For Entrepreneurs

OUR INVESTMENT Process

INITIAL CONVERSATION

If you can track us down through a warm introduction, that’s your best bet. If you can’t, you’re welcome to send us an email to get introduced. Include your one (brief) paragraph business overview and attach a 1-2 page executive summary and/or a pitch deck. If we’re intrigued with the initial introduction, we may schedule a call to learn more. We do not sign NDAs.

Quick tip: don’t send a lengthy business plan or rambling story

SCREENING MEETING

If we’re still intrigued after the introductory call, we’ll invite you to a (virtual) screening meeting. Screening meetings are held each month for our angels to hear formal pitches from the strongest companies in our pipeline. Screening pitches typically last 12-15 minutes followed by about 15 minutes of Q&A – and the sessions are recorded and made available for our members to review and provide feedback.

Quick tip: take some time to research how to give a good angel pitch. Try here or here, or come to one of our “how to pitch” seminars.

Note that we will need to agree on investment terms prior to inviting you into due diligence.

DUE DILIGENCE

If there is sufficient interest from our members to move into due diligence, a group of VentureSouth staff and investors will conduct a deeper dive evaluation. We’ll review documents, make reference calls, meet with the management team, ask a bunch of questions, and analyze your financials, projections and cap table.

Quick tip: the more prepared and organized you are, the more efficient this process will be. We suggest proactively building a data room in advance for quick access to key documents.

ROADSHOW

If things go well in diligence, you will be invited to make formal presentations to our full membership during our monthly meetings.  Two of those sessions are delivered virtually each month, with the presentations typically including15 minutes of pitch time and up to ~20 minutes of Q&A.  We will also work with you to schedule visits with some of our in-person local market meetings as schedules allow.

Quick tip: be prepared to answer with honest and concise answers – other types of responses will undermine your credibility and diminish your chances of funding.

INVESTMENT

At the end of the diligence process and road show, our diligence team will present their findings to our members. Hopefully at that point, many of our investors will be excited to invest in your venture, so we will make a capital call, collect checks, finalize the documents with the lawyers, and execute the investment.

At this point, you get two new shareholders (one for our network entity and one for our sidecar fund) – and you can put that capital to work building a great business!

ALTERNATIVE CAPITAL SOURCES

For many companies, angel capital may not be the right fit – and even if it is, our angel investors can only fund a small portion of the opportunities that come their way.

However, there are other potential sources of capital worth exploring if you are launching a new business or growing an existing one in the region. Here are a few suggestions to get started:

Local Capital Providers

Ten at the Top has a great list of capital providers in the Upstate of South Carolina. The SC Department of Commerce has a similar SC-wide resource. In Western North Carolina, Venture Asheville’s startup resources map has some options.

Advisers and Guide

For help in both finding and preparing for startup capital, the SBDC, your local chapter of SCORE, or VentureAsheville’s resources directory should be your first ports of call.

Help for Ideas

We get a lot of requests from people with “an idea” but no desire or time to build a business around them. We suggest you try a place like Edison Nation to see if someone else will work that idea for you.

More Resources

Visit our non-profit sister organization Venture Carolina for additional educational resources for entrepreneurs.

VentureSouth Managing Directors with CEO of Confidence, Gabby Goodwin. Read her guest blog post here.