Scott Orn, Kruze COO, recently co-authored two posts on TechCrunch on how startups should approach and negotiate a venture capital investment with CVCs. These are the first two pieces of a four-part series. Scott partnered with William Growney of top tier startup law firm Goodwin to write these articles.
CVCs, or corporate venture capital groups, are on the rise. A greater and greater percentage of Kruze clients are raising capital from CVCs in addition to traditional venture capital firms, and so we wanted to help early-stage companies understand how these investors were similar but different than Silicon Valley-style VCs.
The first of the two pieces is on how to approach CVCs. Scott and William lay out the different types of corporate investors - from the “tourist” to the “institutional.” They also explain what to look for to understand which kind of investor you are working with, plus tips on what to think about when considering bringing on one of these groups into your business.
The other article delves into how to best negotiate with CVCs, and includes a list of questions to ask a potential corporate before they make the investment. These questions will help founders improve the chances that the new corporate venture partner understands the business’ capital needs - and will help the founder make sure they understand what the corporation is trying to get out of the relationship.
We hope you like these pieces and will make sure we let you know when the next ones are published!
If you are looking for other tips on interacting with VCs, check out our recommendations for slides that should go into your pitch deck - our clients have raised billions in funding, so we’ve seen quite a few examples of what works!
