Raised $30m - Ask Me Anything
So I’ve raised $30m over the past 10 years from Angels and VCs, Ask Me Anything about the process I’ve learnt a lot, some of it the hard way.
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So I’ve raised $30m over the past 10 years from Angels and VCs, Ask Me Anything about the process I’ve learnt a lot, some of it the hard way.
Was it worth it? :P
What did you get out of the funding rounds you wouldn't have been able to get before?
Yes I’d say overall it was worth it, of course there are both negatives and positives of any decision.
The main advantage it gave us was the ability to invest heavily in both Sales and Marketing alongside R&D as well as expanding from the UK to the US.
That is where I am interested in this side of the story as well, when you raise you get investors that expect you to hit certain targets in user acquisition, spend money on not developing product but rather marketing it. One would might try something off beat and interesting with customers if one does not have a stern watchful eye of investor bearing down on upcoming goal deadlines? Or am I wrong here? Just want to get general idea...
I think it really varies on the investor but what I’ve seen in the majority of cases and particularly at an early stage Seed/A, they are making an investment in you and the team. They aren’t operators and nor do most investors want that hassle. We have 4 board meetings a year and we update them with a brief overview of trading each month. An investor meddling in the day to day is a bad sign, speak to other CEOs who’ve raised from the investor and understand what working with them is really like.
Why so? Just trying to understand. :)
How much of role did UX & Design play in helping you getting funded? (if at all).
If you had to rate some of the key elements a solid team + project should have in order to get funded, where would UX & Design sit and how would it compare to the others?
I think it absolutely plays a role and its importance is too often neglected by founders focused on the tech or the numbers.
An area I continue to see a lack of investment in design is the pitch deck, you don’t have to spend thousands to get a pitch deck that looks high quality, but this is often the first impression of you and your idea, a good looking deck is table stakes.
Dave,
We have a product. (HeyPixl.com)
We have a small community of potential customers.
But no money to build a good MVP.
No MVP to raise money...
How do we solve this problem? Any feedback is appreciated.
Cheers
Why did you decide to raise money?
At which point did you start raising capital?
Hey Dave,
I'm Berk, a 14 year old aspiring entrepreneur and the co-founder of Nerdy Joy.
My question is what is the best strategy for finding angel investors? I've signed up for Angelist and tried applying for funding on F6S. However, it does not seem like that strategy is working.
Do you have any suggestions? We need capital for funding marketing endeavors. Do you have anyone you can suggest or any strategies we can use?
Breaking into angel investors completely cold can be tough. The people on angel list are getting hit up a lot, so there is a lot of noise and limited signal.
Anything you can do to build more of a connection with people will help, for example take some time to find Angels who you think would be most interested in your project and engage with them on Twitter before making an ask.
The best thing you can do is to get a warm referral into an angel from one of the founders of another company that they’ve invested in.
I see, thank you so much. Do you mind If I ask if there are any investors you can refer me to?
Hey DC,
Do you consider Indie after the raise?
( is a serious question, I want to know your point of view )
Think it depends on your definition of Indie, based on what I’ve read so far on this site once you raise significant money you are not considered Indie, personally I think it’s more of a mindset, the same principles need to apply. The money just gives you the opportunity to focus on more concurrent experiments and learning.
Thanks for this AMA! Which of your raises/projects resulted in the greatest return for your investors?
The main company I have raised $22m and this is still in scale up mode, early stage angels have the best return profile on paper right now but they have to be patient as we are 8 years in.
Angel investing can bring some incredible returns but the success to failure ratio makes it a very high risk investment. Once you raise VC money this usually sits above early investors in terms of preference stack.
Nice! Can you share a link to your company? I didn't see it on your IH profile.
Sure, company is Voxpopme a Video Feedback solution that helps get better insights from their customers.
https://site.voxpopme.com
Though I am not anywhere near your target market, this seems like a cool product. Those are some big names on your "Trusted By" section ... hats off to your success thus far. You mentioned a sports betting side project in a past post too. Is it live yet?
Thanks yeah we’ve got some great enterprise clients but since launching credit card signup with a 14 day free trial we are seeing a lot of traction with early stage companies as well as people in product and marketing roles.
The sports betting project is still in the ideation and discovery phase so nothing live yet.
This comment was deleted a year ago.
It’s made a big impact to personal wealth on paper but at this stage I’ve took 0 dollars off the table so it’s all very illiquid.
It’s common for founders to take some cash off the table in a B round, or occasionally A round it’s oversubscribed.
Even if we sold the company I wouldn’t want to retire, I enjoy the process of building/scaling technology businesses to much.