How to Simplify Fundraising with Virtual Data Rooms

Fundraising is one of the most critical and complicated processes the companies face to be successful and expand their operations. Many aspects play a prominent role when you raise capital and require attention to detail to avoid problems.

Fundraising data room software serves as a reliable and secure space for document management and file sharing. Thus, it is crucial in assisting external-facing workflows in finance, law, and scientific research.

What is a startup fundraising data room?

A startup fundraising data room, or an investor data room, is a protected virtual or physical space where early stage companies securely store sensitive data related to the due diligence process. In practice, this information answers most of the investors’ questions and thus is a way to convince them of startup transparency and validity.

Currently, virtual data rooms have the edge over physical ones as they present a more comprehensive range of use cases, namely:

• Highly-secure storage for confidential documents
• Safe and instant file sharing internally and externally
• Change tracking for each individual file
• Data-driven decision-making
• Communication with multiple parties

Which features are required for a startup fundraising data room?

A startup data room as a user-friendly and secure platform offers various features, which make the workflow smoother, safer, and more productive. The key features an investor data room should have to organize investors resources and speed up the fundraising process include the follows.

Data indexing

Since due diligence is a data-heavy stage of capital raising, investors need convenient access to review business-critical information. Data rooms automatically index and so create a logical easy-to-navigate document structure, which is a crucial component of your startup’s fundraising efforts.

Permission control features

You have full control over virtual data room access. Thus, you can permit investors to only view a document for a specific time, and then, if they are interested, give them access to other sensitive documents.

Dynamic watermarking

Company documents can be watermarked to reduce the chance of investors divulging confidential data. Also, the files you send are stamped with the recipient’s email address. Thus, identifying the source of a leak is easy and quick.

Q&A section, commenting, and other collaboration features

Investor communication during the fundraising stage is critical as questions may arise along the way. Being able to  answer quickly shows your reliability and may potentially influence the chances of receiving the funding.

Audit features

With these investor data room features, you can track the activity on sensitive documents shared with investors and see all views, prints, and downloads. Also, heat maps offered by some providers show you the most active user groups and what data they are most interested in, which significantly supports decision-making.

NDA

Built-in non-disclosure agreements automatically pop up when investors and other parties enter data rooms. This way, you protect the storage contents, ensuring all users accept your terms.

The best VDR solutions for startup fundraising

The venture capital environment presents so many challenges that you need a secure, full-featured investor data room to provide pertinent information and streamline the process for team members and investors.

We have prepared a list of data room solutions that significantly increase the chances of investment success. Although some features are native to each provider, the platforms differ in other tools, ease of use, security level, and cost.

Benefits of the data room for startups

A virtual data room for startup fundraising provides many benefits not only for investors but for the founders as well. Here are the main reasons why you should consider utilizing this cloud-based software for fundraising:

Better connection with your potential investors

An investor data room helps to organize the research process and sort out needed information on every potential investor who may be interested in your business. With a data room, you will have a better idea of whom you’re going to pitch your campaign to and also be able to track your progress going through each next stage. 

As everything related to investor research is located in one secure virtual data room, you can access needed information in just a few clicks.

Secure file sharing

Using secure channels to communicate between investors and fundraisers reduces the risk of a data breach or exposing sensitive information. In addition, many reliable data rooms for startups are compliant with international security standards as well as offer security features, including encryption and two-step verification.  

You can also control how users view certain documents — whether they can download them or take screenshots. The watermarking feature allows you to prevent unauthorized document sharing. When using a virtual data room for investors, you can be sure that your confidential information, such as financial records, agreements, and reports is secure.

Neatly organized data

The virtual data room is not only a secure location for sensitive information, but also a feature-rich document management solution. No matter how many files you upload, the platform arranges them in order. In addition, the data structure remains intact when a user makes changes. Thus, you get hundreds of documents neatly organized and accessible in an intuitive way.

Easy collaboration between the fundraising team and investors

With fundraising data room software, there is no need to do the paperwork. You share documents online, making it much easier and less time-consuming to gather all required files in one place. Potential investors can only review data that you permit them to see. 

You can also give access to multiple investors worldwide, so they can quickly view the documents when it’s most convenient for them.

Instant updates to everyone

Since the fundraising and due diligence process are lengthy, you must update your files regularly to keep data fresh. And while it’s a daunting task with physical storage, investor data rooms offer all the practical tools to do that.

For example, investor data rooms automatically save your changes and version history, which saves you from having to do it manually. Furthermore, you may set up automated emails for all relevant parties, making it easier to keep everyone updated and deliver the latest information to their hands. This way, investors can easily read the latest documents and see your changes.

Streamlined data management and easier access to files

An investor data room gives you many storage options. You can choose the storage capacity needed depending on how many files you need to upload. Using a virtual data room allows for unlimited storage and managing several projects simultaneously.

As mentioned previously, a data room makes it easy for your investors to access files when it’s convenient for them — with only a stable internet connection.

Using digital data rooms organizes your fundraising campaigns making them more effective. During the challenging process of raising funds, it’s important to disclose all necessary confidential information with investors and be fully transparent about the company’s finances.

What to include in a fundraising data room?

In an effort to provide investors with an organized data room, you may have concerns about including too much or too little. To make you feel more confident, we have prepared a checklist of documents that investors generally expect to see.

1. Financials

• Profit and loss statements
• Balance sheet
• Asset register
• Financial projections
• Cap table
• Audits
• Documents on previous raises
• Pro forma statements (financial models)

2. Company documents

• Pitch deck
• Amended and restated articles of incorporation
• Voting agreements
• Partnership agreements
• Investor rights agreements
• First refusal and co-sale agreements
• Consumer agreements
• Meeting minutes (where the board meetings are important)
• Board consents
• Board materials
• Shareholders’ agreement
• Competitive analysis
• Market research
• Marketing materials
• Sales process
• Business plan
• Branding guidelines
• Office lease agreements
• Investor updates
• Legal disputes

3. Intellectual property

• Granted and filed patents
• Intellectual property strategy
• Domain name ownership
• Software license information (include any open-source software you apply)

4. Incorporation and legal documents

• Voting agreements
• Articles of incorporation
• Founder Stock purchase agreements
• Cap table

5. Employees

• Employee contracts (past and present)
• List of current employees
• Intern contracts (past and present)
• Consultant contracts (past and present)
• Onboarding documents

6. Past investor updates

• First refusal and co-sale agreements
• Investor rights agreements
• Other documents related to those investors

What shouldn’t be included in an investor data room?

To strike a balance with an investor data room, you should also know what not to include in the storage. Unfortunately, there is no such list of documents yet, but you can make it yourself based on what data is of value to the investor. For example, if specific documents don’t influence your deal at a certain point, do not include them.

Another equally significant aspect is security. That is, refrain from granting access to those who shouldn’t see your data. 

Another recommendation is to perform routine checks and ensure only relevant individuals can access your virtual data room software.

Conclusion

A virtual data room for startup fundraising is a great investment for companies, as it allows founders to take full control over the campaign and get everything organized in one place.

When choosing the best data room, you should pick the one with key features for structuring data neatly, protecting confidential documents, communicating with investors effectively, and keeping track of all activities.

We have listed the best solutions for you, but you may find all the details about them on the software review platforms or providers’ official websites. Finally, when including documents in your data room, balance relevance and security to satisfy investors while protecting your company.