Giovanni Finocchio

Agenda
• Quick intro
• Our funding
• What is VC & what do we like?
• The business plan
• The investment process
• Q&A

Who are we
• FCA authorised venture capital fund manager, established over 20 years
• Generalist, early stage investor
• 21 staff, owner-managed business
• £80m under management
• c.90 portfolio companies
• Invest from £50k to £500k

Partnering with
Our Funds

What is Venture Capital?
• Money at risk
• Ownership (shares) for a cash investment
• Investor objective - capital gain

VC - Why and When?
• Cash needed to expand
• Little or no revenue
• Unprofitable
• Friends and family exhausted
• Too risky for a bank
• Little or no assets
• Planning to grow rapidly

VC – What do we like investing in?
• Large market potential
• No cap on growth
•
Good management team
• Demonstrated commitment
• Invested own cash or salary sacrifice
• Protectable IP

Who do VC and Angels get to see ?
• Lack of understand what equity funding is about
•
Flaky business models and plans
• Incomplete/inappropriate management
• Unrealistic valuations

Investment ready
• Business plan & financial forecasts
• History
• The product, IP
• The market and the competition
• Managers’ CVs
• Route to market
• Required funds and use
• Revenue model, financials including P&L, cashflows and balance sheets
• Planned Exit – who will buy business and why

The investment process
• Send in business plan
• Invited for presentation
• Follow up
• Outline Proposal
• Investment Committee approval
• Due diligence
• Legal documents & Completion
• 6 – 8 weeks depending on co-investment

Some of our portfolio companies

What often we hear
1. Our projections are conservative.
2. A consulting firm (Yankee Group, Jupiter, IDC...take your pick) predicts our market will swell to $50 billion by 2003.
3. Amazon (or Oracle, or AOL, or another huge company) is about to sign a sales contract with us.
4. Key employees will join our startup as soon as we get funded.
5. We have first-mover advantage.
6. Several VCs are already interested.
7. Oracle (or Microsoft, or some other big company) is too slow to be a threat.
8. We're glad the bubble has burst.
9. Our patents make our business defensible.
10. All we have to do is get 1% of the market.
Guy Kawasaki, CEO of Garage.com
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2000/sb20001229_421.htm

How to contact us
• Midven Limited
Cavendish House
39-41 Waterloo Street
Birmingham, B2 5PP
Tel: 0121 710 1990
• Email:
Giovanni.Finocchio@midven.co.uk