A practical guide for startups: how to find investment related to your project

In the entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting with investors who share your vision and understand the specific needs of your project is crucial. However, obtaining financing without neglecting the growth of the business is one of the great challenges of startups. As Ander Méndez, founder of Epic Foottech, points out: "Searching for investment agents takes us off focus from our main objective: to grow the business."

To facilitate the identification of suitable investment agents according to the sector and the stage of financing, from the ONE Platform  we make the Dealroom.co Entrepreneurship Map available to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This market intelligence tool was the protagonist of the webinar "Maximizing networking - The power of the Entrepreneurship Map", held on April 24 and conducted by Pau Vidal, head of B2B sales at Dealroom.co.

Read on and find out how to transform the search for financing into a focused and effective strategy to boost the development of your business. 

In this post we teach you how to use the Entrepreneurship Map of the ONE Platform (Dealroom.co) strategically. Specifically, you will learn how to:

• Apply the most appropriate filters to identify the investment agents most aligned with your project.
• Conduct competitive analysis to understand the environment and spot funding opportunities.
• Take advantage of advanced features such as the Matching Tool and maintain an optimised digital profile.
• Approach the search for funding as a continuous process through the creation of personalised alerts. 

Strategically act to find funding

During the webinar to present the Dealroom.co Entrepreneurship Map, Pau Vidal highlighted the importance of approaching the search for financing with a well-defined strategy. It's not about sending mass communications to multiple investor agents, but about accurately identifying those that really align with the specific characteristics and needs of your project. 

Pau explained how the Dealroom.co tool allows a high level of segmentation, facilitating the search for investment agents according to the type of financing round. This functionality makes it possible to focus efforts on investment agents that are aligned with both your proposal and the growth phase of your startup. 

Specifically, the Entrepreneurship Map offers advanced filters that allow you to segment, prioritise and personalise searches effectively. It is possible to filter by:

• Sector: fintech, foodtech, healthtech, deeptech, among others.
• Funding Stage: Seed, Series A, Series B.
• Recent activity: active investment agents in the last 12 months.
• Type of investment agent: venture capital, business angels, corporate venture, etc.

Applying these filters helps you customise your search with up-to-date data and focus your efforts on real and relevant opportunities for your project. 

Competitive analysis to identify potential investment agents

Another key  aspect in the strategy of seeking funding is competitive analysis. The aim is to study  similar startups to identify potential investors interested in projectsin the same field. The fundamental premise is that many investors specialise in certain sectors: if they have invested in an  innovative startup in  the food sector before, for example, they are likely to be willing to support similar proposals.

During the webinar, Pau Vidal explained that this analysis allows you to detect investor profiles with interests aligned with your project, and recommended following the following steps to carry out a competitive analysis:

• Identify startups that have closed rounds similar to the one you are looking for.
• To analyse which investment  agents participated in these rounds.
• Detect investment patterns by sector and stage.
• Create a prioritised list of investment agents  of your interest.

This approach allows you to focus your efforts on the investment  agents who are most likely to be interested in your project, increasing your chances of success.

Matching Tool: the automated search for investment agents

During the webinar, the usefulness of the Matching Tool, an automated search functionality integrated into the Dealroom.co tool,  was also  highlighted.Itallows you to identify profiles of investment agents who have participated in similar rounds in your country and who maintain a recent activity. 

Based on your startup's profile, the feature identifies investment patterns and suggests compatible investment agents. This allows you to  speed up the search and focus it on profiles with a higher probability of interest in your project.

For  this functionality to be really effective, it is essential to keep  your company's profile updated. 

One of the most relevant learnings during the webinar was that visibility to potential  investors depends directly on how the information is presented. The more structured and accurate the profile, the better the recommendations generated by the tool.

In this sense, some key elements to take into account to optimise your company's profile on the Entrepreneurship Map are: use precise and specific tags, which act as keywords to facilitate location by investors; keep financial information up to date, including data on previous rounds, valuation and current status of the project; and, if actively seeking investment, incorporate a fundraising pitch, indicating the type of round, the amount required and the time horizon. 

As Pau Vidal pointed out, incorporating this information significantly increases the chances of being discovered organically by relevant investment agents. 

In short, a complete and well-managed profile is a  key  strategic functionality to make the most of the potential of the Matching Tool.

Continuous monitoring and personalised alerts

Finally, during the session, it was highlighted that the search for funding should not be approached as a one-off action, but as a continuous and dynamic process. 

In this sense, the Dealroom.co tool offers the possibility of activating personalised alerts that offer information on key developments in  the startup ecosystem such as new rounds of investment in your sector, recent activity of target investors, entry of new investment agents into the market, or evolution of competing companies.

In short, the Entrepreneurship Map of the ONE Platform, provides you one set of Valuable features to design an effective and results-oriented financing strategy. If you haven't already, register in the ONE Platform and begins to take advantage of the full potential of the Entrepreneurship Map.

In addition, you have at your disposal  complementary content  that will help you delve into each phase of the innovative entrepreneurial process and enhance the growth and success of your startup. We recommend you explore the following resources:  

• Assess the growth potential of a Startup: keys to making informed decisions
• Master the Entrepreneurship Map: keys and strategies for entrepreneurial success,
• How to increase your company's visibility on the Entrepreneurship Map?

Take the next step with confidence and grow your startup with data, strategy, and focus.