitability. If your model and plans aren’t demonstrating what you’d like to see down the road you’ll be able to identify obstacles and focus on those in order to achieve profitability. Evaluate Potential Strategies As we mentioned in our previous point if your unit economics are not demonstrating a clear path to profitability it might be time to tweak your strategy. By identifying the weak components of your unit economics you’ll be able to inform strategy for the coming months, quarters, years, etc. For example, if you find that you are spending too much to acquire new customers, you’ll want to focus on bringing that number down. Analyze and Update Financial Model As we wrote in our blog, Building A Startup Financial Model That Works, “No matter who you are talking to – team members, investors, potential investors – company storytelling doesn’t stop, it simply changes contexts and mediums. A financial model is one of those mediums through which your company can tell its story, even without the operational history one might assume would be necessary to persuade investors or make smart decisions about the direction of the business.” Unit economics will certainly play a role in this direction. By manipulating your unit economics, your financial story will need to be changed and updated as you seek capital from potential investors. The Importance of Good Unit Economics for Startups Unit economics are the lifeblood of a business. Without a scalable and profitable way to acquire customers, a business will cease to exist. In order to improve your unit economics, you need to keep an eye on and track your efforts. Check out a few examples below: Raising Venture Capital The strength of your unit economics will be one of the key competitive advantages in a venture capital market that many predict will toughen considerably as the cost of that will toughen considerably for founders over the next 5-10 years. “The question that will immediately follow, ‘What is your annual growth rate?’ will be ‘What are your unit economics?’” Tomasz Tunguz predicted. “This change in investor mentality is catalyzed by the increasing cost of startup capital.” It’s not going to get any cheaper to run your startup or raise serious capital to keep things going. And if you’re earning low-margins, face a high-level of competition and are looking out on a short runway, your financials won’t inspire confidence in your investors. On the other hand, if you have racking up short-term loses on customer acquisition, but can clearly demonstrate your customer payback period and lifetime value, you’ll be an attractive target for investment. Learn more about raising capital in our guide, The Understandable Guide to Startup Funding Stages. Acquisition Improvements Tracking your unit economics forces you to keep an eye on your acquisition efforts and go-to-market strategies. If you launch a new acquisition campaign and begin to see your CAC is on the rise — it might be time to evaluate and tweak your new acquisition model. Keeping tabs on your acquisition efforts is a surefire way to grow your business. Growing & Scaling As we mentioned above, tracking your acquisition efforts is a great way to grow your business. By doing so, you’ll be able to understand what channels work best. You’ll be able to invest in the channels that work best so you can grow your company in an efficient manner. Track Your Key Metrics with Visible Markets fluctuate and conditions will better and worsen as your time goes on. But with a strong approach to unit economics, you are making responsible choices and setting yourself up to easily handle investor communication. It might not be the sexiest approach to drawing interest from top venture capitalists, but it’s a solid foundation that helps you build any kind of business. Raise capital, send updates and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days.

It’s an endless debate: product, market or team. Which matters most? That depends on whom you ask. The beauty of this startup conundrum is often in the eye of the beholder VC. Even the most prominent firms rooted on Sand Hill Road can’t agree on what matters most in funding decisions. “The difference between venture firms in a lot of ways is how they rank the importance of market, product and team,” Marc Andreessen said. To better understand why, we took a look at the reasons given from a few notable groups. Product There may be no better advocate for the creation of the undeniable, unbeatable product than the “Competition is For Losers” spouting investor Peter Thiel. The Paypal co-founder and famed Silicon Valley contrarian even developed a seven-part test to determine if a founder’s new technology meets his criteria to make a bet on its success. Is your team good enough? They’ll pass the test. Is your market big enough? Who cares—create a new one if it isn’t. Thiel argues good innovation sells itself. “If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good enough.” He wrote in Zero to One. “Technology is primarily about product development, not distribution.” The Founder’s Fund, which Thiel co-founded, has a longer manifesto here that explains in greater detail their investment philosophy on startups. Market Don Valentine keeps his philosophy simple: “great markets make great companies.” Dubbed the “Grandfather of Silicon Valley,” Valentine, who founded Sequoia Capital, famously fired Sandy Learner and Leonard Bosack, the co-founders of Cisco Systems, from the company they started and the technology they built. Without its founders, Cisco continued to succeed under the leadership of professional CEO John Morgridge. “I like opportunities that are addressing markets so big that even the management team can’t get in its way,” Valentine said. People can be hard. Benefitting from a rapidly growing market can be easier. In a remarkable talk (below) with the Stanford Graduate School of Business (unsubtlety titled “Target Big Markets”), Valentine explains how Sequoia Capital is most often interested in markets already populated by a few products. “We were not interested in creating markets. It’s too expensive. We were interested in exploiting markets early.” Team Marc Andreessen is acutely aware of the inherent absurdity in startup investing, where having 15 of 30 investments succeed —a batting average that would sicken hedge fund managers—can make for a dynamite portfolio. No matter what’s prioritized: market, product or team, Andreessen is under no illusion that growing a company is easy. “The default setting of every startup is dying in obscurity.” But if someone is going to solve big problems, Andreessen wants invest in the person doing it. On a recent podcast, Andreessen explains that team is makes the most sense of the three to back: “We struggle from a distance to evaluate market, he said. “And we also actually struggle to evaluate product. But if you can get yourself in business with really good people, I think number one: if it works it’s great, because those are really good people to be in business with and they, with you, can build something great. But even if it doesn’t work—if it’s the wrong market or the wrong product—you’ll still learn so much working with the right people and you’ll build such a valuable network for what you do next.” It’s wise to do reconnaissance on the investors you’re going to pitch to find out which matters most to them. The answer may not jive with what makes your company is great, but even in the worst of circumstances, you’ll understand why you’re getting told “no.”

Drip Campaigns for Investor Relations One of the most difficult parts of fundraising is getting your foot in the door with an investor. Grasping their attention is key and receiving an invite for a meeting has an extremely low success rate. Anyone who has ever raised capital knows that it is not something you complete as a weekly sprint, and that it can take months from start, to term sheet, to finally spending that money on some well deserved office beers. At Visible, our initial success has been with stakeholder and investor reporting; all the details and data after you received funding. As we continued to grow and build new features and tools, we built Visible to be used throughout the entire process of investor backed companies; from sending out initial pitches, full on pitch decks, and investor reporting after investment. I want to share a few things that we have learned, both from Visible, founders, and investors about pitch decks and fundraising. We put this into an eBook so that you can always keep it with you and easily share with others. Here are a couple excerpts… Pitch Decks Are Resumes: Make Yours Targeted If your metrics are akin to a resume then what is your cover letter? How are you and your company effectively telling your story in a succinct way that matters? Drip Your Way to Success Every conversation you have with a stakeholder is your chance to plot a dot in time. Have enough dots, create a trend. Have a trend (ideally a good one) and your fundraising process will be tight, clean and efficient. Interested in checking out the entire eBook? Click below to get your own copy of how to easily and effectively start your next fundraise. Get access to your copy of Visible’s Solution to Pitch Decks here (no email required)! Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days.