While the economy is finally showing signs of life, securing capital for early-stage ventures hasn’t gotten any easier- so it seems timely to let start-up owners in on the criteria by which they will be judged.
Each year our firm typically reviews more than 2,500 companies seeking seed or Series A funding and invests in between six and twelve. Here’s how we judge a young company’s viability.
First of all, we evaluate deals on three axes: The team, the market and the technology or product.
- We want a team with domain expertise in the market space—individuals who can see the opportunities in that market before they are apparent to others and can use that vision to become early movers in the market.
- We want the company to be targeting a market that is nascent or even nonexistent. It needs to be a market the entrepreneurs believe will, at some point, grow rapidly, creating an opportunity for the company to move faster than any incumbents.
- The company needs to have a product with some level of defensibility – something that’s not easily replicable once the market becomes more obvious to others.
To read the full, original article click on this link: A VC’s tips on securing seed and series A financing | VentureBeat
Author: Carl Showalter
