"Just Raised" Newsletter

?? Welcome to the "Just Raised" Newsletter &?our new community?Job Board!

Hi all! The time has come! London Tech Drinks is thrilled to announce the launch of our brand new newsletter "Just Raised", dedicated to the biggest challenge faced by Founders and VC's alike: Fundraising.

Each month we will be showcasing a different Founder?who has just raised, to share the inside track on what worked, what didn't work and share key lessons to help you raise.?We strongly believe in the power of community, education and support, so we hope you find this helpful!

"I found our seed easier than the pre-seed. However, our seed round was certainly not like the crazy stories you sometimes read in the press - our investors did a lot of due diligence and both sides spent a lot of time getting to know each other and it took 9 months end-to-end” Matt Ong, CEO, Ctrl Alt

???So Matt, did you have a raise strategy and how did you go about finding and then contacting investors?

"Yes, we worked closely with the fund that invested at pre-seed to understand who were the right investors for us to be talking to. Through them and the network we developed at pre-seed we were able to get warm introductions. Being in the FinTech space, there were a lot of investors to speak with and it was a case of speaking to as many of those we wanted to target as possible."

???What percentage split roughly were your introductions warm vs. cold??

"For VCs - I’d say 90% warm. The VC world is very close knit so we were generally able to get an intro to funds through our network there. Shoutout to everyone that intro’d, very grateful to the funds and founders that helped us. We also met a number of founders at the London Tech Drinks events, who then introduced us to Investors and one founder we met there ended up investing themselves! Angels - We targeted some of them cold because we thought they’d be valuable to have as investors and it’s harder to find people willing to warm intro to angels in our experience."

??What was the most common reason for Investors passing?

"The main reason was being too early…being a new product and a new business meant a lot of investors wanted to sit on the fence and were willing to invest at a higher valuation. Or at least that’s what they told us!"

??Let's talk about funnel metrics. What did it look like?

"An overview of our Funnel: "We contacted 116 funds/syndicates. 17 did not respond to a warm intro/make it to first call for reasons a number of reasons (No thesis fit, already invested in the competitor etc.)?We then had 99 first meetings,?19 IC's and 8 Investments. This does not include angels. We worked on a term sheet with the 2 leads and had everyone follow. We passed on 4 of them post first meeting because of terms they set."?

???What went well in the raise?

"Getting relevant and warm introductions to relevant people from the start. Our product and pitch was able to get people's attention and alternatives are a hot space within FinTech so we found that generally when people wanted to take a call with us, they were interested. We worked hard on getting our leads over the line too, we knew they were the right funds for us and so we spent a lot of time with both of them so we’re pleased to get the investors we wanted."

???What went less well in the raise?

"Timings were not great -? We started just before Christmas because we had a public beta launch but then everyone disappeared for Christmas so we had to start the raise again in January. While funds were around over the summer, chasing down signatures and payment from angels over the summer was also a challenge…"

????How did this raise compare to your previous pre-seed raise?

"I found it easier than pre-seed. At pre-seed I was not full time in the business, we were in stealth and it was just me. I’m also not from the startup/VC world so didn’t have a network, I had to build that from scratch. This time I had people from pre-seed and built a strong brand/team around what we’re doing which definitely helped. I think that it is also a function of there being a much smaller number of funds that invest at pre-seed too, we just had a much bigger pool of capital to go after."

?? And Finally Matt, when do you expect to raise your Series A?

"We've got a lot we want to prove before we look at Series A and we've got a strong runway to do that. For the next 12 months we've got our heads down but if we feel the moment is right before then we'll certainly look at it!"

?????Community Job Board?Email: [email protected] to post your role (Start-up, fund or anything else tech related)

???Roles in VC, Growth?& PE Funds:

1) Investment Analyst - Seed to Series B, B2B fund

• ￡30k to ￡50k + Discretionary Bonus -> Apply here <-

2) Investment Associate - Pre-Series A B2B fund?

• ?c.￡60k + Discretionary Bonus ->Apply here <-

??? Roles in Start-ups / Other Roles? Got a role that the tech community would like? Let us know if you wish to share it here!

Want to get your brand in front of c.8,000 Investors, Founders and Supporters? If so, drop us a note!