Ship Shape was part of the Emerging Tech Fest 2021 and were given the honour of hosting a panel of talented individuals. Our panellists were Juliette Souliman from MMC Ventures, Nick Sando from Octopus Ventures and Rafe Joseph from the Development Bank of Wales.
As a start-up ourselves, we took the opportunity to ask our expert panel about the importance of finding the right investor.
There was a great turnout of over 100 start-ups, with plenty of questions from the audience. It offered a chance for start-ups to get great answers to burning questions from time-poor investors.
Words from Daniel Sawko, Ship Shape CEO:
“It’s always a real treat to have such experienced investors in the room. Our panellists are individuals who get to see a wide and varied data set of entrepreneurial and investor experiences, it was brilliant to obtain insight from.”
Key Takeaways
Understanding investors is always difficult, but the onus on start-ups doing their research has increased due to a lack of physical networking.
Despite physical and geographic restrictions, smaller businesses from a wide range of geographies are gaining a wider audience and market, traditionally closed investment networks are broadening their reach to find good start-ups further afield.
2. Investors and start-ups should clearly set out their desired vision for the company to ensure alignment.
Investors invest in individuals just as much as the business itself. Therefore, aligning the vision and responsibilities of the business helps provide a clear scope of investment that showcases clarity and confidence, which are important characteristics that lead investors are looking for.
This is even more prominent today as investors cannot physically interact with a startup as they would previously. An office tour, meeting the team and having biscuits and tea in the conference room are no longer common events.
Establishing trust has always been important in the investor startup relationship. An investor must believe in the business but also understand the business. Aligning this understanding provides a uniformed goal that both parties want to achieve, which can deliver excellent results if a strategic investor can clear the path for the business.
There Are Important Behaviours To Look Out For:
What is an investor’s attitude towards good leaver/bad leaver clause?
Are your investors seeking undue preferential treatment (e.g. rights of first refusal)?
Key Tip: When negotiating with prospective investors: Agree both sides will track changes on the term sheet. The above comments are observations only, for deeper understanding you can watch the video.
About Ship Shape Ship Shape Search provides actionable investor intelligence for start-ups, showing them the best individuals to engage with at Venture Capital firms. This saves start-ups many weeks of research and thousands of pounds. Contact Persons Daneil Sawko, CEO Email: daniel@shipshape.vc Bradley Evans, Marketing & PR Email: bradley@shipshape.vc Ship Shape Search: https://app.shipshape.vc/ Ship Shape Search Twitter https://twitter.com/VcShip Ship Shape Search LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/ship-shape-vc/