Conversations with Investors – Chapter Two

Many meetings are wasted because founders did not take the time to match their opportunity to the investor’s interest. The lesson for this chapter is the need to match the presentation to the experience and tendencies of the investor – to realize that each investor is unique and will respond better if approached in terms they understand.

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How to Negotiate with Business Angels

In these difficult, recessionary times it’s become harder than ever for SME’s to raise money to finance their working capital and expansion. Banks seem to be closed to business and institutional money is very hard to come by for small companies. So, potential deals with business angels represent a life-line for SME’s.

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Conversations with Investors – Chapter 1

In this series of articles, I will describe several discussions that I had with investors in the Washington DC area. They range from angel investors to senior partners in well established funds. I have known most of them for many years. That allowed us to cut through the usual PR crap and get to the heart of the process of reviewing investment opportunities.

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Business Angels Need Help!

Much has been written about how angel investors can help entrepreneurs, but who do business angels turn to when they need help?

Business angels are seen as the amateur cousins of professional venture capitalist investors in much the same way as the blue chip business sector is often seen as the core value sector of any economy. In fact, blue chips represent less than 2% of businesses in terms of volume and less than 50% in terms of value.

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Angel Investing – Start-up Governance

By Dr. Earl R. Smith II DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com www.Dr-Smith.com Most angel investors, when funding a start-up, ignore the structure and operation of the board of directors. Most early-stage companies that I work with have only a casually structured board that seems to exist to satisfy legal requirements. Accumulated experience has shown me that this is a [...]

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LLP or Ltd ? This is the question!

Should a Business Angel look for an investment in a LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) or a Limited Company?

Often, entrepreneurs will have both LLPs and LTDs for their different businesses.

To answer the question of which is better we need to ask:

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Debt vs Equity Investing

The FT neatly describes the difference between Debt and Equity when it argues today, that the tax treatment should be the same for both. Of course, the fact that it is not has led investors to structure their deals to take advantage of the difference. And, flavour of the month is convertible debt. But more of [...]

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