It’s easy to see why people are drawn to venture capital: It’s fast-moving, exciting, and it gives you the chance to make a real difference in your industry. But raising money for a first-time investment fund is often a tough, uphill battle.

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4 Types of Documents Founders Must Have in Their Fundraising Data Room (and a Few Additional Tips) If you’re a founder raising capital, having an organized data room shouldn’t be an afterthought. Instead, think of your data room as a way to impress potential investors with your thoughtfulness and sense of organization.

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You made your pitch. You hooked an investor and you signed a term sheet agreeing to their intended investment. It’s almost a done deal. The only thing standing between you and the investor’s money is the due diligence process. What is due diligence, and how can your business successfully navigate it to close your funding round? Here’s a due diligence checklist to help.

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Board meeting minutes template + 7 key mistakes to avoid

Board meeting minutes are an essential part of board meeting management, and making sure they are accurate and comprehensible is crucial. Here’s how to make sure yours are top-notch.

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A startup executive summary is a short document that makes a big impact. Sometimes known as a one-pager, a startup executive summary is a brief version of a business plan that most investors like to evaluate before they decide to call you in for a pitch meeting. With the stakes so high, it’s essential that you create a summary that is concise, yet thorough, exciting, and well-written.

Founder and CEOs know their companies like the backs of their hands—and trying to cram so much pertinent information into so little space is challenging. The secret is knowing what to prioritize. We’ve put together nine simple steps to help you craft a persuasive and informative one-pager that will help you land the big meeting.

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It’s never been easy to fundraise, but what it takes to raise has definitely changed. Seven to ten years ago, a MVPP (Minimum Viable PowerPoint) was enough to get you into a room with investors. But as companies have become more sophisticated, VC expectations have changed, as we’ve seen in our startup fundraising research, with data derived in-part from our weekly Pitch Deck Metrics. There’s also been a boom in the number of startups looking for funding. Like it or not, you’re competing with every other founder out there for that next check. Pitch decks have become one of the most important aspects to getting you that initial meeting. Let’s face it — it’s unlikely this is the first time investors have seen your idea…maybe even this week. We took the original pitch decks of some startups that went on to become tech giants and household names and ran them through our Pitch Deck Analyzer.

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How to Gather Notable (Believable) Customer Feedback and Prove Traction Even Before Product

For founders, a critical step at the early stage is to get your idea in front of targeted potential customers to collect key insights to develop a product people want.

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Some Advice for Early-Stage VCs

Early-stage VC fundraising shares many similarities with early-stage startup fundraising. Building strong relationships with current and potential investors is key for both emerging VCs and founders. Likewise, having to provide tangible evidence of traction is a hurdle faced by VCs as well as their portfolio companies. If you’re an early-stage VC without any portfolio companies, without a robust pipeline of deals in the works, and without any process efficiency through technology, then you haven’t shown a number of factors that can make your fund more attractive to potential LPs.

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Surveying nearly 50 firms, our data shows that the democratization of the VC world means fundraising has become a truly global endeavor. But despite access to worldwide networks of LPs, early-stage fundraising can still be a lengthy affair with varying rates of efficiency. See what you can take from our research and whether you agree.

• Learn how you can raise more efficiently
• Understand the importance of anchor LPs
• Discover what to expect when raising your first fund, from how many limited partners to contact to how long it will take

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