Startup funding – Why is there a gap?

David Crow’s post on incubators nicely summarized the startup support ecosystem situation in Toronto and in follow-on discussions some key areas have been identified on what is needed to better support entrepreneurs in Toronto:

• Available financing
• Access to mentors
• Culture/community to support startups

In terms of financing, I see two sides to this point depending on who you talk to. From the entrepreneur’s standpoint, you would hear comments on the difficulty of finding financing (i.e. who to approach, time it takes, terms imposed, etc). From the funder’s standpoint, you would hear comments on the difficulty in finding quality companies (i.e. viable business model, good pitch, strong management, etc).

To help closethe gap, I would like to capture more information about the funding requirements, concerns, experiences of startups. I have put together a quick survey (3 parts – should only take 5 minutes to complete).

If you are part of a startup that has either raised funding before or will need to raise funding in the future, I would value your input and participation in the survey.

Click here to launch the survey.

Summarized results will be published on StartupNorth and will help drive future educational topics around the funding process.

If you would like an overview of the angel funding process you can read an organized collection of articles here.

craig at mapleleafangels.com