Is Your Company, “Raise Ready” for Soliciting Investors?

March 8, 2021 By Joseph Barisonzi

Learn More About Being Raise Ready

To raise money on the GLO investment platform, you will need to be “project, fund, and raise” ready. The third step is “Raise Ready.” Each company must be “raise ready” to put up your offer. (Note: Join GLO through www.withGLO.com and put your offer on the investment portal.)

What does it mean to be “Raise Ready”?

To be “raise ready” means that you have the tools you need to solicit investors actively. When we publish your investment opportunity on the platform, you will need to be ready to raise capital from investors. Being “raise ready” includes the marketing resources you will need to connect with investors.

What resources will I need? 

These are the resources we consider minimally required to “Raise Ready”:

• Term Sheet: A term sheet is an executive overview that describes the terms of the deal. The information for the Term Sheet comes from the PPM, the Subscription Agreement, the Business Plan, and marketing material. Usually, no more than two pages. The Invest.withGLO platform uses the Term Sheet as a guide in making the “overview” page. The Term Sheet is also an optional document for prospective investors to download.
• Pitch Deck: The Pitch Deck tells your story to investors. The pitch deck template depends on your target investor and your industry. The deck may be as little as ten slides. The pitch deck is a presentation that provides investors:
  • an overview of your business,
  • showcases your product
  • shares your business model,
  • Describes your monetization strategy, and
  • Introduces your leadership team.

The deck is either self-supporting slides, slides with speaker notes, or a presentation recording in a digital format.

• Pitch Video: While a pitch video is not required for posting on the Invest.withGLO platform, it is strongly recommended. The web is a visual platform and increasingly a video platform. Compelling storytelling is on video. There are different types of videos we recommend are included:
  • A marketing video: A customer-targeted presentation of your product and services. Think of this as your commercial. An “explainer” video from your marketing website fits well here.
  • An elevator pitch: A video of a short “elevator pitch,” which emphasizes the problem-solution with a differentiating value proposition.
  • An investor proposition: The investor proposition is a show (about 90 seconds) presentation from the CEO and CFO speaking directly to an investor, answering how much money you are asking for, what they get for that money, and what it will be work based on projections.
  • The full pitch: As referenced above, one option for the pitch video is to record yourself doing a full pitch. Such a recording rarely creates effective video content. It usually requires significant editing to convert it from an “in-room” to a “digital experience.” Sometimes a quality produced. Zoom presentation will serve this purpose.
• Marketing Site: Investors will want to see that you have a substantial presence on the internet. By providing a marketing website address, you will be directing their attention to what you say about yourself. The marketing site should be the best place you sell your company’s products and services. The investor will want to see that you have made a compelling value proposition to the targeted customers.
• Company Social Media Presence: Investors will search beyond the provided website. Depending on your industry and type of product, a strong presence on a different social media platform is preferred. For example, if you have a B2C product, then a strong presence on Facebook adds tremendous credibility to your proposition. Suppose you are a B2B business in the service space. In that case, establishing your brand with a YouTube channel will be very attractive to investors.
• Principals’ Social Media Presence: In addition to your company’s social media presence, your principals’ social media footprint is of critical importance. Investors need to validate who you are and the background of your team. We recommend that all of the principals on your team have an updated LinkedIn profile, and the CEO has an active GLO profile.
• Aggregated Database for initial solicitation: Another optional item is your aggregated email list for your offering’s initial solicitation. This list could include friends, family, former business partners, and past investors in other endeavors. Multiple members of your team could export and create an integrated list. There are also tools to export lists from LinkedIn.

Together these resources will maximize your opportunity for a successful raise. Other resources can add value to your raise. But with the above material, we will be able to get you off to a strong start.

Article by Joseph Barisonzi and Vince Poscente

Joseph Barisonzi