How investors assess a female led business

As a female founder building a high growth potential business, raising investment for growth is probably high on your agenda.

But what's on the agenda for investors? How will they assess you and your business as an investment opportunity?

Here are the 13 key areas they'll be considering:

1. Vision - What's your personal vision for what you want to achieve with the business, and why?
2. Problem - How large and acute is the problem you're trying to solve?
3. Competitive landscape - How are people trying to solve this problem right now, and why isn't that good enough?
4. Solution - How does your offering solve the problem, and why is it the best way?
5. Opportunity - Are you serving an identifiable, large and growing market?
6. Competitive Advantage - What's your unique selling proposition and how will you maintain this?
7. Customers - Who specifically are your early adopters, and which customers will then follow?
8. Business Model - How will you make money and what's the lifetime value of a customer?
9. Route To Market - How will you reach your customer, and what are the costs and timescales involved?
10. Traction - What proof do you already have of product to market fit?
11. Team - Does your core and extended team have the right skills, experience, and drive to take this idea forward?
12. The Promise - What are you going to do next and what results do you expect to deliver?
13. The Ask - What are you looking for from investors?

All this sounds simple, but there's a lot that goes into each of these areas. You've got to know exactly how investors are going to interrogate your specific plan, and how they might perceive the opportunity you're presenting.

Unfortunately, female founders can often come under a lot more scrutiny on all of this than their male counterparts. When reviewing your investment proposition, investors spend 44 per cent more time on the Business Model section than they do for male-led start-up, 107 per cent more time on the Opportunity section, and 65 per cent more time on the Traction section (i). These are the areas you'll really need to focus on.

Their biases will also kick in when reviewing your Team section, as they'll need more convincing that you've got what it takes, because of their preconceived ideas of what women are capable of in the business world. So be mindful of this and make sure that you get your skills and credentials across well.

As founders, we're all convinced we're building the best thing since sliced bread. But will investors feel the same? Where are the strengths and weaknesses of your proposition? Where do you need to present a more convincing argument? What kind of investors might be a fit?

Before you test your plan out in the 'real-world' with investors, there's immense value in having an independent assessment of the investability of your business, as well as support in understanding the best strategy and action plan to follow for your raise.

You only have one shot at this. Let us help you get it right. Our mission: to empower you to fly through your fundraise and beyond. book a Accellerator Session for us to work with you on a full assessment of how investable your business is; your strengths, areas for development and action plan to move forward.