Venture Capital Presentation

When a business is attempting to raise capital with a venture capital presentation, it is extremely important to know the following.

Venture Capital (VC) is where an investing company provides capital in the form of equity to a business that has the potential to create sizeable profits at a relatively rapid pace. Venture Capital Companies may consist of a handful of individual investors, a group with funds coming from multiple sources, or large institutional firms.

Before contacting any Venture Capital Funding Sources

1. Understand that venture capital is not a business loan. It is not debt. It is equity, meaning you will have a firm that is buying a portion of your company and not loaning you money.

2. The venture capitalists are interested in making money and they may require an active role in your business to help ensure they make the returns they want. Are you prepared to have active partners?

3. Most VCs are only interested in investments of $1M or more. If you are looking for smaller amounts of funding for seed money, or other purposes, you will need to pursue another avenue of financing.

4. Learn about the VC firm you intend to contact. What type of investments do they make? What are the personalities of the decision makers? Does your personality and business match theirs?

5. Know that they will be investing with you as a person and a partner and will not be making a decision on sales hype, or solely on financial projections?

6. In order to receive funding the CEO of the company pursuing venture capital will be required to make a short, but dynamic presentation to the venture capitalists. Do you have the ability to provide a passionate and concise presentation that will grab an investor’s interest?

Tips for Preparing Venture Capital Presentation

1. Practice for hours and hours – at home, at the office, in front of unbiased groups, etc. Accept critical feedback, update the presentation, and practice some more. As you practice, anticipate and prepare for a wide variety of questions and objections.

2. You will only have a few seconds at the beginning of your venture capital presentation to really grab their attention. If you don’t, they won’t stay focused on the remainder of your presentation.

3. Deliver a clear and concise message that emphasizes the key issues you want the Venture Capitalists to remember.

4. Have each point build upon the previous point keeping the energy moving forward until the grand finale.

5. The short presentation (maybe 15 minutes) will encapsulate who the company is, who the management team is, what the product/market is, who the customer and the competition are and what are the barriers to other competition, the financial aspects, the funding request, and the use of funds.

6. Provide supporting statements from credible sources that validate your plan.

7. Don’t include any blue sky, or half baked statements.

8. Don’t use industry jargon, or say things in a manner to impress them, but ends up being something that makes they tune out.

9. Don’t deliver a message that is filled with issues, problems they need to solve, or contains errors.

10. Keep their attention focused on you and your concise message and not on a slide show.

11. If you use slides, charts, PowerPoint, etc. in your presentation. Effectively communicate the next point then present the slide that backs up your verbal statement. Don’t show a slide and read it to them.

12. Save the handouts until you are done with the presentation. This will keep their entire focus on listening to your presentation and you will not have them skipping ahead to another page.

13. Be clear and to the point and don’t oversell. They are looking for passion not sales hype.

14. After the venture capital presentation, be prepared with the detailed plan that will provide the information for how you will get from A to Z.

To Your Capital Success,
Brad MacLiver
Specialist in Targeted Acquisitions, Business Funding, and Growth Strategies.