Funk and Seegull: Venture Capital Workshop

Last Friday, Jon Funk of Ocean Road Partners and Fran Seegull of ImpactAssets lead a three hour workshop on how to raise capital for a social enterprise venture. Between these two experts, they represented over 45 years of discovering, evaluating, executing, and exiting startup investments and for-profit impact ventures. Over thirty people attended the class at Hub LA to learn from these two seasoned investors. Jon Funk opened the class with a hilarious clip from the movie “Ghostbusters” (specifically, the scene where Bill Murray realizes that they need to raise money to develop their innovative new business!). The next three hours unfolded as a cram course on both how to raise capital and where to find it AND how to build and execute a successful investor presentation or “deck.”

Some of the take-aways? Well, we can’t possibly recap 3 hours of juicy info, but here are a few DOs and DON’Ts when presenting to investors:

DO Have a unique and impactful product/service that you explicitly state UP FRONT (obvious, but unfortunately sometimes overlooked!)
DO Clearly outline competitive advantages
DO Know exactly, specifically, precisely who you are selling to–your market should be large and identifiable

DON’T State a valuation in writing to your investors
DON’T State a rate of return your investors can expect to earn
DON’T Be overoptimistic on revenue
DON’T Ask for an NDA

Don’t fret if you missed this opportunity. Jon Funk is RETURNING! We are so pleased to announce his next workshop with Hub LA: Deconstructing Your Deck. This is a two-part workshop where you will refine and perfect your investor presentation in front of a panel of veteran VC investors.

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