Blackbird's Phoebe Harrop: What a VC Wants

We’ve pulled together a venture-ready checklist for all types and stages of startups. Whether you are deeptech, SaaS, seed or Series A, you will find at least one gem that might propel you closer to being venture-backed.

Demonstrate that you can build success from scratch - As a VC, pre-seed and seed stage investing involves looking at the people in front of you and deciding, “can they build something out of nothing?” VCs gather up qualitative evidence to evaluate how well each startup team, technology, and market opportunity fits that criteria. Phoebe says the best companies in the world are founder-led. “I want to understand why this person is dedicated to building something out of nothing. What is the problem that they've landed on, which they're so obsessed with, that they will do the unreasonable thing, which is to start a company off their own bat and get on the rollercoaster that is startups, in order to solve.”

Master your story - especially if you’re a deeptech - “On the deep tech side, you could go five or seven years with no revenue and you have to get there and continue to meet the technical milestones, you have to raise sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. And so the bar on storytelling to employees, and to investors, is so high.” If you are feeling insecure about your storytelling mastery, then get a coach, work with a communications strategist, or take inspiration from other deeptech founders who keep getting funding despite being pre-revenue after many years into their journey.

Healthy investor relations are about doing the work - Strong relationships take time and must be reciprocal. Phoebe says, if you're not getting good input from your investors, even though you're giving them a lot to work with, then change who your advisors are, change your board composition, get some different perspectives on there.