Dear Startup members,
We had a great session this morning discussing sales for Quantum Tech startups and why Founder Sales is so critical - for questions, feedback, ideas or the slides just email me.
Our next event will be on September 30th at 10 pm EST - you have to RSVP here to add it to your calendar
Also, please share your news and needs here so that we can better support you.
André
Quantum Things
Fundraising 101
Our last session on fundraising garnered a lot of feedback, here are some take-aways:
Creating equity value is one of the most important reasons for starting a company.
Founders start out with 100% ownership but as they go through fundraising their equity goes down. Hold on to your equity. It’s tempting to use equity to pay qualified professionals when you cannot offer big salaries but it just accelerates equity dilution. Equity should be reserved for late stage capital raising initiatives when the company needs to scale and its strategically necessary. Meanwhile, bootstrap, find revenue, max out your credit card, get loans, and structure partnerships. Raising capital is not a sign of success. Fund raise as late as you can. Entrepreneurship is about working your way around the challenges faced when building a business at minimum cost.
Understand your target investors.
Quantum technology revenues are still very small compared to other technologies, which means not all investors understand it or find it lucrative. Moreover, investors have a mandate and rarely invest their own money so you need to keep that in mind. Fundraising is about matchmaking.
Investors are impatient people.
They have a short attention span so you want to build your pitch deck in a standard way which everyone in the industry does. Stick to what is expected, demonstrate how you mitigate risks around your product/service and business model. Don’t be fancy or different.
Use technology to your advantage.
There are a variety of free resources to consider like startuprunway.io and captable.io amongst others which are visually pleasing, collaborative and interactive. Such tools improve your credibility and mitigate your risk profile thereby moving the relationship with investors forward.
Interestingly, investors very rarely invest into incoming deals.
When investors are sourcing deals they use sites like Angellist, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, Dealroom etc.
Have a strong presence online to be visible and gain credibility.
Always remember that different investor classes have different expectations and processes. Research your target financiers thoroughly so you structure and position accordingly.
OneQuantum News
1) The recording of the fundraising session is here.
2) Here is a virtual group selfie from last week’s event
3) The Cocktail Hour
In other news,
4) Xanadu Quantum Cloud has arrived and offers access to a photonic quantum computer with 8 qumodes.
5) Rigetti Computing to lead a consortium developing the first commercial quantum computer for the UK government.
6) Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has been demonstrated between multiple users for the first time.
7) DOE establishes QIS Centers to accelerate progress, facilitate technology transfer, and to build the quantum workforce of the future.
Signing off
A parting Shor-t
Please don’t forget to sign up for the OneQuantum Startup chapter office hours this week and make it a point to add it to your calendar so you never miss out on great discussions, presentations, and networking opportunities.
If you are not yet a member, we would love to have you join us.
See you all next week!
Farai