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Storytelling is a key ingredient in getting funders to believe in your vision and company’s promise. Sophisticated fundraisers will help you build a compelling narrative. Most business-oriented founders readily recognize the need for tech hires to complement their skills - or vice-versa - but it is less common for founders to recognize the urgency of hiring skilled fundraisers right out of the gate.įundraising is both art and science. Nobody can be expert at all things required to build a great company. A savvy founder ensures that the first hires round out essential skills that they might not bring to the table.
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Make sure that your founding team is well rounded and complementary both on the technical and the business sides. For a long time, the robotics community has been putting disproportionate emphasis on technology development, which is important and needed, but not enough to commercialize and scale companies. When hiring your early team, consider including at least one person who has strong fundraising acumen. Are you giving away too much leverage or control or revenue share for that early-stage money? What looks like a small price to give away to a funder when your company is young and small might be a source of regret when your company becomes the behemoth you hope to create. In addition, be careful about what agreements you sign in the company’s early days. Due to the nature of the hardware and software complexity of robotics companies, pivoting to other markets or applications might not be as easy and feasible as in pure software companies. Government grants, for instance, might drive the pace of development or push you toward certain customer-facing directions in ways that could be ill-suited to your company.Īlways ask yourself what baggage comes with each funding opportunity and run a cost-benefit analysis before accepting. Ask yourself what constraints or potential downsides come with the specific funding model you are considering/pursuing. Some of these might be a better fit for your company at the current (or future) stage of your organizational growth cycle.īut some sophistication is warranted. Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, especially for hardware and robotics companies, have become popular in recent years. There are loaded/nondilutive funding streams, such as convertible debt, available from financial institutions and angels.
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government sources such as Department of Energy and Department of Defense grants. There is growing opportunity, especially for robotics and AI startups, in nondilutive capital, including from U.S. Angel investors and venture capitalists are just a portion of what is available. Now is a great time for starting a company, in part because there have never been more sources of financing available. VCs are more likely looking to fund on a much larger scale - think a $1-billion-plus exit valuation - and back a company with the potential to deliver at least a 10x return.Ĭonsider capital sources that fit different companies and startups at different stages of its growth They are not geared toward backing entrepreneurs looking for an exit under $100 million that will only realize a handful of multiples for the investor. Venture capital firms generally, and ones that invest in robotics specifically, look to invest in startups that have clearly identified potential to scale exponentially. Too often, founders court venture capitalists without understanding that the company they are founding might not be the right fit for VCs. Understand the proper fit between your company’s scale and the fund’s scale So how do robotics startups best approach fundraising and secure the financing to propel their company to the next level? There are five key areas to keep in mind about fundraising for robotics startups that founders must learn and practice. For founders, getting their idea from concept to company, or developing a minimum viable product, is daunting enough, but seeking an initial fundraising round brings a complexity that can be especially challenging to manage. Free societies face emerging, existential threats from technologyĮarly-stage robotics fundraising is accelerating, with funding coming from boutiques to deep-pocketed venture capital firms.