Funding & Investors – Choosing the Right Sources
As an emerging investor you have probably heard the term ” Funding & Investors ” tossed around before. There are actually several key players that are involved in finding, acquiring and growing private equity for businesses. The following article will take a brief look at the individuals and organizations that are crucial to the successful growth of private equity. As always, please keep in mind that your views as an individual or entity holding a stake in a particular industry is extremely valuable, but not in regards to the advice or recommendations that are offered in this article.
As a private equity funding source your first consideration will likely be the financial statements of the company. If they are well maintained, a strong balance sheet and a solid annual return on investment you should have no trouble attracting investors. The next thing that you will want to consider is whether they are a growth-oriented business or a market oriented business. This is where your experience as an investor will come in very handy. You are much better off partnering with a business that has a clear plan and the willingness to execute on that plan rather than one that is only in it for the profits.
The third key piece of information that you will need to provide is a detailed description of the current operations of the company. This will include how long they have been in operation and what their management teams are currently doing to take the company to the next level. As with the personal information provided above, you should view this information with a lot of care. You don’t want to provide investors with information that has a potential negative effect on them. Instead, you will want to provide them with information that will create an interest in learning more about what they can do to take the company to the next level.
Another important point that you will want to be able to provide is a full analysis of the industry that you are considering as a source for funding. As you probably know, there are many types of businesses that will raise capital in one way or another. In order to select the right ones, you will have to carefully analyze the characteristics of each organization. For instance, if you are considering private funding, your analysis must take into consideration the type of business that they are operating. In addition, you will want to look at whether the organization has had success raising other types of capital as well as the amount of time that it has taken them to raise financing. While you may think that investors already know this information, it is important to make it clear in advance.
Finally, you will want to be able to provide a very clear explanation of the return on investment that you are expecting from each capital investment that you make. This is perhaps the most difficult section of the investment prospectus for some entrepreneurs. As you will learn, the amount of capital that you are willing to provide to a business is in direct proportion to the amount of profits that the business will realize over its lifetime. Therefore, if you are going to provide significant funds to a start up, you need to have a very good idea as to the rate of return that you are going to receive.
Once you have clearly defined the purpose of the capital that you are seeking, you can then begin to search for funding and investors. Of course, you do not want to leave this task to chance or to rely upon the expertise of angel investors and business investors. By consulting with a number of professionals that have experience raising capital and providing start up funding for businesses, you can determine a realistic amount that you need to raise and you can also develop a realistic timeline as to when you believe that your business will be able to achieve the goals that you have outlined. In the end, when you do have a business partner that is ready and willing to provide a significant amount of capital to help your business move forward, you can be confident that you have found the best possible source for funding that provides complete investor confidence and peace of mind.
