Investors and founders both agree that the data room is an essential element of venture capital deals in the early stages. They are a central location to store important documents as well as information during the due diligence process. With the growth of online and virtual data rooms, it’s now even easier for startups to build and manage these spaces. However, it is difficult to know if a startup really needs one. If there is nothing confidential in a financial statement, or any sensitive industry data in the company’s strategy document the startup may be fine without a data room.
In the past, companies would physically store sensitive or proprietary documents in a secure room for potential buyers to review as part of due diligence. Nowadays it’s more typical for http://dataroomsonline.net/how-to-effectively-raise-capital-on-kickstarter-and-indiegogo the documents to be stored in an online data room referred to as an investor data room.
Investors require lots of information to make an educated decision and evaluate the potential of a new venture. Rather than sending multiple spreadsheets that can easily become misplaced or outdated and inefficient, it is more efficient to upload these files into an investor data room.
The key to creating a successful investor data room is organization. Create an overview folder that includes every important information you’d like to provide investors with. This should include your pitch deck, basic financials (cash metrics, P&L, projections) and cap table, a list of pending and committed investments, as well as a competitive analysis with any market research that you’ve conducted. It is also beneficial to provide customer references and referrals to prove that your business is popular in the market.