Keys to a Successful Preseed Fundraise

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Raising pre-seed funding is one of the bigger challenges in startup fundraising.

This round comes at the idea stage, so there are no metrics around traction or product-market fit.

Here are the keys to a successful pre-seed round.

The current team must have strong experience in the domain and a track record of growing and exiting startups.

The team must have a unique insight into solving the problem in the industry.

This will become the company's competitive advantage.

The insight must be compelling enough to create a business that can generate more revenue or run the business at a substantially lower cost.

The team must know the industry segment well and have enough connections to find customers, partners, and providers.

In pre-seed funding, the team becomes the proxy by which the investor will judge the startup, as all values of the business will come from the initial group.

Consider this in setting up your pre-seed fundraise.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

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In this episode of Investor Connect, we hear a pitch from Aether on addressing the global opioid epidemic with ATX-1209, a neuromodulator designed to modulate the mu-opioid receptor by suppressing dependence signals while preserving analgesic benefit when used alongside opioids, with additional development plans for opioid use disorder and neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS).

The team cites completed human safety work, clean toxicology, and consistent animal data across species, along with validation from neuroscientist Dr. Phil Skolnick, and outlines a stage-gated, capital-efficient plan to run two clinical studies in Australia over roughly 2.5 years for about $10M to reach a key value inflection point.

Ethair is raising $10M on a convertible note at a $13.3M pre-money valuation (with a lead investor already in for $4.5M on a $9M note), targeting an early exit if Phase 2A data shows reduced dependence scores with no loss of analgesia, or alternatively pursuing a pediatric orphan NOWS registrational study tied to a potential PRV voucher.

________________________________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https:/_/tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Please follow, share, and leave a review.

Music courtesy of Bensound.

How To Choose a Vertical SaaS Niche

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Vertical SaaS is a known business model that narrows the focus to a single application.

This reduces the cost of capital to raise and gives the startup the opportunity to go deep on an application.

Here's how to choose a vertical SaaS niche.

Look for industry segments that are highly fragmented.

It works well where market share is not concentrated.

Find niches where technology can improve the efficiency of the business.

Combining these two factors, one looks for a highly fragmented market that is currently inefficient.

The market segment needs to be able to spend on tech efficiency.

There needs to be enough money to implement SaaS systems.

In prioritizing highly fragmented markets with low current efficiency, one looks to find the largest submarkets.

The vertical must be big enough to produce a profitable business.

Applying this methodology to each NAIS industry segment category provides a prioritized list of markets to apply vertical SaaS to.

Consider these steps in selecting a niche for a vertical SaaS play.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_________________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Please follow, share, and leave a review.

Music courtesy of Bensound.