Looking for investment is never easy. However, it can become increasingly difficult when we’re a startup. If you are an emerging entrepreneur or part of a new startup and you are willing to raise capital for your initiative, keep reading. The EU-funded RAISE project, in collaboration with META Group, has organized a series of workshops free of charge dedicated to improving your skillset. Starting from October 18th and until December 5th, we will cover a wide range of aspects that will help you to maximize the impact of your business.
- The Lean Canvas – 18th October. One of the main failure for early-stage startups is that there is no market needs towards the products/services they are developing. Thus to avoid to fall into this statistic, it is important early-stage startups explore the Lean Canvas as a strategic planning tool.
- The Unique Value Proposition Canvas – 6th November. The first goal in adopting the Lean Canvas is to reach the Problem-solution fit which is basically when a startup is developing a solution for a specific need(s) for the customers. In order to reach this goal, startups need to use the UVP as a strategic tool.
- Approaching risk capital investors – 21st November. High-growth early stage startups need money to scale and boost their activities. It is important that the founders understand which are the kind of investors in the market and which is the best way to approach them.
- How to master your pitch – 5th December. The first approach to investors is the key to increase the odds to get the funds. Thus, preparing a great pitch is crucial to achieve this first step.
A problem oriented approach
This Business Partnership Action consists of four 90-minute online workshops, each including both theoretical and practical aspects. It also offers the participants the opportunity to connect with fellow entrepreneurs, exchange best practices, ideas and perspectives, and leverage lessons learned from their journey.
The workshops will be guided by META Group’s senior expert and coach, Lorenzo Valeriani. He has an educational background in Technology management from Unicusano University and in quantitative finance from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Lorenzo has been part of META Group since 2016. Over the years, he focused in the financial domain, particularly within META Ventures, where he worked as analyst on supportingportfolio startups across Italy. Lorenzo continues to work closely with early-stage startups, aiming to provide them with the expertise and tools necessary to secure crucial financial backing to boost their fast growth. He combines these activities with his involvement in several EU projects.
Regarding the value that the participants will find in these workshops, Lorenzo said: “We’re trying to orient them to tackle a concrete problem. Giving to the founders, in a seed phase, a problem oriented approach will help them to have a higher chance of success. In our experience, having the right strategic mindset plays a crucial role in increasing the survival rate of early-stage startups. This is exactly what we are looking to transmit during the first two workshops. By provinding the participants with this toolkit, startups will follow a strategy which can stick better to the target customers.
A workshop to help you navigate the ecosystem of investment
When asked about the appointments on 21st November and 5th December, Lorenzo explained that “the last two are more focused on how to present the project to the investors and to navigate in the ecosystem of investment. Fast growing startups need money to rapidly scale and thus it is important for them to immediately look around and understand how the risk capital industry works”
This initiative is open to start-up founders and representatives who are looking to enhance their understanding of business partnerships actions. If it resonates with you and want to improve your chances of finding investors for your company, click here and register now.
The Region Alliance for Interconnected Startup Ecosystems – RAISE – project aims at developing a new and sustainable integrated support framework to foster startup growth and scale-up across Europe. It targets companies that have already achieved first results, possibly supported by regional programmes and are now aiming to grow. In this framework, the project partners are required to implement several pilot actions, among which there are training, mentoring, and networking sessions which will help startup promoters to get in contact with the appropriate mentors and trainers who can help them gain access to their target markets.