Your Checklist to Getting Investment Ready

1. Capital Table and Board of Directors: The cap table and directors portray the brains behind the company. Having a clean capital table and healthy board of directors shows the future prospects of the business.

2. Adherence to the Companies Act, 2013: Regularizing and complying with the provisions of the Act is also of utmost importance since the investor will not be interested in a company that doesn’t have a proper history.  

3. Funding Ask: The investment required for a runaway of about 12-18 months. #fundingask should be determined in tandem to the business plan of the company. The plan is to be realistic, practical and reasonably achievable. Typical areas of burn are to be identified and the details to be planned to the minutest detail possible. The CEO should be the person responsible for determining the Ask. Financial Model will help you to arrive the optimal ask for the company.  

4. Pitch Deck: Pitch Deck is the ticket to investor pitching. Having a crisp but to the point pitch deck summarizing the details that the investor is looking for is crucial to convert the pitch to a meeting. Ideal pitch deck is expected to be limited to 10-15 slides. Product/Service description, crisp business plan along with milestones, snapshot of financial model, founding team, competitors and market size are some amongst the crucial slides. Keep in mind that pitch is the ticket and not the whole show.

5. Pitch Deck & Projections: Often it is seen that the pitch deck and the projections portray different outcomes for the same investment. It is imperative that the pitch deck and the financial projections are based on the same set of milestones and targets.

6. Valuation: It is better to have a fair idea about the expected #valuation of your own company before meeting the investor with an ask. The funding ask is directly related to the valuation of the company.

7. Go to Market: Having a defined GTM strategy is a must. Instead of a high level GTM, a detailed and specific GTM is crucial for the product to reach the right users. The company should have either identified GTMs, or be willing to spend time and money for the same to be established.

8. Unit Economics: Margin from each individual variant/ product is important so as to establish the fundamentals. Founders should check whether the product in itself is a successful line by ensuring that the product portrays a healthy gross margin.

9. Historical Data: Data pack with past performance of the company in terms of revenue/ no of downloads/ no of signups or any other metrics that is relevant and portraying the growth of the company should be compiled.