📚 Learn more about the book
As a founder, it’s easy to get lost while trekking through the fundraising process. The dynamics of speaking to someone who has the capital you need, while discussing terms you’ve never heard of, can all be quite daunting. This book deciphers the secrets to raising capital from investors for early-stage, high-growth startups. Learn about communicating with investors, shareholders and lawyers. We will go over the materials you will need to prepare, the basics of how to understand your deal, and the mindset you will need to approach this journey successfully. The aim is to provide you, the ambitious early-stage founder, with the right information to take your company to the next level.
This new and updated version provides an overview of the soft and not-so-soft challenges you will need to prepare for as part of your fundraising journey, including things like reaching out to investors, dealing with rejections constructively, preparing materials and financials, understanding valuations and deal terms, how to manage the legal process and a crowdfunding chapter with statistics from crowdfunding platform Seedrs (who kindly helped in providing advice on how to best navigate). I sincerely hope you enjoy the book and get lots of use from it.
Lastly, as part of this second edition, I’d like to shine a light on the work of Resurgo’s Spear Programme (more on that below). If you’d like to support them directly, please consider doing a donation via Donate & Download below.
Note on the Second Edition: The first version of The Fundraising Field Guide was written and published via Reedsy in 2015 and has been used by many to help navigate their fund raise. However, a lot has evolved since then, so this updated version 2.0 has been written with new content, ideas, and strategies to help early-stage tech startup founders decipher and navigate the fundraising process.
Get The Book — eBooks and Paperback
Here are the links to get the book:
- Amazon Kindle & Print Editions: UK / US
- Apple iBooks & other platforms (eg. Kobo)
- Direct Donation via JustGiving(see below for more details)
Donate & Download — Resurgo Spear
Whilst the focus of the Fundraising Field Guide Book is to help clarify the fundraising challenges and process for high growth early-stage tech startups, there are many other forms of praise-worthy entrepreneurship. Some non-tech startups are doing very amazing things, particularly in the realm of social entrepreneurship and social development. In particular, I’d like to highlight the work of Resurgo’s Spear Programme in empowering youth.
The Resurgo Trust is the creator of the Spear Programme. The Spear Programme helps young people facing barriers getting into work or education. The Resurgo coaching team equip young people with confidence, motivation and the vital skills they need to succeed in long-term employment.
I’ve witnessed, first-hand, the transformative nature of the programme and the empowerment it gives its graduates. I’ve been super impressed by how talented and driven the graduates are and even their ambition to continue on, post-programme, with their development. One particularly exciting case for me was when we partnered with CodeFirstGirls and Silicon Valley Bank for the Founders For Opportunity Initiative in 2018. Check out the video of that experience here.
In an effort to make as much of the proceeds from the book go to Resurgo directly as possible, feel free to donate directly to them (suggested donation of £9.99 or as much more as you’d like) via this JustGiving page. After your donation, you will receive a link from which you will be able to download the book.
Version 1.0 — Where it Started
The original version of the book was published by Reedsy (the best online publishing platform) in 2015 thanks to the help of Emmanuel Nataf, Matt Cobb, Ricardo Fayet, and Rebecca Heyman.
The first version was published on a free-but-donate, effectively on the basis that you made a donation to Resurgo Spear if you enjoyed it. In that spirit, it will continue to be freely available (although some of the examples are now dated). Click here to access version 1.0 via slideshare/PDF, and the launch video of the 2015 book event can be found here. If you enjoy it, please do consider making a donation to Resurgo’s Spear Programme.
Sponsors
The kind sponsors and supporters for versions 1 & 2 of the book are:
Silicon Valley Bank — We are the only bank in the UK focused solely on the innovation economy.
Seedrs — We are equity crowdfunding done properly.