Fundraising for your startup in Africa is not easy, but like anything - it is a process. There are ways you can leverage your data and the Raise platform to close your deal 2x faster! Here are three easy steps.

When fundraising, you have to ensure that the data is well organized in different folders, hoping that it will be easier for the investor that it is shared with to know where to access the information that is most important for them to know. 

Step 1: Put your narrative together and get introductions

Fundraising is relationship-building. Start conversations with new investors with a simple, high-level pitch deck that you can send around to them using Docsend (Docsend.com). Use that Docsend data to track what investors are looking at and find interesting. Use that data to iterate and update your pitch deck for newer versions.

From there, get tons of introductions with new and existing investors. Speak to your investors, friends and colleagues to get solid introductions by email, and get on as many calls as you can. 

Remember, you can have as many investor conversations as you want. Not organizing your diligence data early enough will make it harder to close any of those investors to invest in you.

Step 2: Build momentum in your round with your Raise account

Ultimately, any investor wants to know what their investment return will be. As well, they want to understand clear terms for your round:

• How much are you raising?

• What terms do you provide?

• What is the expected return?

Usually, all of these answers would require you to crunch some complicated cap table mathematics. Instead, the Raise platform makes this seamless for you! Once you’re live, run a scenario to see what your value would be before, and after a round. As well, investors can simulate their own investments when you invite them to your deal room. Get started by signing up for the Raise platform here

Step 3: Automate your diligence in the Raise Deal Room

Conversations are going great, interest is building. But each one of your investors will want to run a ‘diligence’ on your company to be sure that your company is well incorporated and organized. That’s usually hard and complex, but at Raise we make it easy.

To get started, get in contact with our onboarding manager, Samantha, to help organize your deal room data in a concise and organized manner. 

Once your deal room is ready, launch it and invite investors who will be able to see this data, run simulations and lastly - ‘invest’ in your company directly on the Raise platform.

Automating your due diligence

There are many ways that we help with automating due diligence for your round. One of the very first steps is to be sure that your deal room is already well built. If you already have a data room open on Dropbox, or Google Drive, simply contact Samantha, our onboarding manager, and our legal team will go in and securely migrate your data room to the Raise platform. From there, put in the last data and launch it!

Once you’ve launched your Deal Room on Raise, we automate the terms of your round, and other important legal information… so that you do not have to. 

Free up the time to focus on conversations and close those deals!

Get support

Throughout the deal room onboarding process, you have the onboarding team available to provide the due diligence support and to help you set up your deal room. If you are looking to fundraise soon and want support in setting up your deal room;

• Subscribe to the pro-plan 

• Then share your company data through the email: legal@getraise.io and onboard@getraise.io

We are excited to help you close your round faster and to see you and your startup grow.