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The Perfect Pitch: 20 tips to make a killer impression on a VC

Nowadays it isn’t easy pitching to VCs. With the demand for series A venture capital soaring but the supply remaining steady, startups are finding it increasingly difficult to go out and make a successful fundraising pitch. An unsuccessful pitch can be the result of something as fundamental as a small addressable market or as mundane as the partner at the VC being distracted by his cell phone during the presentation a la Nikola Tesla Pitching Silicon Valley VCs. There is no guaranteed recipe for success when making a pitch (and here is how we choose startup investments at OurCrowd), but here are some tips and resources that can help: The first step is getting in the door. Tactics that have worked on us in the past include bringing a celebrity musician to put on a live show in the office and offering to bring pizza. On a related note, always be friendly to the administrative assistants. They are the gatekeepers. Create an effective presentation. Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule is a good place to start: ten slides, twenty minutes, and no font smaller than thirty points. Pitches should address...

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OurCrowd’s Jon Medved On BBC Radio 4, Discusses Investing In Startups via Crowdfunding

On his recent visit to the UK, OurCrowd CEO Jonathan Medved was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s program “The Bottom Line.” In the episode, Jon and two guest entrepreneurs discuss how much money you need to start a business – and where to get it from. Why do some startups require millions and others just a few hundred pounds? And what are the benefits and pitfalls of finding investors on the web? In addition, they discuss crowdfunding and how investors and startup founders envision it to be the next big thing in venture capital. Listen to the interview Listen to the program below or play it on BBC Radio 4 here. [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/101116485″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true”...

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OurCrowd’s Investor Toolbox: Useful Resources for Investing in Israeli Startups

Israeli startups are on a roll — lately it seems like every other day we hear  in the news about some Israeli startup going public, launching a product,  making an “exit” or closing a financing round. Truth be told, there are many investors who are interested in investment opportunities in Israel. However, most investors don’t know where to start and need help jumping in…. So we put together a useful list of tools and resources for those interested in investing in Israeli startups: Investor Toolbox for Israeli Startups View more lists from Zack Miller   [xyz-ihs...

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Collective Innovation: The Startup Nation’s roots in the kibbutz movement

In Israel’s early years, long before it became the “Start-up Nation,” the country began to develop when communities of people came together and found a way to live and progress. They did this through the creation of kibbutzim, a collective communal society based on the guiding principles of socialism. Although the kibbutzim approach contradicts the capitalist system which the startup industry is based on today, it was an instrumental part of Israel’s success story. After all, the concept of kibbutz is innovative in itself. After years of being the supporting pillar of Israel’s economy, in the 1980s the kibbutz movement began to suffer the consequences of Israel’s economic transition from socialism to a free market based on capitalist values. Most kibbutzim had to privatize part or all of their economic and social structures to avoid going bankrupt. However, some kibbutzniks tapped into their innovative roots and were able to overcome the crisis they faced. Showing some of the ingenuity they are famous for, the kibbutzim  branched out from farming and turned to high-tech in order to save their communities. A conceptual change Today...

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Coming to Terms with Term Sheets: What Angel Investors Need to Know

When an investor plans to make an investment in a startup, one of the things in the forefront of his or her mind is: what are the terms of the deal? Well, luckily a document exists whose sole purpose is to delineate all the deal terms. It is agreed upon by two parties, the startup and the investor, and called, fittingly, a term sheet. Term sheet: investment specifics So what does the big scary term sheet look like “in real life”? While I was reading through terms sheets during my internship here at OurCrowd, I realized that after parsing away the legal jargon (and parsing away some more…), they are basically lists—lists of terms that the investor and the startup have agreed to adhere to in this investment. Note that the term sheet (other than the confidentiality agreement therein) is not legally binding, but under most circumstances, these same terms will make their way into legal documents relating to the deal. The list of terms can be broken down into two categories by asking a simple question: as an...

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