Hi, everyone. This is Alejandro Cremades, and today we’re going to be talking about
how to send your pitch deck to an angel group. Before we get started, make sure that you
hit that Subscribe button, and this way, you will never miss out on any of the videos that
we roll out every week. Angel groups are a great, great potential
profile or target when you are thinking about raising money. Those are groups that have
tons of investors that could really make an impact to your financing round. In today’s
video, we’re going to be breaking it down, step-by-step, giving you all the insights
so that you can understand what it takes to send your pitch deck to these angel groups
and how you can cause an impression on them so that you get invited for a potential meeting
or even that they explore an investment in your business. With that being said, let’s
get into it. What are angel groups? Angel groups are ultimately
a group of angel investors, which are people that have over $200,000 in income or $1 million
in assets, essentially qualified accredited investors that come together and that share
deal flow, go to meetings together, invest together in companies. There are tons of angel
groups, such as The New York Angels, the Houston Angel Network. There are many angel groups
out there. The truth of the matter is that with all those
platforms like Crunchbase or AngelList, now, anyone can gain access to any type of deal.
So, obviously, the popularity has not increased that much of those groups, but ultimately,
those groups came together because those were senior executives that wanted access to deal
flow and to early-stage investments. As a result, that was the best channel for them
to gain access to these types of opportunities. Now, the term, angel investor, comes from
very early on when investors were financing Broadway shows, and that’s why they were
calling them angel investors because they were putting the money in and not expecting
any returns back. They were just financing because they liked it because they were excited
with the opportunity and so forth. That was actually where that angel investor and where
the term, angel group, comes from. Essentially, an angel group is a group of high senior executives,
even perhaps some former entrepreneurs, that are coming together to invest in companies.
Angel groups could invest either directly – they see a deal; they like it; they invest.
The investors that are part of the group, all directly, with their own names, and that’s
the way that they would be showing on your cap table, which is where you keep the record
of who has invested what in your business and what kind of equity ownership they own.
They can also invest via a special-purpose vehicle, which is an LLC, or they can invest
via a venture fund. Now, you see a lot of these angel groups that are getting more sophisticated,
creating their own investment vehicles, which are funds, and using those to invest as a
group into your business. As mentioned, there are many of those angel
groups out there. You want to see what they have invested on, what kind of companies,
what kind of stage, and if it’s a segment that is perhaps similar to yours. But, in
essence, here are the top angel groups: Ohio Tech Angel Funds
Tech Coast Angels Investor Circle
Golden Seats North Coast Angel Fund
Band of Angels Hyde Park Angel Network
Alliance of Angels Pasadena Angels
New York Angels Houston Angel Network
The way the angel groups actually work is going to be the following way. First, you’re
going to gain access to the person that is the gatekeeper of the angel group. This could
be the director, the deal, or analyst, or whatever that is. This individual is filtering
all the opportunities that are coming through either via email or introductions. They’re
going to take a look and analyze the opportunity, and if it makes sense, they might schedule
a call with you. If they schedule a call, probably they’re
going to ask you for the pitch deck before that conversation. Other times, what they
could do is that they have the meeting with you, they have the call with you, and then
they ask for the pitch deck to be sent as a follow-up after the conversation.
Once they have reviewed, they may share this with the angel investor that takes the lead,
or that is the president or the chairman of that organization. If the chairman also likes
the opportunity, then they may invite you to a prescreening session. In that prescreening
session, you’re going to be meeting either in person or via video with three of the angels
or perhaps a few more that are going to come into a small type of environment to get to
know you, to get to see you present. If you do a good job there, then they will
probably invite you to the big gathering of the group. At that gathering, all the angels
are coming together, either via video or in person. What you’re doing is you’re presenting
your business and allowing some time for questions and answers. That’s typically the way that
it works. Then after that Q&A, you may engage, and they will be telling you whether there’s
interest or not. If there is interest, they will also be sharing what the way is that
they would like to invest in your business and what would be that structure.
When it comes to sending your pitch deck to angel groups, you want to create a shortlist.
You want to create a shortlist of people that are going to be able to be a fit, especially
in those groups, whether it is on your segment, on your financing cycle, or on your geographic
location. Some of the areas and tools that you’re going to be using in order to guide
yourself during this process are going to be the following:
Crunchbase Angel Capital Association
Fundraising Consultants such as us, Panthera Advisors
LinkedIn Startup accelerators
Some angel groups’ websites may offer the possibility for you to submit your pitch deck.
I think that this is a mistake because, ultimately, social proof is everything. So, what you want
to do is take a look at who are the founders and entrepreneurs that have received in the
last 6 to 12 months an investment from that angel group that you’re looking to target.
What you’re doing is you’re going to be using that entrepreneur to introduce you to
one of the angels in that organization or even the director of deal flow at that angel
group. That is the best way. That is how you’re going to get that warm intro and how you’re
going to be able to reduce the amount of time from the first touchpoint to money in the
bank. When you are engaging with the angel group,
you are going to have different types of versions of the pitch deck. First, you’re going to
have the version that you’re going to be submitting initially when you don’t know
them. Maybe there is going to be a version where you are removing the secret sauce of
your business. You could even remove the numbers because you don’t know their agenda, you
don’t know if some of those angels already invested in a competing business against yours,
and you want to cover your back. That’s the first one that you’re sending.
The other pitch deck that you’re going to be using is if you are presenting in person
to that angel group, one thing that you want to do is remove as much text as possible from
your pitch deck and increase the amount of visuals in your presentation so that way,
they get to focus on you because it’s essential that they focus on you.
The other deck that you want to have or the other version is for follow-ups, for follow-ups
to meetings, for follow-ups to phone calls. If you see that there’s a clear fit and
that you like them, and they like what you’re doing, you sell them the full pitch deck with
all the visuals, with all the financial information, all the text, all of that good stuff, and
you would use that as the follow-up email. Again, you want to use those three different
types of pitch decks because it depends where you are at in the process, and essentially,
you want to use a version that is going to match and fit the circumstances and where
you are with them. During the process, you want to be very good
at follow-ups. Once you’ve already put the pitch deck on their end, maybe even that thank
you pitch deck that is after you’ve done your thing, it is the last thing so that they
get an idea of what your business is about. You will be sharing here the full pitch deck,
the full financial model. Then, you want to go into the follow-up. On
the follow-up, every couple of weeks, stay top-of-mind. Try to share something that has
been a great update of the business. It could be more revenues. It could be a new team member
that you onboarded. It could be a news article, but you want to be top-of-mind and always,
always, always use a call to action on those interactions.
Never follow up with, “Hey, I just wanted to check in,” or “Hey, I just wanted to
catch up,” because that’s noise. You want to add value, and on every single update,
or every single follow-up with an update that you’re sending, make sure that you’re
not finishing it open-ended, like, “I look forward to hearing from you,” or “Let
me know your thoughts.” You want to finish up with a call to action such as,
Are you available next week or the following for a quick catch-up call?
Best, Your Name
That way, you are putting the call to action and triggering them, telling you what works
on their end to reconvene on a call because your intention always is to get to the next
meeting because the more meetings that you have, the less concerns there will be because
you would have that possibility of addressing them. When there are no concerns, guess what
happens? Money is in the bank because what separates you and the money are the concerns
in-between. When it comes to post-funding, remember that
getting your round of financing is not a milestone; it’s a stepping stone because the real work
happens once you have the money in the bank. You want to make sure that there are clear
expectations. Perhaps you’re going to have one of the angels from the angel group representing
them on your board. But again, you want to have expectations. Make sure that you’re
delivering on your promises, and make sure that they are always updated so that when
you need more money down the line, they already know what’s going on, and they’re ready
to jump in. Hopefully, you liked this video. Put a Like
on your screen. Then also, leave a comment and let me know what you’re up to and how
you’re finding those angel groups. And as well, Subscribe to the channel so that you
don’t miss out on all the videos that we roll out every week. If you’re fundraising,
send me an email at alejandro@pantheraadvisors.com. I would love to help out. Thank you so much
for watching.