You have decided that you will develop your own business. Alone or in a team of like-minded people, you continuously improve your business idea, study the market, and look at possible competitors. And the moment inevitably comes when you understand what initial investment your project requires. Investments at the start may differ significantly, but in ninety-five percent of cases, a beginning businessman does not have the required amount of available funds. The way out of this situation is to find an investor for the business.

In this article we will talk about:

• what preparation needs to be done before launching your project on the investment market;
• where to find an investor;
• how to interest an investor in your project;

• consider forms of investment cooperation;
• Let's talk about the mandatory clauses of the investment agreement;
• let's be inspired by the experience of successful startups and look at their working ideas

So let's get started.

First, you must clearly understand your business idea and its accompanying business mission. If you yourself cannot formulate how exactly your future product or service differs from those existing on the market, do not expect that an investor will be interested in your idea.

Example of a bad business idea presentation: opening a private kindergarten in one of the cities of the Moscow region.

An example of a good business idea presentation: opening a private kindergarten for 100 places in the village of Nakhabino, Moscow region, in order to satisfy the increased demand for kindergartens in the absence of supply.

Answer your questions honestly, preferably in writing.:

1. Why do I think that my future product/service is better than what is already on the market?
2. What target audience might it be of interest to?
3. How popular will my product/service be?
4. How do I plan to organize the production of goods/services? Here it would be appropriate to briefly describe the technological process.

At the meeting with you, the investor will ask these questions, so you must be 100% sure of the answers. Also, detailed answers to the questions described above will contain a business plan, with which you will go to the investor for a presentation of the project.

Second, you need a well-written, workable business plan. There is a lot of information on writing business plans both on the Internet and in specialized literature. You just need to study this issue and follow the recommended sections when writing. If you do not have the time or skills to write such documents, you can always turn to professionals for help. There is a huge selection of business plan writing services on the Internet. But!

A good business plan is not a beautifully written document or professionally presented information about the market and product. This is, first of all, a detailed description of your idea and evidence that the idea will be profitable. By the way, we talked about how to write a business plan in one of them.

Whether you write it yourself or delegate the writing of a business plan, you must know by heart and be confident in every proposal, and especially in the technological and financial parts. Be prepared for the fact that every statement you make will be questioned by the investor.

Investors are primarily interested in:

1. The amount of investment you are applying for, as well as what share the investment will occupy in the total amount of capital investment in the project.
2. Profitable interest rate on investments. The rate on risk-free and low-risk investments (deposits, bonds, reliable shares) tends to 14-15% per annum, so you should offer a higher rate.
3. Payback period is the period in months during which the profits from the business will cover the initially incurred costs.
4. Project risks. The startup is a leader among risky capital investments. Write honestly about all the risks; experienced investors know about them anyway.

Indicators that must be present on title page business plan:

1. Amount of investment.
2. Profitable interest rate.
3. Payback period.

If the investor is not satisfied with the above indicators, he will not look at the rest of the information. Put yourself in his shoes. He gives his money, earned with blood and sweat. What is he waiting for? Innovation? Social significance? ARRIVED. Everything else interests him insofar as. So give him a profit.

The third point in preparing for a meeting with an investor will be creating a presentation of your business project. Whether it will be a full-fledged presentation in Power Point, a printed album, or a set of sheets with key figures, tables, images is up to you. It all depends on the scale of the spartap and the requirements of the investor you contact. The main thing is your ability to convincingly present the project using prepared materials. Remember, the main thing is your prepared speech and charisma, and then a beautifully designed presentation. Get the investor interested, give him something to think about, and “infect” him with your idea.

When the preparation is completed, you can begin the search.

Where to find an investor?

Credit organizations

The most obvious solution for a novice businessman is to contact a bank. Many, many aspiring entrepreneurs took out so-called business development loans or even consumer loans and successfully developed their business. But banks want to invest money only in reliable projects and receive a good interest income.

If you choose this path of searching for investments, we recommend contacting a bank where you have an account and/or have a positive credit history. If there are none, please contact large banks with a well-known name, avoid microfinance organizations.

A list of the most interesting business loan offers to date is given in the table.

Table 1. Business loans in Russian banks

Bank	Loan name	Sum	Term	Interest rate	Security
Banca Intesa	"Costs Down"	from 3 million rubles	1 year and 1 month - 10 years	from 12.5%	required
Ural FD	"Business Mortgage"	500 thousand rubles - 14.5 million rubles.	6 months - 10 years	13-13,5%	real estate
Severgazbank	"Modernization"	500 thousand rubles - 5 million rubles.	1-5 years	9,9-13,5%	required
Rosbank	"Commercial mortgage"	1 million rubles - 100 million rubles.	3 months - 7 years	12,22-13,76%	required

List of interesting consumer loans shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Consumer loans, which can be used as an investment for business.

Bank	Loan name	Sum	Term	Interest rate	Security
Sberbank of Russia	Consumer secured by real estate	up to 10 million rubles	up to 20 years	12,50%	required
VTB Bank of Moscow	Cash	up to 3 million rubles	up to 60 months	from 14.90%	Not required, proof of income required
Housing Finance Bank	Universal	up to 8 million rubles	up to 20 years	12,89%	required
Gazprombank	Secured by real estate	up to 30 million rubles	up to 15 years	12,70%	required

Pros: high probability of receiving funds if all documents and security are provided, transparent and verified scheme for raising funds.

Minuses: high interest rate, security and confirmation of income, guarantees of third parties or organizations are almost always required.

Private investors, business angels, crowdinvesting

If the option of going to the bank seems too “expensive” to you (and it is), or you do not want to provide the bank with your apartment as collateral, you should take a closer look at private investors and the so-called “business angels”. Private investors are most often people who have already earned enough money from their business. And now they invest it in other businesses and receive passive income. In addition to investments, business angels provide expert support young business, can bring you into certain business circles, advise working business models, and suggest ways to optimize your business.

Type the words “private investor” and “business angel” into a search engine and you will find more than a million offers from potential investors. Among the proposals there will be investment exchanges, the most famous of which are:

• start2up
• EASTWESTGROUP
• investorov.net
• business-platform
• SBAR (Russian business angel community)

However, do not create vain illusions that by placing an ad describing your project, you will receive hundreds of offers from potential investors. You will have to write letters and call yourself, and more than once. After sending a hundred applications, you may receive only three to five responses. .

Beware of scammers, of which there are a sufficient number on the Internet. Never deposit money for anything, under any pretext. And read the contract carefully.

Register on forums for professional communication of TOP managers, such as E-xecutive and Up-pro. Reputable employees of large companies communicate on them. Available financial resources They have it, but they don’t have the time to develop their own business. A good opportunity for you to express yourself.

Another interesting subtype of private investment is crowdfunding and crowdinvesting projects.

The term " crowdfunding" comes from the English words "crowd" - crowd and "funding" - financing, provision. It is clear that we are talking about collective fundraising for a project. This can be either a commercial endeavor or a charity event. Crowdinvesting- This is also a collective fundraiser, but Spartapas and commercial ventures are already becoming the object of investment. Investors expect profit from such investments.

Crowdfunding is an interesting option for an interesting idea

Both types are relatively new in the world of investing and dynamically developing. True, to successfully search for a group of unrelated investors on the Internet, your project must be either very bright or very modern and trendy. The proposal should “catch” the eye. High technology, IT, projects with a social impact, with a creative component, etc. are suitable. And you are unlikely to receive large investments (more than 1 million rubles), since mainly young beginning investors with a share of adventurism, but without large funds, register on such sites.

Take a look at Russian crowdfunding sites:

• Planeta.ru;
• BoomStarter;
• Simex;
• Crowdsourcing.ru.

It is worth noting that your relatives and friends may also turn out to be investors for your project. But you shouldn’t take such investments carelessly. Make preliminary preparations for a meeting with a loved one in the same way as if you were presenting a project to an unfamiliar investor.

Pros: private investors require fewer documents and often provide money without collateral; they can help a business with experience and connections; for small, ambitious projects, investments are found quickly.

Minuses: the target income interest rate is often higher than in banks, the risk of falling for scammers is high.

Video - Attracting investments

In this video, Oleg Karnaukh, founder of the Smart Business project, says:

• at what stage does a small business need investment,
• what arguments to get for a conversation with an investor
• how to remain the owner of your business
• how to scale a business.

Investment venture funds

Let's move on to the most difficult, but also the most interesting ways to attract investment.

First, let’s define what a “venture fund” is.

Venture fund comes from the English word “venture” - an adventure, a bold undertaking, a risky undertaking. Such funds invest money with a high degree of risk, but also with great profit. 80% investment venture funds depreciate, but 20% bring such a profit that it is several times higher than the costs.

If your future business does not relate to:

• high-tech sector,
• IT and telecommunications,
• healthcare,
• Internet and e-commerce,

You can safely skip this paragraph of the article and move on to the next one.

For the remaining ones, we reveal the work scheme of venture funds. The fund's team consists of experienced financiers who deal primarily with high-risk investments. All applications go through several stages of consideration.

Stage 1. Review of submitted applications. The business plan and other documents are checked for correctness of writing, compliance with the fund’s policies, and profitability. 90% of applications do not pass this stage.

Stage 2. Conducting research in the field of competitiveness of a new product, financial efficiency of a future business, and management competence. 9% of applications do not pass this stage.

Stage 3. Negotiating and concluding a contract. 1% of those who apply become the owners of the required amount for business development.

We recommend submitting applications to venture funds and actively being interested in new venture projects. Even if your application is rejected at the first stage, this is not a reason to stop, but an opportunity to analyze your mistakes and submit the documents again. In fact, this is a free master class on attracting investments from experienced investors.

Table 3 lists the largest venture funds operating in Russia.

Table 3. Large Russian venture funds

Fund name	Investment area	Average investment amounts	Expected share in the company
Runa Capital	IT, mobile technologies	$3 million	20 - 40%
ABRT	Technological projects, internet	From $1 million	30 - 35%
e.ventures	IT, internet	Up to $10 million	30 - 35%
RVC (Seed Investment Fund)	Science and technology, precision technologies	Not defined, investments only with a partner	25%
Russian Ventures	Internet, services	$35 – 500 thousand	15-20%

You must understand that if you want to make a profit from your project, then it must at least bring 40-45% profitability, because you will give 30-35% to the vendor. Are you ready for this challenge?

Pros: opportunity to find funds for initial stage, without security; the concept itself venture investments implies that the investor may lose money if the project fails.

Minuses: not suitable for all projects, long and complex competition for obtaining funds, high investor share in the company.

Video – Conference of the Foundation for the Development of Innovation and Initiatives

After watching this video, you will learn how to bring an IT startup to the international venture capital market. And also how, where and at what rate to ask for money for innovation

Grants and subsidies

The most desirable type of attracting investment for any beginning businessman is, of course, a grant or subsidy. After all, you don’t have to give them away! Or it is necessary, but after a certain period and without interest. Therefore, those wishing to receive such financial assistance from outside are a dime a dozen. However, in order to qualify for a grant or subsidy, your business project must bring not only profit to you, but also benefit to society. Only projects with a social impact receive the attention of non-profit foundations.

Funds that provide support to new and small businesses are divided into state and non-state.

Target areas subsidized by government grants:

• Agriculture;
• Innovative technologies;
• Education;
• Advertising and Marketing;
• Tourism;
• Healthcare;
• Production of goods for export.

Non-state funds subsidize the following industries:

• Agriculture;
• Innovative production;
• IT and telecommunications;
• Internet trading;
• Healthcare;
• Social business;
• Creation.

Let's look at the most interesting measures of state and non-state support for small and new businesses.

Pros: Grants received do not need to be repaid; subsidies are given either on a non-refundable basis or without interest.

Minuses: This type of financing is not available for all projects; you will need to regularly report for the money received.

The investor has invited you to a meeting. What's next?

Armed with a business plan and project presentation, you rush to negotiations. At this stage, the main task for you is to talk about your business idea as convincingly as possible. And sell it for as much as possible.

Meeting with an investor is the most important step

Yes, yes, that's not a typo. During negotiations, you sell your business idea and your efforts to implement it, and in exchange you receive money at a rate of return that suits both you and the investor.

Negotiations are by no means a friendly meeting, but a kind of battle with an investor for future profits, so remember a few important rules.

1. If possible, carefully study the bank, fund or person you are approaching for money. What businesses does he invest in? How does he feel about risk in investing? What goals does he pursue? Use the information received in negotiations
2. Always focus on the benefit for the investor, not on your financial goals
3. Prepare a rough structure for the meeting and think through answers to possible questions.
4. During negotiations, write down all key points, otherwise important information It may then simply fall out of your attention.
5. Be flexible, consider investor offers
6. At the end of the meeting, write down all agreements reached. Prepare supporting documents together.

One of the important topics of negotiations with an investor will be the choice of investment form. There are two such forms for small businesses: lending and buying out a share in the business. Consider in Table 4 comparative characteristics two forms and determine the pros and cons of each of them.

Table 4. Characteristics of various forms of investment

Indicators	Lending	Buying out a share in a business
Return on investment	Need to return	No need to return
Revenue part	Interest on the amount of debt	Percentage of business profit
Own	You remain completely the owner of the business	Part of the business becomes the property of the investor
Making decisions	The lender does not influence your decisions	The investor influences decision making, the level of influence is determined by the investor’s share in the business
Risks	In case of business insolvency, the creditor bears no or minimal risks	The investor bears the risks together with you in proportion to the share in the business
pros	You remain the owner of your business and can, after repaying the loan, take all the profit earned for yourself	You share responsibility for the success of the business with the investor. No profit - no payments to the investor
Minuses	If a business experiences financial difficulties, the loan will need to be repaid first	Any more or less important decision must be discussed with the investor

The final stage of negotiations with a potential investor will be the conclusion of an investment agreement. Most often, you will be offered an agreement developed by the investor and, accordingly, focused on his interests.

Read all clauses of the contract carefully and ask clarifying questions. Feel free to make corrections. It’s better to show the contract to a lawyer to avoid pitfalls.

Video - Master class on finding investments

Look at the secrets of finding a development investor from Sergei Gribov. At the master class, he explains the entire practice of obtaining investments, based on his fifteen years of experience in creating startups in countries such as Israel, America and Russia.

Who did it?

Yes, attracting investment in a young, growing business is not easy. Yes, in exchange for the funds received, you will have to give away part of the future profit. But who will stop it?

See how inexperienced aspiring businessmen like you achieved success. Do you see any familiar companies among them?

Max Levchin, company founder PayPal, attended Champaign College with a degree in communications security. He never even thought about creating a world-famous online payment system, but while still in college, he became the founder of three companies in the field of information technology. True, none of them achieved success. Then he had such a bright business idea that he dropped out of school and moved to Silicon Valley to bring it to life in the most suitable place for this.

PayPal is famous payment system, developed thanks to a well-formulated idea

In the summer of 1998, he was living in a friend's apartment in Silicon Valley, without funds, without certain prospects. One day Levchin went to a lecture at Stanford University. Peter Thiel was reading it, and Levchin wanted to take a look at the man about whom he had heard so much. After the speech, Max approached him to tell him about his idea and ask for expert advice. Til listened with interest young man and invited him to a business breakfast.

Levchin described his idea to Til, and he offered to implement it by investing some money. It turned out that Peter Thiel ran a hedge fund.

Yahoo! began as a site where two Stanford University graduate students, David Filo and Jerry Yang, collected web links to documents on various topics. Passionate about their idea, the students added new links to the catalog every day, and soon the catalog website became popular. At the end of 1994, Young and Philo decided to create their own website commercial organization and asked Tim Brady to write a business plan. Brady was in his senior year at the time and therefore turned the business plan into Yahoo! graduation project.

At the 1995 San Jose Electronics Show, Yahoo! placed its stand. There was not a single Internet project among the event participants, so the Yahoo! investors noticed. A few weeks after the exhibition, the students found funding for their company and moved into a real office (they had previously worked in a trailer on the institute's campus). The venture fund Sequoia Capital acted as an investor and managed to receive $1 million as an initial investment

But this is America, you say. Such ideas are born there, such capital circulates there, you say. And you will be wrong. Here are examples from Russian reality.

The founders of a large online labor exchange, Denis Kutergin and Alexey Gidirim, worked for a long time without funding, seeking their own funds. The breakthrough came in December 2010, when YouDo entered the top ten Internet projects of the Web Ready competition. Within a few months after this, the company was assigned an investment attractiveness index of “A” in the StartupIndex rating. In 2013, she won a competition announced by the Pavel Durov and Yuri Milner Foundation and received $1 million for development.

In 2016, Alexey Moiseenkov, an employee of My.com (a subsidiary of the famous Mail.Ru Group) developed an application for smartphones Prisma, allowing ordinary users to create photographs in the style of Van Gogh, Munch, Marc Chagall and other famous artists. Alexey skillfully found funding for his project. He showed the idea to his deputy general director Mail.Ru Group, who became interested in the project, introduced Alexey to the founders of the Gagarin Capital fund and private investors. Today Moiseenkov is a dollar millionaire. Prisma is not Alexey’s first startup; before becoming a successful startuper, he managed to hit a lot of bad points for himself.

Prisma - an application for creating a picture from a photograph using neural networks

As you can see, it is quite possible to get investment, but it requires persistence. And a little luck.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we note that you do not have to concentrate on any one way to attract money to your business. You are a generator of business ideas, so be creative to the end! You can, for example, receive a subsidy for business development from the state, become a resident of one of the business incubators, invest your funds and attract friends, making them business partners, and make up for the lack of funds with a bank loan. And this is just one of the options.

Take action, don't give up and may the force be with you.

— subscription to underwear. If you are also thinking about developing your startup or launching something from scratch, then our experience will certainly be useful to you.

We spent some of our own money on the project to test the viability of the idea, but there were no longer enough funds to grow and test serious marketing hypotheses. Then we started looking for investment and found it.

“Trusbox” is not a pure technology service, but it definitely has the potential for development in the direction of IT, so this is exactly what we were looking for for investments. Technological projects often require lengthy and complex development, and the result is measured not only by the kind of metrics that we are accustomed to based on university economics lessons 10 years ago. So if you want to open a beauty salon or a car repair shop, then my advice, unfortunately, will not work for you. But if you come up with a program that makes the work of a car repair shop easier, you can find investments in the project, following our experience.

Anna Gorodetskaya

My documents: what needs to be prepared

At the first stage of a project, it is often recommended to draw up a lot of documents: a description of the concept, mission, necessary regulations - that is, materials without which new team members will have difficulty understanding what your project is about. It’s not a fact that you will definitely need all the files later in your work, but they will definitely come in handy when you draw up key documents for investors.

• Detailed presentation of the project
  You must have a ready document from which a person who has no idea about the scope of your project will understand what you are doing, for whom and how. The document answers the usual questions: what we do, for whom we do it, how we do it, who we are, what are our plans, who are our competitors. If you, like me, are put into a work stupor by open empty files, then use the presentation template on canva.com - they already have structured templates with a minimal design and icons that you can use to visualize processes and numbers.
• Project business plan
  Even if you haven't made a single sale yet, you should still have an idea of ​​where the money is in your project, even if it's small and not soon. But if your project, in principle, does not involve making money, then perhaps it belongs to the social or art sphere, and sponsors, rather than investors, will help you better.
• Road map
  A document that will describe what, when and with what forces you plan to achieve. It should consist of several milestones and describe the processes and resources that will help you get there.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator/Unsplash

Where am I: determine the stage of the project

To choose the right potential investor and project presentation strategy, you first need to decide what you have. There is a simple classification for projects in the first stages of development.

• Pre-seed— you have an idea, a team, a working prototype, hypotheses about the audience and sales channels, confirmed by small numbers. That is, you have a project in which there are some people, and the project is working confidently, albeit at low speed.
• Seed- you bypassed all the pitfalls of the previous stage, did not go crazy, did not leave for Nepal, and are now ready to grow sharply and strongly.

Your strategy for finding an investor will depend on what stage your project is at: some funds may specialize in projects at different stages. When you apply to a specific fund, you will need to indicate what your current project status is.

If your stage is a confident pre-seed and you have not yet released, in fact, anything, this does not mean that you will not be able to find an investor. The first option of finding an investor will not require you to have a finished product.

About the benefits of hackathons

If you have a team of developers, even a small one, then be sure to participate in thematic or corporate hackathons. A hackathon is a short-term event (most often held over a weekend) in which teams or individual developers solve one problem voiced by the organizer. In addition to possibly winning an impressive prize that can be used to develop the project, you will meet serious people in your industry.

Companies that hold hackathons are obviously interested in additional products; if they like your project, you have a serious chance of attracting hackathon organizers as investors, as was the case with three teams at once at the “Build a University” hackathon. You can view a list of upcoming hackathons.

If a hackathon is not suitable for you, then nothing prevents you from contacting the investor directly, because thanks to the documents that you have already prepared, you know how much investment you need (although this point will be discussed).

QIWI Universe/facebook

Where to look

1. Follow the trail
If your product can definitely be classified as “something tech” (medical technology, financial technology, etc.) and it solves some understandable problem, then pay attention to large companies in your sector, many of them have their own investment solutions. For example, QIWI has a separate platform through which you can contact the company with a request for investment.

2. Spying on our neighbors
If you carefully and carefully prepared the presentation of your project, then you probably know all the competitive startups in your industry. Information about transactions is a major information feed that is very rarely hidden. You can check online to see if your competitors have received investments in the last year, and if so, from whom. Feel free to contact funds that have invested in projects similar to yours: this means that the fund is already working with your topic, understands something about it and will be able to evaluate your project for subsequent investment.

3. Contact directly
The simplest and most obvious advice, which for some reason no one uses: just write to investment funds. The Firrma website has a ranking of the most active (that is, those who conducted the most transactions) venture funds for the year. There are both seed and new funds. The algorithm in this case is as follows: you need to go to the investment fund’s website, try to find a project presentation template there, fill it out and, together with cover letter send to the address indicated on the website. Investment funds actually read the letters they receive. They make money from investments and, of course, do not want to miss out on interesting options.

I strongly recommend finding a presentation template for a specific fund and working with it, because in any case you will be asked to provide information in a standard form, and you will simply lose time and some credibility if you do not use a document that is in the public domain.

cartierawards/instagram

One of the formats for reaching investments is startup competitions. Most often, an investment fund and a large company are combined to organize them, and the winners receive prizes from both: in the form of investments, in the form of the company’s services, or both. For example, the “First Height” competition is held jointly by the consulting giant McKinsey & Company and the large investment fund Winter Capital. But the most famous startup competition in Russia is GenerationS. In addition to the main competition, every year there are different nominations, the process of application and expert verification in them can be simpler, so check if there is a special nomination this year on the topic of your project, and if there is, then feel free to apply on the website (list of special nominations located below home page site).

Pay special attention to competitions that stimulate the development of women's entrepreneurship. Thus, the famous jewelry house Cartier has a competition program for women business leaders from all over the world.

By the way, it’s not just Cartier that has separate women’s acceleration and investment projects. Read more about the special opportunities in IT for Pink women.

Investor's choice

An important and responsible matter. Because an investor gives you not only money - he gives you connections and the opportunity to make this money even more money.

In addition, investment money is not given for nothing - you can only receive it in exchange for a share in the company. That is, having allowed another participant into your project, whose interests will definitely be exclusively commercial, you must be prepared for the fact that your actions as a project manager must also take into account the possible benefits for the investor.

This is the main difference between investment and lending: the loan can simply be returned and forgotten, and the investor will remain with you until he leaves the project (sells his share). So if your project involves a relatively simple development cycle and does not require a lot of funds, then it will probably be easier and faster for you to take out a loan for business development, and only then attract larger investments to scale the project.

Whichever option you choose, I wish you good luck and courage: no matter the outcome of your investment hunt, the experience of communicating with funds and making presentations will remain with you forever.

This section is for those who are either ready to invest and are looking for an object for profitable investments, or, on the contrary, is interested in attracting Russian or foreign capital. Here you can find advertisements from private investors who are ready to invest money in business, as well as investment programs of investor companies offering, among other things, project financing. Direct and venture investment funds, major regional and industrial investors are invited to contribute to this section. Both small and large businesses will find a wide range of investment opportunities here.

It doesn’t matter who you are: a private equity fund, a venture fund, a private investor, a business angel, an investment bank or a management company, if you make direct investments and are ready to provide project financing, then this portal will be useful to you.

If you are interested in diversifying your investment portfolio, looking for new and profitable objects for investment, post information about yourself: about investment priorities, volumes and directions of investment, principles for selecting investment projects and companies, ways to exit an investment project.

You can not only post information about yourself, but also subscribe to receive applications to attract investments. Just customize the search form in accordance with the criteria you are interested in and regularly receive investment applications in your mailbox. Do you want to be more active in your search for investment targets? Then refer to the section "Investment projects".

Where to find an investor to open a business and to develop an existing project, how to prepare for a meeting with potential partners - the answers to these and other questions are in the article. As well as samples of business plans that will be useful for finding an investor.

In this article you will learn:

Finding an investor in a bank

Where to find an investor for an existing business or for a new project? The first thing that comes to mind is a bank. Probably every second resident of our country regularly calls banks and happily informs them that they have been approved for a loan from 50 thousand to 50 million rubles. For example, a certain bank approved me a loan of 5 million at 11.8% per annum. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that the rate increases: without insurance - by 5.1%, without advance payment - by 2%, without collateral - by 2.1%, without online application - by 0.5%. From the date of loan issuance to the date of the first payment, the rate increases by 1.5% per month. The maximum total cost of the loan is 24.103%. No, thanks!

However, if you search in different banks, you can get a loan at about 11%.

In addition, you can involve your friends or subordinates in co-financing. They apply for a loan from a bank, you repay it, and you pay them a commission for using the loan. This scheme works, since few subordinates will dare to refuse the boss if they are confident in his enterprise.

This method also includes obtaining loans for small businesses from banks at 9.5% per annum secured by collateral (goods in circulation, equipment, transport, real estate, collateral of third parties, guarantee from the small business support fund). The only case when banks provide funds for opening a new business is franchise of famous brands(recipe for success).

To find an investor, you need a business plan!Download documents that will help you draw it up correctly, and sample business plans:

How to justify to a bank the effectiveness of an investment project using Excel

To prove to the bank that the company will be able to pay off its obligations, use a ready-made model in Excel to evaluate efficiency investment activities in general or a separate investment project.

Funds and business angels

You can attract investor funds for a project from scratch or for its development in Russia directly, bypassing banks. For this, connections and acquaintances, recommendations, etc. are usually used. But there are more modern ways to attract attention - these are electronic investment platforms. For example, "City of Money".

The applicant places his proposal on this site: short description and financial calculations. Provides Required documents(founding articles, business plan, guarantees, if any, documents for the property that will be used as collateral. The portal’s specialists evaluate credit history the borrower, documents and the business itself: profitability, stability, equity, debts, etc. After this, they go to the site and evaluate everything live, because according to the papers, everything may be in order. After this, a proposal is published, which investors evaluate, usually within two weeks, ask clarifying questions and either finance the project or not. See also .

What is the advantage

Firstly, there can be many investors; accordingly, the possible losses of each of them are reduced, and they, unlike a bank, can take risks.

Secondly, they may evaluate the offer differently than the bank. If the project is attractive, then a reverse auction situation is created - when there are more people willing to invest money than necessary, then the interest rate on loans decreases. As a result, the loan is much cheaper than a bank loan. It's more the best way get investment for business.

Third, investors, unlike a bank bound by rules, can take risks and provide funds without collateral. Here, the platform itself acts as a guarantor, which checks the borrower and his affairs. Therefore, through the platform, investors can allocate funds even to those who would not be allowed from the street even onto the threshold of their office.

And finally, fourthly, on the site you can place , without having any business yet, and if it seems attractive, they will “buy” it.

For its services, the platform takes a commission of 3%, and if we are talking about a startup, then a fixed payment is 4,000 rubles.

Investor proposals

There are also reverse platforms where investors themselves post their offers. For example, "Business platform" .

If you combine sentences from the first page, which indicate , then you get the following table:

Table 1. Investor proposals

Sum	Percent	Industry	Terms (information from the site)
		Know-how, production, energy, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, polymer processing	Feasibility study, business plan, team information
		Business financing through leaseback, real estate and shares, equipment, unfinished objects, or commercial real estate.	We invite partners to cooperate with projects for the reconstruction and development of existing businesses
		New technological projects and startups through ICO (Initial Coin Offering) - by issuing new cryptocurrencies.	Minimum participation own funds customer - from 20-30 thousand dollars, in this case you can remain 100% owner. The project must have a prototype, a working model, for an “idea” - we don’t work
		Construction	Unfinished objects
		Private American business angels invest in any IT and Internet startups with high development potential	Availability of a business plan in accordance with the UNIDO world standard: the project must provide a return on invested capital of at least 12% per annum; upon successful consideration, registration of the company in the United States and relocation of the head or one of the top officials of the company to permanent residence in the United States is required.
		Extraction and processing of raw materials, construction and real estate, any production and processing, any industry and energy, any services and trade	Business stage: from scratch and existing enterprises. Investment volume from 10 to 500 million rubles. into one project. Payback period: up to 60 months. Availability of a business plan and a ready-made team.
		Mechanical engineering and metalworking, polymer processing, waste processing, petrochemicals, new materials, HoReCa	A presentation containing general information about the team, analysis and forecasts of the market for a given product/service, key financial indicators, and a proposal to the investor. Financial model for the next 2–3 years.
		Any highly profitable projects	We are looking for specialists who are charged with the idea of ​​development, who do not have enough start-up capital and are ready to lead the direction. If the start is successful, the initiator receives the right to buy out the option after 3 years. Before this salary + % of profit
		Extraction and processing, agriculture, construction, manufacturing, trade, services and other industries	No collateral or security for the project is required from the initiator. The initiator's own financial resources are not required. 100% of financing is provided by the investor. The investor assumes all risks
		Working projects in the field of production, wholesale/retail trade, real estate, construction, Internet technology, agricultural sector, finance.	Investment schemes – equity participation in business (priority) or secured lending
		Medical industry (dentistry, diagnostics, MRI), accommodation, food services, tourism	If the start is successful, the initiator receives the right to buy out the option after 3 years. Before this salary + % of profit
		Investments to buy or open a store	Providing investments, sales assistance
		Manufacturing, service provision, trade, IT,	Details from the investor
		Any industries and areas of business	A clear business plan Brief information about the project initiator (education, work experience, contacts) and investment project(brief description indicating the main economic indicators)
		Automotive, architecture, woodworking, industrial parks, engineering, investment/finance, information Technology, mechanical engineering, medicine / pharmaceuticals, metalworking, real estate, oil refining / petrochemicals, know-how, transportation / transport / logistics, recreation, waste processing, polymer processing, industry, robotics, crop production, Agriculture, communications and communications, construction, energy	They actively cooperate with us as individuals trading companies, and chain stores for receiving both short-term and long-term lending in order to increase working capital and increase commodity turnover.

From the table it is clear that minimum amount investments start from 1 million rubles. As a rule, a deposit is not required, but it is necessary that the initiator himself develops his business, i.e., first of all, businessmen evaluate the business and personal qualities of the applicant himself. As for industries, the majority invest in innovative and IT technologies, or in classic business areas.

If we look at the generalized diagram, we will see that the larger the loan amount, the higher the interest that the investor requires for it (see Figure 1). Although there are exceptions. For example, an American fund for 100 million rubles. asks for only 12% per annum, and our businessman-builder 100% for 224 million rubles. (see table above).

Drawing

Raising money through various funds (venture funds, small business support, etc.) can be attributed to the same method. You can come to these funds in person, you can find them through online platforms, through acquaintances, etc., but the essence does not change.

You can get investments for your business from your suppliers

Several years ago, an acquaintance of mine set up a café-bar without a single ruble in his pocket; moreover, he was saddled with a substantial debt. In paying the rent, he agreed with the owner of the premises on a two-month deferment, since he needed time to develop himself. He also received a two-week grace period from the beer suppliers who installed the taps on the condition that only their beer be poured at the bar. It’s the same story with coffee - a coffee machine was installed for him, subject to a certain volume of beans purchased per month with payment at the end of each month. The same goes for suppliers of beer snacks, cakes, etc. The staff, of course, gets paid at the very end.

Thus, his bar started working and in the first month he was able to close the current payments, and by the end of the second he was able to pay the rent.

In other words, not only cash, A commodity credit, deferred payment and other forms of in-kind lending. The most important advantage of this type of collateral is that it is much easier to find suppliers willing to provide a trade loan under exclusive conditions and will cost less than professional investors or banks.

For example, when a university publishing house needed funds to publish academic literature, they granted one of the large stationery companies the exclusive right to sell stationery products in all buildings of St. Petersburg State University. And thus, we received the necessary funding.

Grants

Another way to obtain funding is to participate in competitions and receive government and private grants. To do this, a business must have a social component or pretend that it has one.

For example, in St. Petersburg for several years there was a network of public pharmacies selling medicines at reduced prices due to state subsidies. The pharmacy positioned itself as a social project and submitted a corresponding application to the state. help. In order to get it, she sold medicines to the population for six months at essentially wholesale prices. Due to low prices The pharmacy gained popularity and made a profit due to high turnover. As a result, the state the authorities had already heard about her, and she was easily able to win a grant for the social provision of medicines to the population.

This method seems specific, but in fact, any business can be presented as socially significant.

This category also includes numerous business incubators and small business assistance programs. Each specialized committee in government agencies has its own budget, which it needs to allocate in its own area: sports, youth, social affairs, healthcare, education, social housing, etc.

This also includes fundraising, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and other methods of collecting donations from the public.

In general, finding money is quite difficult, but it is possible. The only question is that both the applicant himself and the investors are confident in the business being offered to him.

How to prepare for a meeting with investors

Before negotiations with potential partners:

• collect information about them;
• think about how to present data about the project;
• determine the forms of participation in the project;
• prepare documents for the meeting.

Pay attention to the scale and timing of past projects, forms and conditions of participation in them. Study the industry preferences of your potential partner. For example, venture capital companies are interested in innovative companies. Find out the minimum and maximum amounts invested money, requirements for the level of profitability.

Determine what type of investors are strategists or financial investors. To draw conclusions, analyze information about the projects in which they have invested money. The former take part in the management of the company, the latter are only interested in income from investments. Using the information received, the financial director will assess in advance how much the company will interest potential investors and will place emphasis when preparing information.

What documents to prepare

Before meeting with investors, prepare the following documents:

• patents, licenses, documents confirming exclusive rights (if the project involves a high-tech or innovative product);
• commercial proposals or draft contracts for the purchase of equipment, real estate, and the creation of utilities. Describe the supplier, the reasons for choosing him and this equipment or real estate, cost, delivery conditions;
• loan agreements, if you have already attracted banks to finance the project. In the description, indicate the amount, interest rate, loan term, loan period, main covenants;
• draft agreement on participation in the project;
• loan agreement indicating the amount, interest rate, issuance and repayment schedules. This is relevant if the investor participates with money;
• a constituent agreement, a share purchase and sale agreement, a share purchase and sale agreement or a prospectus for an additional issue (in case of equity participation). In such agreements, fix the amount of investor participation, the procedure for depositing funds, the procedure for assessing the contributed share with assets, the procedure for participation in the management of the company, and the rules for distributing profits.

IN modern world More and more interesting business ideas are appearing that require implementation. But to promote any project you need money, which the author of the idea does not always have. Therefore, the question of finding investment to start a business is relevant. However, entrepreneurs and companies starting from scratch risk facing strong competitors in their chosen niche. And in order to implement the idea and find the necessary funds for this, you need to know all the tricks for attracting investors.

We will tell you how to make your project attractive to investors and what needs to be done to achieve this. The one who walks will master the road, but the business is the one who is ready for something new.

• 1 Where to look for investors
  • 1.1 Classic ways to attract investment
• 2 Attracting investment through the mainstream
• 3 Platforms for finding investors
• 4 How to act. Basic rules for attracting investors
• 5 How to make a project attractive: what will an investor pay attention to?
• 6 How to prepare for communication with an investor: from pitch to conclusion of an agreement
• 7 How to properly prepare a presentation: 5 tips for investors

Where to look for investors

There are many more opportunities for finding investors than it might seem at first glance. And you can find money by resorting to both long-existing investment methods and modern ones that appeared with the advent of the Internet.

Classic ways to attract investment

You can get money for your business through investment funds , small business assistance funds. This is quite a difficult task. In addition to the fact that a beginning entrepreneur must find serious reasons for receiving investments, he must invest part of the funds himself, but not everyone has the opportunity to do this.

You can ask for help at venture funds, however, it must be taken into account that they provide funds for the development of projects that have prospects. First of all, in the field of innovation and IT technologies.

Another option is a special platform for investing in business projects, a business incubator. But to get money, you need to win the competition and pass an interview.

Successful people can also become potential investors businessmen who would like to have passive income. Finding investors and making them partners is the most acceptable and simple way. And for this you need to be able to present your project well, prove its worth and relevance.

Attracting investment through the mainstream

One of the most popular ways to attract investment is crowdfunding, which is the collection of funds for a business from ordinary people. There are crowdfunding platforms on the Internet designed to allow you to leave proposals to raise funds for a project, or to invest your own money in the project. But to resort to this method, you either need to be a famous person or be able to advertise your idea very well, which, unfortunately, is not done on crowdfunding sites.

You can also try attract investments through cryptocurrencies and electronic payment systems . It should be noted that some popular cryptocurrencies today, for example, Ethereum, were created with user money.

Platforms for finding investors

If you don’t know where to look for investors, then we offer you several large platforms for finding them.

business-platform.ru. Federal business platform. In addition to projects and sales offers ready-made business, here you can find the investor base. The main task of the platform is to connect investors and authors of business projects online.

beboss.ru. The resource provides an opportunity to search for investors for any industry, as well as a catalog of franchises, business plans and business ideas.

napartner.ru. The platform offers various services for startups and investors, such as transaction support. Beginning businessmen will need to describe the nuances of their project so that investors receive as much information as possible.

investclub.ru. The resource offers ample opportunities for finding investments and investors.

rusinvestproject.ru. A platform for searching for investors both in Russia and in the CIS countries.

How to act. Basic rules for attracting investors

There are many people who want to receive investments and the competition is quite strong, so before looking for an investor, you need to learn a few rules.

The more information you provide to investors, the more they will trust you.

If you know how much you can earn, how your project will develop, you can safely go to a conversation with an investor. Calculate exactly how much money you need and for what.

An example is the startup Talkdesk. Its authors proposed the development of cloud technologies that should be used in call centers. Before meeting with a representative of the Silicon Valley venture fund, from which the project team subsequently received $12,000,000, she already had investments from other investors in the amount of $4,000,000 and received $1,000,000 in profit. Investors were captivated by the team’s ability to save money and devote themselves entirely to work. They made all conclusions based on the information provided about the project.

The more you know about an investor, the more opportunities you have to interest him.

What is your preferred communication style? How is business going? How quickly does he make decisions? Any little thing can turn out to be important.

An example is receiving investment for the Glowforge project. Before applying for investments, the author of the project looked at the blogs of the fund’s partners. Studying them, he concluded that when making a presentation, you need to be based not on numbers, but on the product. In total, the project raised $9,000,000 for the production of laser 3-D printers from venture funds Foundry Group and True Ventures in 2015.

The project also set a crowdfunding record, as it was able to attract another $28,000,000 on sites. That is, the author of the project, Dan Shapiro, successfully used the second rule, but most importantly, the third rule.

The more confident you are in your success, the more others will believe in it.

Investors prefer competent and persistent people who know what they want and know how to justify their plans. Prove that you are capable of doing what you propose. Give up the words “I want” and “I wish”, say “I do” and “I act”. Focus on your goals. Correctly set goals will certainly lead to success.

How to make a project attractive: what an investor will pay attention to

According to statistics, out of ten projects only one receives investment. What needs to be done to make your project interesting to investors?

1. You and your team

First of all, any investor will be interested in what kind of people he will have to work with. Both the personal qualities of the author of the project and his motivation and willingness to go to the end are interesting. You must prove that you can move forward despite the difficulties. It is important how you achieve your goal, since any investor values ​​his time and money.

1. Correct calculations

Unfortunately, 95% of new entrepreneurs looking for investors, has little idea what kind of income they can expect. The numbers they present at the presentation sometimes do not correspond to reality. Constantly growing sales and million-dollar profits offered by project authors often have nothing to do with the real state of affairs. Look for how to optimize costs, indicate what exactly you want to receive investments for.

1. Project potential

One of the most important points in communicating with an investor is determining the potential of the project. The investor needs to know when the project will generate income, how you will identify potential clients, and finally, when the project will fully pay off. Preferably within a year, maximum three years.

To identify potential clients, it’s a good idea to run a crowdfunding campaign. If users are interested in your project, you will have a chance to attract interest from investors.

How to prepare to communicate with an investor: from pitch to conclusion of an agreement

There comes a time when the investor believes that he should choose your project. On average, it takes businessmen 3-9 months from meeting an investor to concluding an agreement. It is possible that you will have to prepare more than one version of a business plan and answer many questions for which you are not quite ready. Therefore, carefully prepare not only for the presentation, but even for a short meeting and telephone conversation. Each stage of communication requires its own preparation.

Stage 1. Getting to know each other

It can be either full-time or remote. The main thing here is to interest the investor in your project. To do this, you can use the following methods.

Elevator pitch or an elevator pitch. The short pitch was so named because businessmen and startups would catch potential investors in elevators and present their business idea to them in 30 seconds. Your mini-presentation must include:

• the problem you are solving;
• Product Description;
• monetization method.

The main thing is to attract attention, for which you can use interesting facts or figures. For example, SpaceX's presentation consisted of only three sentences: the cost of launch, which has not been reduced in decades, the possibility of reducing it by 90 percent, and the impressive amount that can be earned.

Elevator pitch can be used at large forums and business competitions.

Correspondence. It is quite possible to establish a connection by corresponding by e-mail. This method works best for individual requests. In addition to the appeal, the letter must include:

• description of the product or services;
• description of consumers;
• business model;
• basis for investment.

Stage 2. Business meeting

Presentation. If a potential investor is interested in an elevator pitch or your letter, he will invite you to a personal meeting, for which you also need to prepare. When going to a meeting, you need to decide what you specifically want from it. If you receive money, you need to say so. This call to action is quite applicable and works.

Now about the presentation itself. It should be short and bright. It's good to follow the 10/20/30 rule. Try not to dwell on the details and keep it to a 20-minute presentation, which consists of 10 slides and is typed in 30 font.

Appearance. The fate of your project will depend not only on a good presentation, but also on your behavior and appearance. That's why:

• don't be late;
• come in a business suit;
• follow the rules of etiquette.

Your ability to carry yourself confidently, your energy and charisma are very important.

Stage 3. Obtaining financing

Finance, finance and once again finance. For an investor, the main thing is making money. This must be remembered above all. Therefore, even if your project is supposed to “save the world”, but does not have a good business plan and financial plan, a potential investor will not be interested in it. A financial model is needed that can be adjusted by the investor himself. It's good to have:

• results of marketing research;
• letters from suppliers.

It is better to prepare three options at once: optimistic, pessimistic and basic. But, in any case, the model must be carefully verified. Only in this situation can we hope to conclude a deal. It is important to show that you know the market well and to convince them of the feasibility of introducing your product. The investor must believe that by investing in your idea, he can not only quickly recoup his investment, but also make good money.

How to prepare a presentation correctly: 5 tips for investors

Presentation is very important, on which the receipt of investment will largely depend. Many entrepreneurs, when preparing for a presentation, do not fully understand the interests of investors and do not know how to properly present their project. What points should the presentation contain?

1. Problem Definition. If it exists, then it needs to be confirmed. Demand confirmation must be determined by real numbers.
2. Solution to the problem. Your decision cannot be the only correct one. But it's your decision, and you need to convince the investor that it works, that people are willing to buy the product. It is best to come to investors already with certain results. To do this, you can take the following steps:

• do product testing;
• notify about changes to the project;
• present the available results.

1. Search for opportunities to sell the product. Willingness to buy does not mean that the product will sell well. Even if a person buys a service or product once, there is no guarantee that he will contact you next time. Therefore, you need to take into account profit and loss per customer, the so-called unit economics, as well as ways to attract and retain customers.
2. Searching for a market and determining a strategy for entering it. We need to look for those markets that are growing and not disappearing, such as the cell phone repair market.

If the presentation shows how your income will grow in 3-5 years, then your financial model will arouse the interest of investors.

1. Determining the investment amount. At the last stage, you must tell the investor what you need the money for and how much you want, as well as how much you are willing to invest yourself.

The right choice of investor, serious preparation for a conversation with him, as well as a good presentation of the project will help you get a chance to invest in your project.

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