Q-News

March 2008

Expressions of Interest in Funding Companies

Posted in Mike's Commentary

  • Mike attended the TiEQuest Awards Dinner that was held last Saturday and Liquid Fiber Displays was declared the 2008 winner. They won some cash, and a lot of services, but the biggest news was that four leading funds automatically expressed interest in funding them.
  • A couple of months ago the newly launched Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF) held its first investment meeting and committed funding to two of the three companies under consideration, in part due to the stated interest of one VC at the table who voiced an interest in co-funding the companies.
  • Last month we heard back from an entrepreneur we’d first talked with in the fall who had decided to focus on other (free) alternatives for sourcing angel capital. He had been in discussions with a group of angels for months.
  • Last week we met with an entrepreneur who had won the “Best Investment Opportunity” award at VentureFair in 2002. He reported receiving seven term sheets shortly thereafter.
  • This afternoon I met with a serial entrepreneur who had just made the rounds with every active (and several inactive) VCs in Canada who all said his new venture was too early. But, he reported, four had committed interest once he could provide user metrics.
Venture Capitalists are very much in the business of talking. Tracking technology development and discerning industry trends is done by meeting with entrepreneurs. It’s not that difficult to get a meeting. And mostly, they are nice meetings. Canadian VCs are nice folk, friendly, well meaning, encouraging and generally supportive.

Much is often made of such expressions of interest. Entrepreneurs, who are optimistic by nature, hear promises. But an expression of interest, or a term sheet, is just an invitation to come in and talk.

Just my thoughts,

Frances Fast
Manager, Private Investor Network
Q1 Capital Partners

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