Financing Your Idea Charlie Kiser Chief Reality Officer SellStrategy Consulting

Summary Cycle of Fund Raising Types of Fundable Businesses Who are the Investors? Trends In Early Stage Financing State Initiatives How do I get started? Startup Resources

Cycle of Fund Raising Bootstrap – Self Funded $5-50K Friends and Family - $25-100K Seed Stage/Angel Investors - $50-250K Incubator/Accelerator $25-50K A Round Venture Capital – $300-2mm B Round/Follow On Venture Syndicate - $2mm-5mm C Round $10mm-50mm, (Revolution) Exit – IPO, Acquisition

Types of Fundable Businesses Disruptive ideas that address a scalable market and have global impact or reach Ideas that challenge existing structure that has been resistant to change Health IT, Education, Policy/Politics, Cloud Big Data, Security NOT Fundable – Lifestyle Business- Salon, Retail, Coffee Shop, Food Truck, Services, Staffing.

Who are the Investors? Angel Investors Interested in Ideas they are familiar with Like to Invest where they also add value Often have sold business but are in holding pattern Will come in after Lead Investor has issued term sheet Where are they? Dingman Center, Pitch Events, Tech Meetups etc.

Who are the Investors? Incubator/Accelerator Offer mentorship and hands on assistance Provide $25-50K in exchange for < 10% stake in business Require a 2-6 month commitment on site Some fee for space usage Work to help build team and get traction Promote to other VCs Good for inexperienced startups Acceleprise, Fishbowl Labs, The Fort, 1776

Who are the Investors? Venture Capital Interested in Team, Product and Market Want to be the first mover Work with other VCs to arrange syndicate Offer first Valuation of your business Grotech, CORE, Revolution, In-Q-Tel, Valhalla, New Markets, NEA

Trends In Early Stage Financing Traditional Venture Cap is changing Angel Investors taking larger roles Cost of development is shrinking JOBS Act opening door to crowdfunding, general solicitation and potential access to public markets Incubator/Accelerator Overload

State Initiatives CIT Gap Funds- State Initiative funding VA based startups- Act as Angel and VC Jennifer Daniels InvestMaryland Raised $84 MM for MD based startups. Leveraging VCs and state agencies to disperse funds

How do I get started? Exercise your Idea Develop prototype product or service Find initial traction – Ties for Rent ITERATE Share your idea- harness the human cloud Pitch Quit your job, commit and dont look back!

Resources - Adam Zuckerman Dc Tech Meetup – Peter Corbett Tech Cocktail tech.co – Frank Gruber TechCrunch Mashable Angel.co, AngeList Paul Singh, Jonathon Perrelli, Evan Burfield, Glen Hellman

Charlie