How do investors follow the growth of projects they are involved in?

The journey from investing in a promising startup to exiting with a high return on investment (ROI) requires close monitoring every step of the way.

At the outset, an angel investor’s primary concern is to avoid wasting time or money on startups that lack a credible team or validated growth projections. Pitchdrive takes care of that with its proprietary data-engine that pre-vets promising startups so that you don’t have to. Our rigorous qualification procedure also helps ensure that the overall portfolio matches your investment criteria and risk profile. 

Nurturing a startup

But as every experienced angel investor knows, that initial selection of a promising startup is just the opening chapter of the value story. Nurturing and supervising a startup is arguably just as important as the initial selection. This the phase where an investor can play a decisive role in setting the startup on a path to sustainable hypergrowth and ultimately the delivery of an attractive ROI. 

Managing rapid growth 

Clearly, a promising startup idea only realises its full potential with appropriate guidance and intervention at key moments on its development journey. Part of every angel investor’s job is to provide the startup founder with the benefits of their experience and network of industry contacts. Timely advice from a business angel really can make the difference between a startup surviving periods of rapid and transformative change, or not. 

For example, every startup founder’s dream of exponential growth can rapidly become a nightmare if they lack adequate cashflow planning or sufficient access to credit. It is often said that growth kills more businesses than it saves. This is especially true during periods of market volatility and global disruption, such as the one provoked by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. With an angel investor’s advice and mentoring, however, a well-prepared startup should be able to emerge both leaner and better-positioned on the other side.

Problem prevention

Clearly, it is far more efficient to have a plan that avoids a problem like a cash-crunch, rather than having to spend time and money on fixing it after the event. But in the real world, this ability to anticipate bumps in the road with any accuracy is only possible when the angel investor has access to reliable business information. Without useful data insights to hand, even the most experienced angel investor is operating in the dark.  

Transparency

Transparency and ease of communication between an angel investor and a startup founder are fundamental requirements for anyone who is serious about maximising portfolio returns and minimising risks. They are what make the angel investor’s daily business of creating value and managing growth easier and more productive.

That is why these principles are embedded at the core of everything Pitchdrive does. We provide key information and performance metrics at the touch of a screen. We also provide multiple communication channels between the founder and business angel in a way that facilitates regular feedback and effective supervision. This makes the important task of following your startup portfolio’s growth both simpler and more intuitive. 

Dashboard and App

With Pitchdrive’s personalised investor dashboard, the angel investor has access to all the key performance indicators (KPIs) and data insights that they require in order to keep an eye on their investments. Every startup founder also has an exclusive Pitchdrive alumnus account so that they can keep their investors in the loop with minimum fuss. 

The angel investor meanwhile receives monthly updates and reports from founders. This enables them to track KPIs such as customer acquisition, customer churn and viral coefficient over time. It is also a regular opportunity for the angel investor to address any doubts or concerns they may have, and receive the latest news directly from the founder regarding upcoming contracts, recent hires and ongoing funding activity. 

Overview

At a strategic level, the business investor is able to keep track of their entire startup portfolio on the convenient and hassle-free Pitchdrive app. This provides a wide range of portfolio insights generated by our analytics reporting tool. There’s no more need to deal with dozens of emails.

Legal and Operational

Pitchdrive manages most of the legal, compliance and operational work surrounding your investments. This enables the angel investor to focus more of their time on the important business of monitoring the growth of their chosen startups and leveraging their experience and network to deliver maximum ROI. By ‘turning the lights on’, Pitchdrive’s data-driven engine enables investors to make the timely interventions that will lead to better decisions and fewer costly errors by the startup team.

Such is the transformative effect of the Pitchdrive approach that many investors onboard their own startup investments. This gives them the status of lead investors, which is positively reflected in their Pitchdrive evaluation score.

Conclusion

With Pitchdrive, the business of minimising risk and maximising revenue starts right from the get-go. Our data-driven scoring system takes the guesswork out of finding a solid early-stage investment opportunity. But that’s not the end of the story by any means. 

There are key stages in every startup’s journey where data is no substitute for the benefits of timely mentoring and support. Pitchdrive provides the relevant data insights, communication channels and intuitive user experience that enhances the angel investor’s ability to follow their projects and optimises their chances of exiting their investment with a market-leading ROI.