Process

Although not designed to put applicants off, you have to bear in mind these are the typical steps that a 'perfect' investment process might take. Although we do have our written criteria, investing is as much about 'gut instinct' as it is about mitigating risk.

A typical successful investment flow might consist of these steps:

In the evaluation of any investment there are typically three primary stages:

Screening Due Diligence: Out of the many applications we receive we use a predetermined criteria to quickly select the ones that we will spend more time and money evaluating. You have an advantage if you come via a referral from a trusted source. Rejections at this stage could for example be because of the geographic region, the stage of the business, the deal size or the industry sector.

Business Due Diligence: This is when we look more closely at the application, the team, product or service, potential, defensibility and the business model.

Legal Due Diligence. If all the Business Due Diligence looks good we would then appoint our advisors to begin legal due diligence.

EC1 Capital recommends that all successful applicants should have all the required legal documentation available and to hand to move the application along at an expeditious pace if you are seriously looking for investment from any company.

Using a password protected 'DropBox' is a useful tip for sharing data securely.

Sample documentation can include:

1. Articles of Association
2. Shareholders Agreements
3. Financial Statements
4. Any Service Agreements
5. Any Minutes of Board or Shareholder meetings
6. Any Founder Agreements
7. Cap Tables and any Share Option Schemes and # of outstanding shares
8. Founder CV’s
9. References
10. Company Accounts
11. Any IP documentation