How do I sell and win over a big company to partner/fund me to create their (cooperate) accelerator?

Strange, I answered this question a few days ago here: https://clarity.fm/a/2890 but this seems to be a repost of the exact same question. Andrew's comments are spot-on about building a waiting list while you build your product. You want to be able to point to a meaningful uptake of customers and transactions early after launch. The challenge of raising VC with a product that is already launched is that the data available to investors has to be compelling enough to believe you've got all the pieces more or less in-place for significant growth with their investment. Depending on if you have a strong enough team, you might be best to not build and launch the product but get enough customer validation of the demand for you to try and raise pre-launch. Because they can always "wait" to see if in 3-6 months, you're much better than you were or if you're still at the same level. To be absolutely clear, once you launch, the burden will be on your data to show exceptionally strong and significant metrics in order for you to raise a seed round of $750,000 or more from any VC firm or fund. Dan is missing one key point in his investor analysis scorecard and it's the most important when VCs evaluate new investments, even at seed and that's TAM. Total Addressable Market. Put another way, it's "can this business become a billion dollar business?" If a VC firm doesn't believe with conviction that your business can achieve that, then you're not going to get an investment except in the rarest case where you're a proven team with enough great traction that they'll consider the seed bet a "blind to see the flop." But this is extremely rare and shouldn't be considered a possibility for most entrepreneurs. I'm happy to talk to you in a call about the realities of fundraising for startups.

Likely you won't like my thoughts about this. When I give talks about business bootstrapping, I suggest people only work ideas which meet my "Sunset Rule". Sunset Rule - You should be able to go from idea to first sale, before sunset, or best consider other ideas. This also relates to your MVP. If you can't dream up an MVP + sell it before the sun goes down, best consider other ideas. Years ago, I was at an Internet Marketing Party mixer in Austin, TX + sat to visit with a friend. She was down because she was starting a new business + had spent months working on a business plan + determined she required $80K to bootstrap her business + then had spent another several months looking for investors. A buddy of mine + I sat with her for 15mins + slightly retooled her idea. She launched the next day for a one time investment of $144/year (cost of a Meetup.com account) + was generating some significant profit in a few days. Chunk down your MVP, so you can manually make sales by the end of the day... for $0 investment + you'll know for sure you have a profitable business. If you can't sell one unit, by the end of the day... best consider some other idea...

I'm both an active angel investor and entrepreneur who has recently raised capital. I'll start with what is standard in Silicon Valley and then apply various multiples and discounts where relevant. For an angel or early seed round, the current going rate is $3m-$5m pre-money via a capped note or priced round. Priced Rounds typically most often use the "Series Seed" docs and Convertible Notes typically are 18-24 month terms with a 15% discount. I don't mean to be argumentative but Marco is incorrect that valuation can be avoided by a capped note. And in general, there is no way to avoid setting a valuation except via an uncapped note, which is almost unheard of. Setting your cap and discount will have a significant impact on your cap structure, the same (and in some cases) worse than a priced round. This $3m - $5m range is what I'd call current market value in the valley for "ideation-stage" capital. This is that there is a team in place, typically some form of MVP and in some cases some very basic market data supporting the general thesis of the raise. In the other market I'm familiar with (Canada), the range for the same stage of capital is $1m - $3 with most being in between $1m and $2m and most preferring priced rounds over notes. These rounds rarely have a real lead since the raise is typically $500k or less, so if you price it reasonably, most (good) angels will accept the terms as is. The low and high end of the ranges are discounted and pushed by the credibility presented most often by the team (done it before, worked for a notable company, had some relevant success) or strong evidence of the thesis being correct. It's also the Founder's option to price the round at the top end of reasonable or provide what you might consider a discount, depending on the kind of investors you are courting. So while this is what I'm seeing as "current market conditions" there is price elasticity in any market. The best way you know if you've priced it right, is if people are buying. Any angel investor should be able to give you a conditional answer after the first meeting (subject to playing with the product, reading terms, meeting the rest of the team). Any angel investor in ideation stage capital who can't give you a yes, no or subject-to yes in the first meeting is not worth pursuing IMO. Any investor who can't close within 3 meetings or conversations won't close (9 times out of 10). Happy to talk to you about the specifics of where you're at, what might help you improve your odds and generally get you closer to the point where you're ready to raise.

I heard of a startup that recently launched called http://sketchdeck.com that has become pretty popular for fundraising decks. Happy to do a dry run of your pitch with you in a call.

As someone who is deeply involved with startup studios, here are a few hints. 1. First, calculate your optimal scale of operations. In our startup studio this was about 12-15 people core team + dedicated ceo-s for each startup experiment 2. Raise funds for the studio, for at least 12-18 months. Your options: - use your own money - do agency work - get direct VC investment (hardest one, you will need traction) - get corporate financing 3. Raise funds for your startups that are ready for it. More on the topic here: https://medium.com/@aszig/startup-studio-advice-2-how-to-raise-funds-for-a-newly-created-venture-builder-cfff0602d14#.4it9foo5h