Most success stories surrounding startup businesses begin from a great and profitable idea. However, such ideas do not prosper when not given the proper support. Most startup businesses fail because they lack funding. Fortunately, how to acquire funding is not a secret, plus there are tons of success stories you can get inspiration from. Venture capital firms are always on the lookout for the next big startup. You need to cook up the right strategy and find the right investors.
How Scurri Successfully Acquired Funding
Ireland-based shipping and delivery optimizer Scurri has just bagged a 9-million-euro funding round led by Gresham House Ventures. Scurri is a cloud-based platform that promises to connect e-commerce owners and customers through optimized ordering, shipping, and delivery processes. Scurri currently derives the majority of its revenues from the UK.
The company started in 2010, and its current customers are eBay, Everything5Pounds, Vision Direct, and Gousto. Scurri has focused on building its brand as a reliable delivery management platform for five years since its creation. The pandemic gained them a few favors, especially since e-commerce gained noticeable traction. This, coupled with complex logistic rules from Brexit, resulted in the growing demand for trusted delivery management solutions. Because their operations are growing stronger, Scurri needed to acquire extra funding to realize its next steps.
The company’s constant growth made Scurri’s quest to receive funding successfully. According to Gresham House’s Investment Director Thomas Makey, “our expertise lies in identifying differentiated businesses targeting large markets through disruptive business models.”
Scurri’s business model is profitable because it solves its target market’s problem. Before Scurri, such services were only available to large market players, but now, even small retailers can provide an optimized delivery management system for their online business. This system allows even small-time retailers to create a reliable brand by offering customers a seamless delivery experience. Now that online shopping has become standard providing customers with excellent delivery service is one way to improve your branding.
Following Scurri’s success story, the key to bagging much-needed funding for startup businesses has a solid business model. If a company is profitable and has a vast potential to grow exponentially over the years, why would venture capital firms say no to that?
What are Venture Capital Firms?
Gresham House Ventures is an example of a venture capital firm. It is a form of partnership between the venture capital firm considered the general partners and individual investors as the limited partners. The limited partners can be individual persons, foundations, university funds, and pension funds. The venture capital firm pools the money from the limited partners and puts it in the venture firm fund. The general partners’ job is to look for profitable businesses, including startups, to invest and grow the fund in. The limited and available partners have an ownership stake in the venture firm fund and whatever growth it garners. The venture capital is mainly targeted towards profitable startup businesses in financing. As illustrated in the story of Scurri, long-term growth potential is one of the critical characteristics venture capital firms look for in a startup.
How to determine a venture capital firm’s success?
To know whether a venture capital firm is successful or not, you should look into the fund’s track record. To look into specific investments is one way of assessing a firm, but a firm’s overall track record is all you need to look at to determine whether it has been successful or not. In addition, limited partners usually look into a firm’s investment profile and the structure of its investment deals.
It has been reiterated that firms invest in startups with long-term growth potentials. To add to that, the industry that a startup is in also matters. Therefore, you should also consider looking into the industries a firm invests in to understand its investment profile.
How to choose the right venture capital firm for a startup?
When looking for seed money, you will find yourself meeting one investment firm after another. This will consume a lot of your time and energy. You may hire a venture capital consultant to connect you to investment firms. However, finding the right consultant is also a tricky job. Since your success in finding an investor depends on them, make sure that you hire an individual who will get to know your business to the core. However, before all of this, you have to make sure you have a solid business plan. After all, a consultant can only do so much, and a great deal of the success of bagging an investment fund lies in your business plan.
If you wonder whether your startup is profitable or not, there are ways to measure it. One of the first things to look at is your industry. As mentioned above, capital firms do not invest in good ideas and selling points; they invest in businesses that are in a profitable industry. For Scurri, the e-commerce industry is a booming one. Aside from the industry, a startup is profitable if it answers the needs of a particular target market. For example, Scurri offered a solution to the problem of small-scale retailers needing an organized delivery management service. You also have to check the existing competition. Do you offer something that established brands do not? What is your selling point, and why would customers choose you over other brands? You should know the answers to these questions to determine if your business will sell.
If you are in the eCommerce business, there is tons of available information on how eCommerce works and how you can create a successful e-commerce brand like Understanding eCommerce. Since the business is a relatively new trade, you will be in for a lot of trial and error; but they will guide you to build, grow, and convert. Fortunately, the power of the internet is on your side. You can send them an inquiry once you’re ready to get started.
