Communications: what to consider when raising capital and pitching to VCs
Raising venture capital investment is a great way to scale your business. However, when it comes to getting everything ready to pitch your business to investors there are a number of important communications considerations to get right. With KPMG reporting a strong UK VC market, read on to discover our six key communications considerations for founders when pitching to VCs.
Define your mission, vision and values
When compiling your investment deck, it’s crucial to include clearly defined mission, vision and values statements. These allow potential investors to test their alignment with your values, while also allowing you to test alignment with their values and consider whether your mission and vision fit with their investment goals. Having these statements ready to go acts as a compass while you navigate your VC journey as well as keeping you focused and to the point.
Clearly articulate your business’s story
You’ll need to convince investors that you have a strong, impactful and engaging business story. Many have commented that while budgets are a given, it is the passion and personality of the founder that will persuade them.
Clearly articulating your business demonstrates your confidence and belief in your business, creates a good first impression and encourages investors to buy into your aspirations. If you can confidently explain your business in one breath to someone who isn’t familiar with your sector, you’ve succeeded. We suggest creating a one-sentence version, a paragraph version and then a longer version of your business story to live on your website.
Create engaging and consistent copy
Strong copy isn’t limited to a meaningful business story: it includes every piece of text across all your business’s touchpoints. It’s definitely worth committing time to ensure that all your copy is consistent and complements your business identity. From an investor’s perspective, doing so demonstrates your attention to detail, clarity of thought and professionalism plus how external stakeholders will experience your business.
Demonstrate your ESG work
With a record £2 billion invested into ‘impact startups’ in 2021, businesses face great scrutiny over their ESG policies. VC investors also face questions about the ESG commitments of the businesses within their investment portfolios. You need to present clearly defined and accurate ESG statements to investors to show how you minimise your impact on the environment and benefit your community to demonstrate ESG integrity. Do not greenwash these.
Present your editorial results
Strong editorial results driven by your PR strategy demonstrate credibility and can attest to the reach and strength of your business awareness. Editorial results with respected media titles can also help prove your product-market fit as editorial content represents tastemakers giving your product their seal of approval. Although it’s also important to check the legalities of how to share editorial coverage.
Communications coaching
Pitching to potential investors can be a nerve-racking experience. Invest in communications coaching to improve your confidence and clarity ahead of an investor pitch. These sessions will equip you with the skills you need to deliver your pitch succinctly and convince investors that they should join you. Strengthening your communications skills will also help you navigate media interviews as part of your PR strategy.
Contact us via hello@fallowfieldmason.com to find out how our brand strategy and communications coaching services can help you on your VC journey.
