Early-Stage Funding: Everything You Need to Know for Your Startup – Ashish Mistry, BLH Venture Partners

In order to achieve early-stage funding interest for your startup, you need to first understand the motivations of the investor. You might ask yourself, “What are they looking for? How much should I ask for? Where should I even begin?” To answer these questions and more, we turned to Ashish Mistry, managing Partner at BLH Venture Partners, to discuss the ins and outs of early-stage funding for startups.

Jim begins by asking Ashish to define what early-stage funding is first and foremost. While it can depend on geographic location, typically, early-stage funding consists of a few million dollars that startups can use to become cash-flow positive. Startups, however, are defined by culture more anything else according to Ashish. And as soon as entrepreneurs realize they need capital, they should start looking for early-stage funding opportunities.

If you can’t come up with the means to bootstrap your business, Ashish says that you need to prepare for investor meetings by doing the following:

• Understand your market segments
• Know how to pitch to investors
• Learn where the investor base is for your company

Jim and Ashish also discussed the ways in which startups struggle with early-stage funding, and techniques to effectively pitch to investors. Pitching your business venture really involves telling a story, making sure the narrative is clear, and talking about your team. Ashish also recommends checking out the Venture Atlanta conference later this year. Venture Atlanta is the top venture capital conference in the southeast and is an excellent platform for early-stage funding opportunities.

To learn more about Ashish and BLH Venture Partners, be sure to watch our entire interview above.

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