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06/29/12 | Uncategorized

10 Lessons On Attracting Investors (Getting Your Startup Funded)

From Astia, here are 10 lessons learned in raising funding for women-led high-growth ventures.

By Simone Brummelhuis (Founder, TheNextWomen & VP Europe, Astia)

This week, I am leading the Astia Entrepreneur Programme in New York. A very special group of 14 entrepreneurs are going through a rigourous week of panels, workshops, business clinics, in order to prepare to grow their respective high-growth businesses with are currently in a start-up phase.

Accelerator programmes are everywhere now, as for many investors it’s the pipeline that is created through the accelerator programme that is interesting. The programme gives the entrepreneurs the time and chance to re-think their business and work on their business and be prepared when the time is right to face investors.

Here are the 10 lessons learned in raising funding:

  1. Having customers is the key to getting investors on board.
  2. Raising funding is a sales process so it’s a numbers game and you need a pipeline.
  3. When you want to get attention from investors, don’t sell but tell a story.
  4. Get warm introductions to investors and update them regularly.
  5. Build a credible pattern of hitting milestones and update investors.
  6. Watch for the pattern recognition of investors.
  7. Show management discipline by having your financials done.
  8. Practice your pitch: prepare, prepare, prepare.
  9. Investors are looking for execution skills.
  10. Investors only rarely invest in ideas so launch!

The Astia programme runs in New York from June 25 through June 30, 2012.

Astia is a global not-for-profit organization built on a community of men and women dedicated to the success of women-led, high-growth ventures and to the eradication of the need for the organization within the decade.

The Astia method is designed for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs who understand the value of extraordinary relationships and believe in giving back.

Designed for high-growth companies at all stages, the Astia offering is implemented by more than 1,500 volunteer members of the Astia Advisor Network that includes more than 300 former and current CEOs and 300 investors. Astia is an extremely committed community of advisors, investors, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs.

This post was originally published at TheNextWomen.

Photo credit: Kaysha on Flickr.

About the guest blogger: Simone Brummelhuis is Founder of TheNextWomen, the First Women’s Internet Business Magazine and Community with a focus on startups and growing businesses, led, founded or invested in by women with a tech or internet angle, from Silicon Valley to Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Simone is also Vice President of Europe at Astia, a global not-for-profit organization dedicated to the success of women-led, high-growth ventures. Follow her on Twitter at @thenextwomen.

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland, an intern with Women 2.0, was on the StartupBus. She studies neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, where she is trying to merge a passion for tech and the brain into a new wave of cognition-based technology

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