Venture Capital: Gold Mines and Tar Pits
There are only two classes of investors in new and young private companies: value-added investors and all the rest. If all you receive from an investor, espe¬cially a venture capitalist or a substantial private in¬vestor, is money, then you may not be getting a bar¬gain. One of the keys to raising risk capital is to seek investors who will truly add value to the venture well beyond the money. Research and practice show that investors may add or detract value in a young com¬pany. Therefore, carefully screening potential in¬vestors to determine how they might fill some gaps in the founders' know-how and networks can yield sig¬nificant results. Adding key management, new cus¬tomers or suppliers, or referring additional invest¬ment are basic ways to add value.
A voting founder of an international telecommuni¬cations venture landed a private investor who also served as an advisor. The following are examples of how this private investor provided critical assistance: introduced the founder to other private investors, to foreign executives (who became investors and helped in a strategic alliance), to the appropriate legal and ac-counting firms; served as a sounding board in crafting and negotiating early rounds of investments; identi¬fied potential directors and other advisors familiar with the technology and relationships with foreign in¬vestors and cross-cultural strategic alliances.
Numerous other examples exist of venture capital¬ists' being instrumental in opening doors to kev ac¬counts and vendors that otherwise might not take a new company seriously. Venture capitalists may also provide valuable help in such tasks as negotiating
original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreements or licensing or royalty agreements, making key con¬tacts with banks and leasing companies, finding key people to build I he team, helping to revise or to craft a strategy. Norwest Venture Partners brought in Ash¬ley Stephenson to run a portfolio company and then backed him in a second venture. "Most venture capi¬talists have a short list of first-class players. Those are the horses you back." says Norwest partner Ernie Parizeau.
It is always tempting for an entrepreneur desper¬ately in need of cash to go after the money that is available, rather than wait for the value-added in¬vestor. These quick solutions to the cash problem usually come back to haunt the venture.