7 The art of pitching to institutional investors
This chapter covers
Different types of investors require different types of pitches. In anecdote 6, “Angels: Your bridge financing solution,” I discussed how to pitch to individual angels, who, even if they are part of a group with organized meetings, ultimately invest about $25,000 per person. In this anecdote, I’ll cover pitching to institutional investors, which means venture capitalists, highly organized fund-based angel groups, private equity firms, and corporate or strategic investors.
Definition An institutional investor is a legally organized partnership or corporation whose sole business activity is investing to make a profit consistent with their corporate structure (for shareholders, limited partners, or a parent company). These are the investors you will get to once you have market traction, have proven product-market fit, or later, when you are ready to scale the company.