Raise Your First Fund, a How to With SpringTime Ventures’ Matt Blomstedt
How to Raise your first fund With SpringTime Ventures. A fiifi blog series part 3 of 4
1. Tap into your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree network to cast a wide net when looking for potential investors
2. Set deadlines and create a sense of urgency to quickly build momentum and get LP commitments.
3. Communication is key when fundraising and managing your fund. Even if a lead goes cold
The Right Mentor for the Job
Find mentors that are 1–2 years ahead of you.
With an early stage mentor, ask targeted questions about the specific business challenges and hurdles that you’re experiencing.
Be responsive, engaged, and respectful
How to: Email Entire Cohort, Investments, Sector, Vintage
Making it simple to send messages to entire cohorts, sectors, vintage of fund and investors.
Fiifi has created it’s own mail merge service, making it simple to send to specific group and individuals.
How To: Add Capital Calls & Distributions
Keep accurate records of capital calls and distributions from your fund dashboard.
See fund size, total amount called and capital percent called. fiifi updates records for calls and distributions.
The software shows you net DPI automatically, how much has been distributed & to what totals you need to distribute to your LP’s (Limited Partners).
Early Stage deals and Micro VC’s
Funding is becoming much more competitive and concentrated within fewer early stage companies.
If you do set a high valuation, consider how that affects your sales, hiring, and ability to raise the next round.
The sheer number of seed funds has increased 2400% to around 800 in total since 2003.
Startup founders are better in their 40’s
As a leader: be tenacious, be coachable, and have integrity, above all else
As a team member: build partnerships and relationships
As an entrepreneur: ask questions, foster the right ideas, and convey your passion
Why Executives & CEO’s Fail
Figure out what makes your team tick
When I stepped into my last large role, I had to look at my existing team and do a series of things.
How to Raise Your First Fund with Green Cow Venture Capital’s Vikram Lakhwara
There have already been over 5000 deals in the first half of 2020 in the US in dozens of sectors.
How do you know where to focus your fund?
How can your vision convince investors and startups to join your first fund, second, and beyond?
Read on to learn how. Then follow @theron on Medium
How to: Add LP Allocations to fiifi
Add LP allocations from your fund dashboard.
From the GP Workspace to to the Fund menu item on the left.
Select “add” to the right of LP details.
Simply add their name, capital commitment, and amount contributed to date and fiifi automatically does the calculations for you, redistributing capital across the fund.
This is ideal for fund modeling in addition to building your fund.
Adding Investments
Add new investments to companies easily on fiifi. Add details like investment type, round, financials, and documents.
How to Raise Your First Fund
Leverage your reputation and network
Show any traction
Anchor your commitment
Surround yourself with great people building great things.
Deal-flow Engine & CRM, Multiple Returns
Deal-flow engine:
– Exposing high quality deal flow based on sector, stage, and social graph, saving time and eliminating manual processes.
– Track inbound and outbound deal flow from your network automatically.
Multiple returns:
– Make better decisions on future investments by visualizing multiple returns across your portfolio.
How to Add Companies to Your Portfolio
Add investment companies using the “Add Company” button
Search for one or more companies or quickly upload a spreadsheet of your investments.
Everything GP
Effortlessly model fund scenarios & LP allocations
Automatic deal flow funnel by cohort, vintage, or date range
We manage your fund KPIs, export at any time
Filter & Compare Documents
Quickly filter and compare Documents, including pitch decks, deal memos, reports, and legalese.
Track KPIs and Cash Out Dates
Track monthly, quarterly or annual private company investment KPI’s.
You can also model your investments with different levels of revenue, churn and other factors.
Visualize
* MRR
* ARR
* Automated projections
* Churn
* Number of Customers
* Number of revenue Customers
About fiifi
For several years I was frustrated that I couldn’t find a portfolio management tool to serve my needs as an investor. I started asking my colleagues if they had the same problems as I did regarding deal flow, system of record, and data aggregation with early stage investments.
I began with user interviews to refine my hypotheses about what investors want and need in portfolio analysis. After this validation, I started building and testing against those same people who would be my customers. Step by step, this became fiifi.
Financial
Investment