Planning to launch your own start-up? now's the time. India is in its best ever phase of startup ecosystem and therefore the economic environment is favouring the aspiring minds. However, careful planning and futuristic approach are imperative to make sure your startup don’t end just like the 94% that pack up their shutters within the primary year of operation.
Funding is a particularly significant aspect in line with meeting the vision of a business. Funding and fundraising, both are fundamental modern business scenarios that support the expansion of a startup. The primary round of funding, popularly referred to as seed funding forms the idea of fundraising. It's followed by series A, B and C rounds of funding. While the seed funding typically refers to the essential , initial round of funding, series A, B, and C differ within the business maturity and therefore the sort of investors involved. The series funding helps within the involvement of a startup to a full-fledged organisation by helping it with calculated funds at crucial steps.
Here are a couple of successful startup funding options in India which will assist you support your business with the indispensable finance requirements:
1) Consider Self-funding
Popularly referred to as bootstrapping, it's a perfect plan of action when it's hard to convince others of your business idea and vision. Often investors invite traction before making an investment, the initial round of self-funding allows you to prove the feasibility of your idea and build confidence within the investors for an extra round of funding.
Bootstrapping may be a great idea for startup funding especially if the initial business requirement is little . It also gives you the liberty of being your own boss. You’re not answerable to anyone and it allows you to stay an eye fixed on the revenue earnings also .
2) Crowdfunding As A Funding Option:
Crowdfunding is one among the newer ways of funding a startup that has been gaining lot of recognition lately. It’s like taking a loan, pre-order, contribution or investments from quite one person at an equivalent time.
This is how crowdfunding works – An entrepreneur will put up an in depth description of his business on a crowdfunding platform. He will mention the goals of his business, plans for creating a profit, what proportion funding he needs and for what reasons, etc. Then consumers can examine the business and provides money if they just like the idea. Those giving money will make online pledges with the promise of pre-buying the merchandise or giving a donation. Anyone can contribute money toward helping a business that they really believe .
Why you ought to consider Crowdfunding as a funding option for your business:
The best thing about crowd funding is that it also can generate interest and hence helps in marketing the merchandise alongside financing. It's also a boon if you're not sue if there'll be any demand for the merchandise you're performing on . This process can cut out professional investors and brokers by putting funding within the hands of folk . It also might attract venture-capital investment down the road if a corporation features a particularly successful campaign.
Also confine mind that crowdfunding may be a competitive place to earn funding, so unless your business is completely rock solid and may gain the eye of the typical consumers through just an outline and a few images online, you'll not find crowdfunding to figure for you within the end.
Some of the favoured crowdfunding sites in India are Indiegogo, Wishberry, Ketto, Fundlined and Catapooolt.
3) Raise Money Through Bank Loans:
Normally, banks is that the first place that entrepreneurs go when brooding about funding.
The bank provides two sorts of financing for businesses. One is functioning capital loan, and other is funding. Capital loan is that the loan required to run one complete cycle of revenue generating operations, and therefore the limit is typically decided by hypothesising stocks and debtors. Funding from bank would involve the standard process of sharing the business plan and therefore the valuation details, along side the project report, supported which the loan is sanctioned.
Almost every bank in India offers SME finance through various programs. As an example , leading Indian banks – Bank Of Baroda, HDFC, ICICI and Axis banks have quite 7-8 different options to supply collateral free business loans. Inspect the respective bank sites for more details.
In US, sites like Kabbage can assist you get capital loan online in minutes. Unlike traditional lenders, Kabbage approve small business loans by watching real-life data, not just a credit score.
4) Incubators
As the name suggests, this is often the place to travel for guidance for startups. Not just funding, (and incidentally they are doing not fund by themselves) they supply the nourishment needed from all perspectives during the neonatal stage of the startups.
They are early stage growth enhancers and supply the much needed multi-dimensional support services ranging from office space sharing to access to finance. The simplest place for a startup to hone up and learn the steps to seek out funders.
Several institutions cutting across domains have found out incubators to reinforce the startup ecosystem during a healthy way. From education sector just like the Ahmadabad branch of Indian Institute of Management’s CII IIMA (in collaboration with government of Gujarat and Indian government) to Indian Angel Network’s IAN Incubator, there are several incubators for the startups to approach.
5) Venture capitals for your startup
As the number of startups is increasing, the amount of investors has also grown. Venture capitals generally come from well-off investors, investment banks, and the other financial institutions, and help finance startup companies to possess long-term growth. It also can provide with other resources which will contribute to the success of the corporate , like technical, managerial expertise with a mentorship program.
However, a risk capital investment tends to hunt a much bigger business that's already generating revenues after passing the startup phase. They also want to form their investment back, as soon as possible, within three to 5 years, which may be hard for smaller businesses to succeed in within such a time-frame .
According to the info analysis by the Martin Prosperity Institute to spot which industries attract the foremost risk capital , they're more curious about software and technology sectors, instead of telecommunication or consumer products.
Are you ready together with your strong business plan with realistic financial projections? Which path would you wish to require toward raising funds for your business?
6) Raise funds by startup pitch Competitions
Participating during a startup pitch competition might be one among the foremost powerful experiences for startups, especially within the early stages of the business life cycle. It can help to bring your business to subsequent level, providing with different offers including meeting with possible investments, media exposure, and potential strategic partnerships.
The reason why pitch competitions became increasingly so popular is that you simply can find such events wherever you're within the world. It might be costly and time-consuming as a little startup to attend such events as sometimes are required to pay a fee to enter. However, once you discover the eligible and relevant event which have themes and topics matching your startup concept, more benefits are going to be expecting your business. You'll not only find business partners or investors but you'll also get higher chances to satisfy different potential investors, partners, team members or maybe a product buyer.
Conclusion & Next Steps:
If you would like to grow really fast, you almost certainly need outside sources of capital. If you bootstrap and remain without external funding for too long, you'll be unable to require advantage of market opportunities.
While the plethora of lending options may make it easier than ever to urge started, responsible business owners should ask themselves what proportion financial assistance they actually need .
Now the large question is – How does one prepare your business for fund raising? It’s better to start out from the start with good corporate governance because it might get hard to travel back later and check out to exert fiscal discipline. To deal with these concerns, invest during a good accounting software and keep your finances so as .