When doling out advice last April, I mentioned that a business should research investors and lenders before seeking funding. Learning in advance what kind and size of deals a funding source is seeking will make it easier to find the best match to meet one's financing objectives.For the average business seeking funding, that's easier said than done. I do it for a living and it can be challenging keeping up with each funding source's particular requirements.
In today's Wall Street Journal, I learned about a new website that can help a business research venture capitalists. Called TheFunded.com, the site allows those seeking funding to read presumably honest feedback provided by over 1,700 entrepreneurs about almost 3,600 sources of venture capital.
In addition to the feedback posted about the venture capital sources, the website provides advice on closing, open letters from entrepreneurs and numerical ratings. There's even a Top 5 list!
The feedback is quite enlightening and entertaining - it can provide some extremely useful information to an entrepreneur which can help them make more effective use of their efforts seeking venture capital.
However, as The Wall Street Journal article points out, there's no accountability. In a situation where probably less than 3% of all deals get funded, there's nothing to keep a spiteful entrepreneur from trashing a venture capitalist simply because their funding request got rejected.
If I were an entrepreneur, I would find the site useful simply because one can search the firms by geography and by funding size. In addition, each fund profile provides a link to their website which can be used to further research the venture capital fund.
This site can be a great supplement to one's search for venture capital. Is anyone working on one for lenders?
Need help finding the right lender or telling your story the right way? Read "Matchmaking for Business Loans" and give me a call!
Related Tags: entrepreneur, venture capital, TheFunded.com, Wall Street Journal
No comments:
Post a Comment