Venture Capitalists Evaluation

Posted: March 21, 2016 by Robert Craven

After working on an awards process with some European VC’s , I found the criteria used to evaluate each company’s presentation fascinating.

 
Companies were scored out of 10 on the following criteria:

1. General business idea
2. Key technology
3. Product pipeline
4. Competitive advantage
5. International strategy
6. Sales and distribution channels
7. Management team
8. Financial situation
9. Exit strategy

 

These criteria – big broad issues and criteria – are an alternative to the FiMO andRECoIL scores used in ‘Kick-Start Your Business’ (where you look at a business’s ‘performance to date’ and ‘potential to grow’). FiMO and RECoIL are used by several leading institutions in the banking and business support industries in the UK.

Remember, to an investor an attractive business has the following attributes (consistent with the list above!):

• Underlying, repeatable, sustainable profits
• Reference and trophy clients
• Distinctive capabilities – things that make you unique
• Core competences or strategic assets – what you are really good at
• A senior team to take it to the next stage.

Do score yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being a low score and 10 being high…

Now think, what can you do today, to improve your scores?

Sorry to be harsh, but stop messing around at the edge of your business and start to make the tough decisions to take the business to the next stage… go, go go!