Investment
@imveurope
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introducing the investment opportunity. Meanwhile, build a relationship with private investors where your expertise and leadership is recognised. Don’t spend your time in too many events,
Tip two: Understand what ‘market attractiveness’ means Private investors asses the size of a market to define if it’s sufficiently large enough for a group of leading companies – and if you could be part of it. Smaller markets support fewer companies and therefore risk for investors is higher in these markets. Te market attractiveness is also assessed
according to the most attractive business model. If the business is challenging – if the access to market is already dominated or under the control of specific players – then you will face a real challenge to persuade investors to join you. Tink outside the box and
assess how your technology could disrupt the existing market. How could it impact the current organisation of the market and offer new business value to customers? If in doing so, the company generates recurrent revenues, then you will have a win! However, developing a
applies to private investors. If private investors hear about you from their network then you will catch their interest. It will definitely help the investment process. Building a network can take time and you
Private investors do understand your technology, but they may not be convinced … by your business model
disruptive technology – while disrupting the market with a new business model – can be really challenging and considered quite difficult to achieve, especially for a new player. Be realistic on your plan. Investors will invest in the team and your ability to drive the firm to success – your ability to overcome challenges with a high level of agility and determination.
Tip three: Build a private investment network not only when looking for funds A network is important in business, which also
have to consider it when your fundraising strategy is ready. Be aware that networking is a part of the fundraising process; develop your investor network while working on demonstrating the feasibility and attractiveness of your growth strategy. We, at Blumorpho, highly recommend driving the two actions in parallel. Start building a network even when still consolidating the technical and commercial strategy. But do not introduce a plan to investors before you are fully ready. Tis will come later. Keep part of your business a mystery and work on teasing. On the one side, focus
on your operations: demonstrate the technology works and reaches the expected performance; engage
the customer pipeline to showcase that the solution is addressing the market needs; build an attractive business model to ease market access and sales revenue; collaborate with the right partners to support entry into production and market access with a relevant roadmap; and attract the right team, one that will have the ability to execute. On the other side, develop an investors’
network. Join high-level events with participation of top private investors so you can showcase your expertise. Wait for the company development plans to be clearly defined before
20 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • Yearbook 2018/2019
but select the ones where you can reach the right targets for your network. Inpho Venture Summit – from 11 to 12 October 2018 in Bordeaux, France – is a good example of an event dedicated to building a relevant network with high-level executives and private investors active in deep tech. Private investors from Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia meet every two years to challenge bankable technologies and promising companies with hard talks and in an open-minded way. Such an event will give an understanding of what private investors are looking for and how to reach their investment criteria. In addition, develop a relationship with
recognised successful entrepreneurs who have themselves good private investor networks. It is always good to learn from them and to build an advisory board in the early stages of company development. An advisory board will be a valuable label demonstrating that key people have been persuaded by the attractiveness of the company, and that the firm benefits from strong advice.
Tip four: Do not make fundraising the ultimate goal Keep in mind that not all companies are attractive to private investors, but that doesn’t mean the company is bad. Private investors have specific metrics to align with their fund- targeted performance. Do not adapt your plan or vision to address such metrics. Te ultimate goal is not to attract private investment; the ultimate goal is to build a profitable and long- term business. Keep focusing on generating sales and business relationships; it is the best way to demonstrate an ability to execute and finally engage investment in your company. O
Géraldine Andrieux Gustin is the founder and CEO of Blumorpho (
www.blumorpho.com), which helps accelerate technology innovation in digital, deep tech and smart systems. It partners with research organisations, start-ups, SMEs, large corporations and private investors. The firm is providing content for Inpho Venture Summit (
www.inpho-ventures.com), an event for executives active in smart technologies and deep tech from 11 to 12 October in Bordeaux, France. The event will be chaired by George Ugras, general manager at AV8 Ventures, and will combine hard talks and start-up pitching sessions. In its five previous editions, more than 60 start-ups have been selected to pitch, raising over €150 million.
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