How to improve your chances of getting venture capital funding

Getting funding can be hard, especially for female founders, but there is support available, says Helen Oldham, Co-founder of Fund Her North, an organisation which helps female business founders in the North of England access finance.

Fund Her North was created after a review identified that only 1% of female-led businesses currently get the Venture Capital funding they need. It works by introducing female founders to women working in venture capital firms who can support their application for funding and guide them through the process.

Helen Oldham, Fund Her North Co-Founder says: “Research shows that if you have a warm introduction, you are more likely to be successful in landing funding - so we are providing that warm introduction.”

The organisation is backed by UBS and Natwest and has helped five female founders get funding since it was launched in November 2020.

Helen suggests taking these steps to improve your own chances of securing funding:

1. Create the right management team: Before you start connecting with potential funders, ensure that you have got the right team in place. You need people who have complementary skill sets to help scale the business, and they need to be ready to support the business on the next stage of the journey.
2. Have a robust business plan: Make sure that your business plan is robust and reflects the ambition and the scale of the business that you want to build, and that you are confident you can deliver it, as it will be open to scrutiny.
3. Get connected early: Start making initial contact and connections with potential funders early – at least six months before you hope to get funding and ideally longer. This process is a bit like a courtship – you shouldn’t expect to land on the ideal funding immediately and it is worth having multiple conversations to find out which organisation is most aligned to your strategy and your value set. Funders are all very different and they have different investment criteria and different ways of supporting businesses that they fund.
4. Spend time on your pitch: It is worth spending a significant amount of time on preparing your pitch deck and getting some external advice to make sure that it is telling the story in the most compelling way. The content is really important but it is also important to design it in a way that is really attractive and makes the story flow well. Investors are always keen to hear what your personal connection is to your business and what is the special thing that caused you to launch it in the first place, because all that energy and purposeful focus is what is going to help make the business successful in the future. These are the things that generally make one proposition stand out against another because they are memorable.
5. Set your boundaries: Be really clear what your boundaries are as you go into the conversation about what you will and won’t accept as part of the deal. Having that clear in your mind as you go into the conversation will help you negotiate from a position of strength.
6. Tap into your inner resilience: When female founders ask me what qualities I think are the most important, I always start with resilience. Resilience is really important because it can take longer than you expect to find the ideal funder and to secure the money that you need. So it is good to be aware of that going into the process and to build some coping strategies for yourself to get through that.

Helen is the is the Co-founder of Fund Her North.

How to improve your chances of getting venture capital funding

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