" Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it " Goethe
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction
INVESTORS
Early-stage investing is an art as well as an adventure - much like entrepreneurship; both rewarding and risky, fraught with failure and has to deal with many untested unknowns - the product, the market, and the team. Yet, some investors do a fine job of earning themselves exceptional returns.
Here’s the reward!
Despite the many start-up mishaps littering the entrepreneurial battlefield, the good ones go on to make their investors rich beyond most other known means. As per a 2009 Research on UK angel investors by NESTA, 35% of all angel investments surveyed produced returns of between 1x and 5x of the initial investment, and 9% of investments produced returns of multiples of 10x or more.
How do successful investors achieve these returns?
We have demystified some tricks of early stage investing - having asked, observed and studied a lot of successful investors that the less fortunate investors simply call ‘lucky’. You can unravel the ‘magic’ of early stage investing too, if you are not already doing it.
Click here to read the 6 Rules to Success as an Angel Investor.
But, not without the pain!
- In your search for the holy grail, you may be predisposed to investing in your chosen sector/(s) of expertise. But early stage investing is a portfolio diversification game as well as a gamble on the best opportunity and the best team you can find. You may do well to pick from the best of ideas from a range of diverse sectors and sources which have already made it through the screening process of trusted sources, than to overinvest in a bunch of mediocre deals in the sector familiar to you.
- Information asymmetries exist between entrepreneurs and investors on a range of issues like valuation, fund-raising, the exit, and recruiting the team. You need gatekeepers to reduce the scope for friction and to save both parties from negotiations gone awry.
- Investors can oversimplify start-up issues and may not understand the entrepreneurs’ pain. It may be difficult for you to look out for the other party’s interest as a very involved party to the process. You need someone to help both parties win, as win-win is the only sustainable long term strategy.
- There are tactical holes in the investing process such as shareholder agreements, warrants, management control, management incentives and any other pains overlooked, which need to be plugged
Here’s the remedy!
We at Genius Incubator bring to Investors, our passion for investing, our experience in private equity, our strong links to entrepreneurs and institutions at the bleeding edge of innovation that make us privy to rare investment opportunities for you. We have strong ties to our alma maters and alumni networks at Indian Institute of Technology, and Ivy League Business Schools such as Harvard and Wharton. That means access to the most enterprising minds, their ideas and imagination, breakthrough research, pioneering technologies and innovations and their most promising start-ups much before they come to the public domain.
We believe in bringing to you only the deals that we ourselves would invest in (if we could) and the teams that have won our confidence. We impose strict criteria to filter out the opportunities and grill the teams before we choose to present them to you. We are particularly predisposed to factors such as tenacity, focus, dedication and trustworthiness of the founding team, proof of concept, traction, and investment readiness of the business and ultimately the promise and potential of a big win for the investor.
Think of us as your trusted partner and a trusted mentor to innovators
Welcome to Genius Incubator!
Explore the pipeline of deals that caught our eye
Featured Ideas
Genius Incubator in association with The Private Equity & Venture Capital Club of London Business School invites early-stage and growth-stage entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, ... read more
Trade Mark: BlueVentus Industry Sector: Hospitality, Leisure Location: UK Stage of Business: Pre-operational Funding sought : €1,200,000 by December 2009 Minimum Inve ... read more
Trade Mark : The Royal Mile (clubs) Company: The Scotch Club Ltd Industry Sector: Hospitality, Leisure Location: Bradford-on-Avon, UK; Bangalore, India Stage of Business: Pre-o ... read more
Please contact Arifa at Arifa.Khan@geniusincubator.com if you want to learn more about current investment opportunities.
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