If you're thinking about raising funds from angels or venture capital, this section has tools to help you prepare your materials and your presentation. It also has several searchable lists of investors that you can use to target your outreach, and standard forms for typical investments that you can use as a reference.
A plain English overview of investment term sheets; why they exist, what they contain, and how to use them.
A series of revenue, growth, fundraise size, and valuation benchmarks based on Founder Institute’s survey data.
A research-backed reference for developing your early-stage pitch deck. Includes templates in PPT and Google Slide format.
A very comprehensive overview of the start of startup fundraising as of 2022. Includes a breakdown of differences in pitch decks for successful companies (those that completed their fundraise) vs those who didn’t.
An overview of how and why to raise a friends & family round as your first fundraise.
An excellent overview of revenue-based financing - what it is, why it can be a better source of working capital than venture or debt financing, and some guidelines for when it makes sense for your company vs. when it’s not a good fit.
An Airtable of 300 investors who do not require (or explicitly refuse) warm intros. Note that no contact info is provided but you can get them through twitter DM or find their email with hunter.io .
A list of nearly 600 female-identifying active angel investors. Curated by Lolita Taub.
A fundraising network that matches companies with individual angels and angel syndicates. An excellent resource for pre-seed and seed-stage companies to identify potential investors.
If you plan to raise funds from investors you’ll need two separate slide decks; an investor/teaser deck and a pitch deck. This template from 500 Startups is a good baseline for your investor/teaser deck. The PDF version is free, but you’ll need a paid Slidebean account to get an editable version.
A detailed guide from Alpaca.vc on how to craft an announcement about your fundraising round to maximize press coverage.
A public database of over 450 SaaS company valuations, including company name, revenue, type of valuation (funding round, M&A, etc), and revenue at time of valuation. Curated by the team at https://founderpath.com/products/valuations
Short (<2minute) video clips from VCs from firms like Sequoia, First Round, Upfront, and Greylock about how they evaluate pitches, companies, markets, and more.
A meta-blog-post from Mark Suster with some practical advice before you start your fundraise, including links to other posts on the subject.
A DIY tool for startups to build Investor portals. Include information on the team, key metrics, your current investor deck, links to existing investors, and more.
A list of VC funds from emerging fund managers. Exclusively lists VCs whose fund is under $100MM and primarily focus on checks under $4MM.
Investor lists by stage (seed, A, B), sector focus, and location. Most investors list funding range and sweet spot for check size.
A twitter thread with a few best practices and things to consider before you cold-email an investor with your pitch. Tweets by Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund.
A web application that allows you to search for Angel Investors that match your criteria of interest.
A Google Sheet with contact info and typical check size for hundreds of Angel Investors. This is crowd-sourced and entries are not vetted.
A list of Gen Z VCs. If your product is aimed at younger audiences, it may be an easier 'sell' with younger VCs
A comprehensive and up-to-date list of 750 VC funds that make seed-stage investments, including the sectors they focus on.
A very thorough set of best practices and tips for presenting your startup to potential investors. From Stripe Atlas and Y Combinator.
Having trouble getting started with a pitch deck? Try writing out answers to these questions first.
Guided pitch practice questions that can help you address weaknesses in your pitch.
Free self-assessment tool to help you determine whether you are in a position to raise venture funds. Very detailed and helpful categories and ratings. Note that the form asks for registration but if you prefer not to be added to mailing lists you can enter fake data during registration.
Guideline for startup technical due diligence. Useful for founders and for potential acquirers.
Free presentation themes and infographics, mainly targeted at PowerPoint & Google Slides users but can be helpful inspiration for any presentation.
A searchable database of VCs by thesis - sector, check size, series, etc.
700+ pitch decks categorized by funding raised, industry, and funding round. Also includes decks used to raise grant funding, crowdfunding, and debt financing.
Website with information about early-stage companies including investments and executives. Monthly and annual subscriptions available, but beware this is an expensive service. The free tier may be enough for most early-stage companies.
Website with information about early-stage companies including investments and executives. Monthly and annual subscriptions available, but beware this is an expensive service. The free tier may be enough for most early-stage companies.
YCombinator benchmarks for raising a Series A
100+ templates that can be themed. Imports directly to PPT, Google, and Keynote
Powerpoint alternative for pitch desks and other presentations
Free term sheet generator. Incorporates best practices. Still needs legal review.
Self-evaluation tool that gives founders some idea of what VCs will ask in technical due diligence
Sample forms used by Foundry Group when investing. Useful for review of common terms or as a starting point for negotiating.
Free, registration required. This calculator helps early-stage founders plan for SAFE and Convertible Note financings by modeling the impact of their conversion in a future priced round. Built using common market terms, but the terms of your financing may be different.
Track files you share externally. Useful for investor management as part of a fundraise or for salespeople to work with enterprise customers.
A comprehensive playbook on raising a Series A round, from Alpaca VC
An overview of the differences between pre-money and post-money SAFEs and how they can impact your startup fundraising.
An article by Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund about how to think about fundraising. Have 4 plans for your business: * What if you can't raise any money? * What if you raise under your goal * What if you hit your goal * What if you exceed your fundraising goal
McKeever Conwell discusses tips, tricks, and best practices for sending cold emails. A useful video for both sales and fundraising.
1200 Pitch Decks from well-known companies, categorized and searchable.
Free searchable list of active angel investors, compiled and maintained by First Round Capital.
An excellent overview of processes for small businesses to raise capital, including a detailed description of options for raising capital under various SEC exemptions.
A very comprehensive guide from Elizabeth Yin (GP at Hustle Fund) on raising a Seed Round.
A basic spreadsheet you can use to help organize your pre-seed or seed fundraise, from Elizabeth Yin (GP at Hustle Fund). Instructions for how to use it at https://twitter.com/dunkhippo33/status/1387175910453907460
A ‘list of lists’ curated by OpenVC.app . It contains pointers to 23+ databases of active investors that you can use to target your fundraise.
A set of 40+ questions you’re likely to be asked by VCs in a pitch meeting, delivered flashcard-style with the question printed and an option to flip the card and see hints for how to answer.
A Google Sheet to help VC-backed companies plan out scenarios around fundraising. You enter the equity allocations for founders, staff, advisors, and amount raised or percentage diluted in up to four fundraising rounds, and the spreadsheet will show you exit outcomes.
Based on a spreadsheet tracker by Elizabeth Yin, you can use this to keep track of your investor outreach and progress while you raise VC money.
A thorough overview of how to write an investor intro email, with examples and a template.
A brief but effective example of a forwardable investor intro email, written by Tristan Pollack. This is a good template to use when you’re asking someone in your network to send an email to an investor on your behalf.
A twitter thread from Warren Schaeffer with best practices for leveraging your network to get connections to investors.