Venture Capital Matchmaking

Venture Capital Focus

Venture capitalists focus on particular industries and particular stages of company development. When conducting your research for venture capital sources, try to identify venture capitalists who specialize in the industry and development stage that match your company.

Industries that venture capitalists currently favor include software, biotech, medical instruments, health care, retail, networking, computers, and online and Internet.

The stages of company development that a venture capitalist may look for include:

• Seed round: The company is still a very early start up.

• First round: The company has refined its business plan, has some of its management team in place, and is starting to develop products and sales.
• Second round: The company has made good progress on its plan, sales have started to increase, and the business is expanding.
• Third round: The company has done well, attacked its market, refined its product, and is now gearing up for an initial public offering or other major progress.

Some venture capitalists focus only on early stage companies while other firms prefer later stage companies.