Seed to Series B Fundraising Timetable
Planning an Equity Fundraise.
Undertaking successful equity fundraises are critical to most startups and scaleups. You should allow a minimum of 3 months for most funding rounds, and sometimes rounds can take much longer. There are times in the year - such as the summer and over Christmas - where it can be difficult to get investors attention. So its important to think about when you start your initial outreach and when you plan to close your round.
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We've set out a fundraising timetable below, to give an illustration of how to plan for your next funding round, including the main milestones and activities you may need to undertake.
Seed to Series B Fundraising Timetable
Month 1: Preparation
Month 2: Investor Reach Out
Month 3-4: Term Sheets & Negotiation
Week 1-2: Define Objectives & Targets
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Decide upon your target fundraise amount:​
- How much do you need:​
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how funds will be used & what needs to be funded
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desired runway from fundraising (typically 12-18 months)
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How much can you get:​
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traction: how much revenue or proof of concept has your company achieved​
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strength of your investment network / any cornerstone investors
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prior experience of team
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Create draft Investment Deck & Financial Model
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Week 2-4: Reach out to Inner Circle for Initial Feedback & Validation
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Get friendly feedback on your fundraising plans, to ascertain whether they are sensible:
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Contact potential investors or rounds leads that you know well
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Contact potential fundraising advisers
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Iterate your plans if they are out of kilter with what may be most appropriate.
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Week 4: Create Simple Data Room
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Create a basic data room, which you can share with potentially interested investors. This should include:
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Financial Model & Investment Deck
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Recent financial performance: monthly management accounts
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Statutory accounts
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Key contracts: suppliers & customers
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Early on in a round, it is unlikely investors will sign an NDA. So, only share information in your basic data room which isn't too commercially sensitive.
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Week 4: Submit EIS Advanced Assurance
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If your company is based in the UK and you have capacity for EIS, then create & submit your EIS advanced assurance application now. It can take a number of weeks for HMRC to process, and you don't want it holding up closing your funding round later on.
Week 3-6: Identify potential investors and start to build out a CRM
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Review online sources, such as Crunchbase and reports of other completed funding rounds to create a list.
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Identify warm intros via LinkedIn and your network.
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If you've appointed an adviser, they can assist with a lot of the heavy lifting here. But it's always wise to manage your own database of investors contacts too.
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Week 4-6 : Try to find a lead or cornerstone investor from your network.
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Try and identify 10-20% of the funding round from your existing shareholders and/or network if you can. This cold really help with your outreach to other investors.
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Week 5-6: Start Initial Outreach
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A warm intro is worth 10x a cold intro. And a well crafted cold email is worth 10x a generic introductory email.
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Take the time to do research on potential investors, and try to identify a relevant touchpoint in your initial communication.
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Week 6-10: Investor Calls & Meetings
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Be prepared to hear "no", a lot. Also, it is very difficult / almost impossible to convince a potential investor to change their made if they have said "no". Spend your time exploring other avenues and contacting new investors.
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You will have to hustle a lot. It will be painful at times. But it is a numbers game, so the more contacts you make, the better chance of success you have.
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Through this process you may also begin to settle on a valuation for the round, based on the level of interest from investors.
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Week 8-12: Investor Due Diligence
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Investors will explore areas of your business in more detail, and may have chats with the senior exec team, board members and existing lead investors.
Week 12-14: Review Term Sheets
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Investors will provide term sheets for your consideration. Review and negotiate these carefully. At this point you may want to appoint a law firm to assist with your negotiations.
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Week 14-18: Close the Round
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Finalise the key investment documentation:
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Shareholder Subscription Agreement
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Articles of Association
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Collect funds, issue shares and update Companies House.