How to apply for funding

M-Tech Innovations invests in early-stage technology startups. Before investing, we generally want to know answers to many questions, including the ones here. It's a good idea to prepare a "pitch deck" that addresses as many of these questions as possible. Be prepared before presenting your company to investors.

Ready to create a slide deck? Use this outline to get started.

Product and Service:

• Describe your product or service
• Who would use it?
• Why would they want it? What problem does it solve?
• How does it work?

Corporate:

• Please summarize the history of the company -- who founded it, when, what was the original concept? Who was on the original team? How did the company evolve to its current form?
• What is the ownership structure? (shares outstanding, owners, etc.).
• Is there any outstanding debt?

Market:

• What markets will you sell into?
• How large are these markets?
• Do you have a priority sequence / schedule for addressing different markets?
• Who is the competition? It doesn't have to be 1:1 equivalent products or services - but what alternative products and services might customers select instead of yours, to address broadly similar needs?
• What are the barriers to entry for competitors?
• What advantages do you have, that would lead you to win deals over competitors?
• Is there a community or ecosystem where you could meet new customers?
• What sort of organizations do you currently or might you in the future partner with? What would the commercial relationship be and who would deliver what value to end customers?

Technology and Product:

• Please share demos, screen shots or other product descriptions.
• Do you have customer testimonials?
• Can we talk to a customer or prospect about their interest and/or your performance?
• Do you have sales materials we can see?
• Do you have technical documentation we can see?
• Please describe the technology platform -- runtimes, programming languages, databases, network protocols, scalability numbers.
• Please describe your product testing methodology and metrics.
• Please describe your DevOps processes and test/dev/prod environments.
• Do you have a technological advantage? Please describe if so.
• What product features or architectural changes do you plan (roadmap)?
• What is your development / release cycle? How often do you bring new capabilities to market?
• What intellectual property do you own and how do you protect it?
• Do you license intellectual property from any third parties? Please describe what it is and how it's licensed.

Business Strategy:

• Do you sell to end consumers, to businesses or to government or other non-profit entities?
• How do you plan to scale up your business?
• What is your pricing model? Who pays, what do they pay and what do they get?
• What is your strategy for acquiring new customers? Do you have a track record and roadmap for customer numbers?
• Do you plan to sell directly to end customers or via reseller or integrator partners?
• What are you doing to raise awareness of your solution now and what do you plan to do in the future?
• Describe your sales and marketing team. Who is doing what?
• Describe your customer acquisition process. What are the milestones and how long does it take?
• Do you have a proof of concept process? Is it for pay? Who has completed it and who is in the pipeline?
• Do you have a roadmap for growing into new markets? What markets, when and how?

Management and Organization:

• Describe your current and planned organizational chart -- who does what?
• What is the background of your management team?
• Are you getting (or open to) mentorship and advice from outside parties? From whom?
• What is the base (fixed) and incentive (variable) compensation plan for current staff? Do you plan on changing this in the future or for new staff?
• Be prepared to share existing and template contracts -- with employees, contract workers, customers, suppliers, partners, etc.
• Are there any outstanding claims against the company -- for example relating to employment, IP, service delivery, etc.?
• Does the company have any outstanding obligations such as for severance, debt repayment, leases, etc.?

Financials:

• Please share your cap table - who owns what shares?
• Please share historical financial statements - audited if available.
• Please provide the current (fiscal) year budget.
• What is your long-term financial forecast?
• What organizations are in your sales pipeline? For each one -- who is the account manager? at what stage of the process is the customer? what is the probability of closing? what is the value of the deal?
• Who are the top-10 paying customers and what are they worth?
• What sources of financing are you seeking in the near term?
• What would be the exit strategy for investors? e.g., the company is purchased? IPO? Ongoing dividends?
• What do current receivables and payables look like?
• Are there any outstanding loans? Collateral arrangements? Payment schedules?
• Has the company made guarantees or offered any indemnities, whether secured or unsecured?
• What "non-dilutive" sources of funding have been accessed and what applications are planned? (i.e., government grants)
• What insurance coverage does the company have?

Fund raising:

• How much money are you planning to raise?
• How much is the company worth prior to the raise?
  • How do you arrive at this valuation?
  • Are there comparable companies? How does your estimated valuation compare?
• What percentage of the company's ownership will be assigned to new investors?
• What do you intend to buy with these funds? Be as specific as possible -- i.e., "Use $X to hire Y people to accomplish Z tasks starting on date D and completing by date E."
• Are you aware of private company investment or take-out transactions in your space? How does your valuation compare?
• What is your plan for an exit strategy -- i.e., being acquired by a company such as X in timeline Y for value Z.
• When do you anticipate raising additional capital? How much? How dilutive do you anticipate this will be?