AutoFi has helped to pioneer and refine technology that transforms auto sales and financing into a straightforward, customizable process.
At NADA 2023, CBT News anchor Jim Fitzpatrick had the chance to sit down with AutoFi CEO Kevin Singerman and CMO Kerri Wise to discuss their platform and how it can help dealers better serve their customers.
Read the rest of the article here!
Yuvo Health, a leading technology-enabled administrative and managed-care solution for community health centers, today announced that it has been named to the New York Digital Health 100 (DH100), a recognition that highlights the most innovative startups in the New York region. Digital Health New York (DHNY) publishes the annual list as part of the New York Healthcare Innovation Report, a comprehensive analysis that takes an in-depth look at the data, trends, and people that have propelled New York to become the capital of healthcare innovation.
Read the rest of the article here!
Yuvo Health, a leading technology-enabled administrative and managed-care solution for community health centers, today announced Loren Anthes as its new Head of Policy and Programs. In addition to Anthes, Yuvo Health has also made the following six hires recently: Scrum Master, Birjis Ahmedi; Product Manager, Stephen Fee; Senior Product Manager; Nadia Trapala, IS Cloud Manager, Ajay Joshi; and Technical Writer, Daisy DeKnight. They will report to Head of Product Dakisha Allen, as well as Chief Technology Officer Sujata Bajaj, who both joined the company in October 2022.
Read the rest of the article here!
“How do I find investors who are a fit for what we’re building?”
“How long do you think it will take me to raise this round?”
“What feedback do you have on my deck?”
“How do I convince an investor to lead our round?” (spoiler: a trick question!)
In our open office hour meetings, founders often have tactical questions about running their first VC fundraising process. Because every situation is different, broadly relevant advice is scarce. That said, there are certain facets of investor psychology and fundraising mechanics that are nearly universal. While many of them are obvious to investors, they are invisible to founders who are new to raising venture capital.
This blog series will not discuss data rooms, term sheet negotiations, Board meetings, or investor relations; there is a wealth of content on these topics already. Instead, we will focus on how to go from considering fundraising to having a term sheet in hand. Hopefully this series will shed some light on how VCs think and how founders can navigate the information asymmetry.
This series has three parts:
Deciding to raise: When and why is venture capital a good fit for a company? What are the trade-offs of raising? Are all VC firms the same? If venture capital is not right for a company, what are the alternatives?
Running a competitive process: How do you minimize fundraising pain and maximize the odds of successfully raising? How do you find, approach, and impress investors?
Building a compelling deck: What is the goal of a pitch deck? What are investors looking for? How do investors decide to take a meeting? How should a deck be structured?
If you have any questions, feedback, or ideas for future posts, please let us know via twitter!
In an office hours session last year, Alex Kennedy (Founder & CEO of Purposely.ai) asked me a question I’d never gotten before: “If a founder reaches out to you about investing in their startup, what do you look at online to decide if you want to take the meeting?”. This is a seemingly mundane question, but this first impression is critical to nail. Here’s what I shared with him.
The goal of initial outreach in fundraising is to get a quick and accurate response from the investor:
If it’s not a fit, find out fast
If it may be a fit, get a meeting ASAP
As an investor, to give such a response, I need succinct and accurate information to qualify the opportunity.
The first thing I need to know is whether the company is within our investment strategy at all. For Laconia, we’re specifically looking for pre-seed and seed stage b2b software companies, ideally in the US and Canada. If the company doesn’t line up with those factors, it’s a pass.
The second thing I need to understand sounds very simple but is rarely clear: What does this company do? This is critical for two reasons:
To verify that we don’t have any competitive investments in the current portfolio (if we do, it’s a pass to avoid conflicts of interest)
To decide if I’m intrigued enough to learn more
What does this company do should include the following:
What the product is (A web app? An API? A Chrome plug-in?)
Who the customers are (Insurance carriers? F500 CMOs?)
Why it is valuable & differentiated (Unique data set? Unique insight into the customer’s pain point?
The best scenario is when this information is contained in the initial outreach (e.g.: text/attachments of email or form submission). Ideally, I won’t have to look anywhere else. If it’s not in the initial outreach, then I’ll take 1-2 minutes to look at the company’s website, Crunchbase, and/or LinkedIn. If it is still unclear, then it’s usually a pass.
A few important notes:
The company’s information should be consistent in email outreach, website, and Crunchbase/LinkedIn profiles. While investor-facing positioning may be different from customer-facing messaging for good reason, there should still be consistency in the core product/value prop. Otherwise, it’s harder for me as an investor to determine what I’m considering.
It should be clear who the founder and/or CEO is. If that is hard to figure out, or if someone other than the founder and/or CEO is doing the initial outreach, that’s a red flag.
I recommend including a pitch deck in your initial outreach. (Here is some context on how to put together a compelling deck.)
If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to reach out to me via email at geri [at] laconia [dot] vc or on Twitter (@geri_kirilova). And, of course, if you are raising a pre-seed or seed round for a b2b software company, we are all ears via our pitch submission form 🙏