The Fundraising Strategy Playbook: An Entrepreneur`s Guide To Pitching, Raising Venture Capital, and Financing a Startup
Arooj Sheikh
Why do promising companies run out of money? How do you raise capital to effectively achieve your milestones and bring your vision to life? How do you tailor your fundraising plan to your exit strategy and bring on investors aligned with your goals?
Imagine selling your company for $50 million, and walking away with little money in the bank to show for it. This is a surprisingly common scenario that can be avoided with good fundraising advice.
Packed with insights from legendary venture capitalists such as Brad Feld (The Foundry Group), to innovation enthusiasts like Jason Feifer (Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine), this book provides a refreshing perspective on how startup founders should approach raising capital for their companies.
Whether you’re a first-time startup founder looking to get up to speed on everything you need to get started with a fundraise or an experienced founder interested in learning about how to strategically finance your company for its long term success, this book is just the resource for you.
In this book, you’ll learn how to:
• Deliver a compelling pitch
• Understand how investors evaluate companies
• Tailor your fundraising plan to your exit strategy
• Complement raising venture capital funding with alternative sources of financing (including non-dilutive sources)
• Effectively raise a round of financing
Filled with answers to the questions you wish you could ask the most acclaimed entrepreneurs and investors, this is the entrepreneur’s playbook on how to intelligently raise capital for the long term success of their startup. Collectively ingrained in this book are insights from Kleiner Perkins, Floodgate Capital, Accel, Techstars, 500 Startups, Cowboy Ventures, StartEngine, and more.
This book covers:
• Part 1) Fundraising Fundamentals (sources of capital, venture capital fundraising process, and more)
• Part 2) Elements + Design Principles of a Pitch Deck
• Part 3) The Art of Persuasive Pitching
• Part 4) Fundraising Strategy (how to plan a raise, types of investments, designing your funding stack, evaluating founder/funder fit, and more)
• Part 5) Fundraising Strategy for Female Founders
• Part 6) Fundraising Strategy for International Companies
Arooj Sheikh is an international speaker and startup advisor that speaks on entrepreneurship and fundraising strategy. From working with venture capital firms, venture studios, startup accelerators, to having founded her own startup - she has worked with every major player in the startup ecosystem. Drawing from these experiences, she provides expert insight into the startup fundraising process and its best practices. With this book, she hopes to empower world-changing ideas and equip entrepreneurs with the information they need to bring their visions to life.