by Hall Martin
I was at a coffee shop at the Trianon in Westlake this past week with an investor who is starting up a new business. He talked about going through the various online portals for fundraising and made an interesting comment that it took some research to figure out how each one was different. He then asked how the TEN Funding Portal was different. So I proceeded to list the following:
- Texas Focused – TEN accepts no deals outside of Texas. All companies listed on the TEN Funding Portal are Texas-based. Although, we do sometimes have investors from outside of the state. Even so, they represent a fairly small portion (less than 5%).
- Quality Deals – TEN only take deals that have a strong chance of raising funding. Our entrepreneurs have raised over $289M since we started in 2009.
- Startup Preparation Assistance – TEN offers services to help startups prepare their documents before going out to the investors. Preparation is key to a successful funding round and business.
- Online Access and Investing – Compared to traditional angel funding, we transact online. Investors can source deals, research them, follow them, and invest in them all using our online tools.
- Investments Start as Low as $2K – Investors can start by investing as little as $2,000 in a startup. This often comes as a surprise to the angel investor, who is used to $10K, $25K, and $50K minimum investments. The reality is that for seed deals, investors find it much more comfortable to start with a $2K-$5K investment and invest more in later rounds.
- Invest Alongside Other Investors – We showcase deals that are led by venture capitalists, angel networks, and experienced investors. Don’t go it alone, invest alongside other TEN investors.
- Get Online Reports – After we launch a company’s campaign, we showcase their traction with update mailers every 2 to 4 weeks so the investor can track their progress. We also recently launched the TEN Company Watchlist program, where investors can sign up to “watch” and receive quality data on just about any Texas startup.
- Get Access to Secondaries – TEN also offers secondaries, or investments in growth stage companies where the revenues are often above $10M.
- Get Access to VC-Index Fund – TEN offers investments into companies which have raised VC funding.
As fundraising goes online the number of portals will continue to grow and the number of startups and investors using them will expand.