How to Think Strategically about Funding for Founders and Investors

<p dir="ltr">I first met <a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAAD-1XwBSpc_TYsHxRBqGoojU5S1GuIce5o"> Avantika Daing</a>, a General Partner & Managing Partner at Plum Alley Investments (and Tedx Speaker!) while she was onstage at an Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator event. She was there to share a bit about Plum Alley’s Investment thesis as well as unpack six pitches live from early-stage companies.</p> <p dir="ltr">Let’s level set a bit so you understand Avantika’s and Plum Alley’s mission, which revolves around an important number that hasn’t moved much in years, despite a lot of effort - 2%. </p> <p dir="ltr">According to Pitchbook, in 2022, companies founded solely by women garnered just 2% of the total capital invested in VC-backed startups in the United States. Plum Alley only funds gender-diverse companies and works to create an ecosystem to help them not just get funded, but to grow and succeed. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring Avantika on, to share some of her ways of thinking strategically about funding as an investor, how Plum Alley is working to create a more sustainable funding ecosystem for diverse founding teams, and how she coaches founders to be more strategic about funding, too.<strong><br /></strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Watching Avantika on stage peel back the layers of the onion (one of her favorite metaphors!) on a company’s story in conversation with a founder and work to understand the company’s potential was fascinating - it’s a tremendous act of intellectual rigor and curiosity. Her questions also reminded me that founders can make an investor’s job a lot easier through more powerful and intentional storytelling.</p> <p dir="ltr">Another powerful metaphor that Avantika came back to in a number of pitches was the idea of a Basecamp.</p> <p dir="ltr">In other words, Avantika, as a funder, wants to know: Is your company building a core technology or defensible market position (a basecamp) that will provide you with multiple paths to success? </p> <p dir="ltr">Avantika acknowled