Why choose us?
Startup founders come to us because of:
Fundraising without any support is super inefficient
Our experience in fundraising
Our international approach
Our honest and pragmatic way of working
Our large network of trusted relations within the early stage investor community
We have built strong relations with the right people built over many years.
Our database has thousands of investors and we know and constantly update their investment criteria. On your own you are unlikely to find the right partner; cold mailing in general does not work in early stage financing and can even be counterproductive.
Early stage financing is extremely based on trust and on introductions.
We put ourselves in the shoes of the investor and can look at your deal with the investor mindset. We have obtained a 90% success rate in the last 3 years in finding the right investor(s) for our clients.
Fundraising without any support is super inefficient
Fundraising is a tough process that takes a lot of your valuable time. There is a big opportunity cost of wanting to do all of this yourself.
Focus on your business while we do the legwork to get you the funding your business deserves.
Our support in getting you a good deal
Our international approach
Our honest and pragmatic way of working
We are complimentary to your own relations and do not require any exclusivity. You always remain in control of your funding round. We like it if you have already partially funded your round yourself.
We are quite confident that the investors we talk to are not within the network you have already approached but will always clarify things before we start.
If we cannot help you and for example crowdfunding is a better option or you are not ready yet for fundraising, we will tell you.
Our strong reputation with investors
We have built an excellent image within the early-stage investor community due to the high quality of the investment opportunities we can source and offer.
- We are fully aware that investors are often flooded with second-tier investment proposals that are not within their investment parameters or which are not investment-ready.
- We avoid this by being highly selective and rigorous before accepting mandates. Our pre-vetting process ensures that we only show opportunities that are truly interesting from an investor point of view and in line with their specific investment thesis.
Are you an investor? Finwise offers investors a privileged access to selective investment opportunities; we show you deal flow that you do not see elsewhere and that may be relevant. Investors conduct their own assessment and due diligence before making any investment decision.
FAQ
What are the benefits of working with Finwise?
The benefits of using one is the higher efficiency, reduction in time, connections to the right people and the valuable know how we can bring you.
Startup entrepreneurs almost universally agree that raising money for their startup is one of the biggest challenges and problems they face. It is indeed often stressful, frustrating, time-consuming and it distracts founders from keeping the focus on product development or sales. And don’t forget investors usually have a lot more experience in this than you in this.
We help make the fundraising process more efficient by identifying relevant prospective investors and facilitating introductions while you remain responsible for the investment discussions and terms.
We act as your best ambassadors. We help present yuour company clearly to relevant prospective investors and facilitate introductions where there is a potential fit.
We can’t promise you the process is ever going to be quick and easy, but our expertise and connections will put you in a far stronger position to optimize and maximize the whole process towards a good closing.
I have my own contacts. Do you need exclusivity?
In contrast to traditional M&A, we believe that exclusive agreements are not necessary and not to the benefit to a startup.
We are confident that our network is complimentary to yours.
Do I remain in control of the funding round?
Following an introduction, you remain in control of the investor relationship and investment decisions.
How much time does a fundraising take?
It generally varies between 3 and 9 months with an average of 6 months from start to finish. You should always have a sufficient runway (12 months) before starting a fundraising, investors do not like to be used to bridge a runway gap and it can put you in a difficult negotiation position.
How much do I raise?
You should always raise with a specific exact amount which can defend as necessary to reach a specific milestone in the road map and for which the use of funds can be clearly demonstrated. You can always oversubscribe and raise more funds in case of strong interest.
How do you work?
We do warm introductions/referrals to people you have no easy access to based on existing relationships & trust painstakingly built over a long period. We don’t do mass-emailing.
Fundraising for startups/scaleups is an extremely relationship-driven process based on trust. It is a fact that 80% of investment deals happen through referrals.
Founders often try a spray and pray approach but not only is this ineffective, but it also reduces any potential goodwill. And it’s unlikely to the big names in the newspaper that will fund your business.
What does it cost?
Other than a symbolic administration fee for onboarding and analysis, we believe that paying a set fee or monthly fee as is customary in M&A is not appropriate for early stage fundraising.
If we accept to work with you, we are convinced you are “investable” and our success is aligned with yours.
The success fee % depends on the amount, stage of your startup and our assessment of the difficulty level of successfully funding you. Contact us for more detail.
What is your onboarding process?
While you rightly are selective in who you work with, we also carefully chose our clients.
Due to our business model based on result, we need to be very selective and carefully choose the companies we work with. We need to ask you the questions an investor is likely to ask you and analyse your investment opportunity through the investor’s eyes.
We constantly source the best startups so that our deal flow is of very high level in order to maintain the high trust level we enjoy by investors.
Do you advise on valuation?
No. Finwise does not provide investment or valuation advice.
Companies should determine their proposed valauation and fundraising terms with their own financial, legal and other professional advisers where appropriate.
Our role is focused solely on identifying prospective investors and facilitating introductions rather than determining or negotiating investment terms.
Did you know?
… that less than 1% of deals result in investment.
… that the average Angel Investor sees around 10 pitch decks a week, but makes only two investments per year? This means if you’re currently pitching for funding, yours could be just one of 520 pitches, and only two would seal the deal!