Decoding Series A Fundraising: What Connects With Investors? Technology is the cake, with business being the icing

With fundraising, from investors, not merely restricted to raising money and having extended to obtaining mentorship by industry veterans, it becomes imminent for owners of startups to actually contribute towards driving decisions by customers through technology-driven products. Now, with driving consumer decisions being the criteria, ventures would require to look hard at positively influencing investors to pool-in the most important aspects of funding which is the Series A round of venture capital.

In this regard, BIZ Experiences India spoke to owners of startups; having recently raised Series A funds to compose a wholesome guide on the importance of technology-driven products to actually drive consumer decisions:

Technology disruption – the stepping stone for Series A

"Technology has helped us in offering a very personalized high quality wealth advisory experience, at scale," states Nitin Agarwal who is CEO at Oro Wealth – an online wealth management platform. Oro Wealth which recently raised USD 1.6 Million in a Series A round.

Agarwal is a firm believer in the simplification of customer experience through technology approach.

" Our investors also believed that technology will help in democratizing access to financial products for the retail investors," he adds.

Echoing Agarwal's thoughts, Sagar Yarnalkar who is Founder and CEO of subscription model-based daily needs delivering service Daily Ninja which also raised Series A from leading names viz Saama Capital and Sequoia Capital.

In this Series A round, Saama Capital pumped in USD 3 Million.

At this juncture, it is worth understanding that Dailyninja caters to the vast majority via supplying essential goods with special emphasis on perishable consumables.

Now, with the perishable consumables industry being largely unregulated and subject to process variations throughout the year, robust models are definitely the need of the hour and technology plays a vital role here.

"The folks at Saama have been a part of many great consumer businesses. It was a very happy moment for us when they said that they were excited about the Dailyninja model and would like to invest," informs Yarnalkar when asked about the investor connect.

Wooing venture capitalists – through robust technology models

As far as the actual raising of Series A funds is concerned, it is not an exaggeration to state that the vision of the founders needs to have a technology-driven approach embedded within.

"Investors need a certain level of market validation of all aspects of your business model. Customer adoption through technology focus is the real key here," adds Yarnalkar.

"We had raised a round from Sequoia about 6 months before this meeting and had more than doubled our order volume since then. I explained our model and our action plan to Ash, Kiranbir and Suresh of Saama Capital over a couple of weeks," says Yarnalkar about the connect he managed to establish to raise the latest Series A funds from Saama Capital, in tandem with Sequoia.

Hence, if you are a startup owner looking at raising Series A in the near future, the value addition aspects of your services should do well to come to the fore.

"We have been focused on offering personalized advice to add value to our customers' portfolios," explains Agarwal.

Investors would be naturally impressed with the way you build your business while being very capital efficient.

"The learning from our fund raising experience was to have a clear vision on how you can grow your venture into a very big business as well as demonstrating to the investors how you have executed on your vision so far," signs-off Agarwal.