Research Results on 649 Start-Up Founders from 55 Countries

Research by Aery Advisors on 649 Startup Founders from 55 countries illustrates the state of investor readiness in the 2020 venture finance market.

Aery Advisors helps founders, funders and teams turn big ideas into reality. Between 29 June and 21 September 2020, Aery Advisors conducted a survey of a grand total of 649 individuals from 55 countries who self-identify as a start-up founder or business owner. The survey participants completed the Aery Advisors “Investor Readiness Test”. The comprehensive test assesses how “ready” the individual and his or her start-up idea or venture is to engage in the process of raising funding from third-party sources. The rest results illustrate the aggregate data compiled from the test respondents during the test period and provides with an overview of the venture finance market from an investment-readiness perspective.

The full research results and analysis are available from Aery Advisors.

Notwithstanding the global pandemic and other movements and challenges around the world in the year 2020 that are disrupting old ways of working, communicating and thinking, there is no shortage of visionary, ambitious and passionate men and women willing to invest time, reputation and relationships to turn big ideas into a reality.

The research during the summer of 2020 reveals a number of things, including:

• 65% of start-up founders in the Aery Advisors study have less than six months runway, and will become insolvent unless they increase income, reduce expenses or raise capital from third parties;

• 26% of of start-up founders in the study have raised seed capital and/or achieved product/market fit, Series A, or in growth mode (Series B and beyond), and 2.5% are preparing their company for exit via strategic sale or public listing;

• 38% of start-up founders acknowledge they lack fundamental and foundational knowledge about the subject venture finance;

• 39% of of start-up founders have not started or thought about what they need to do, organisationally, to get their “house in order”;

• only 15% of start-up founders are successfully attracting the type and amount of financing they require;

• 83% of of start-up founders in the Aery Advisors study are willing to make venture finance one of their top three current strategic priorities, but only 34% are willing to make it their number 1 current strategic priority.

If you would like to discuss venture finance or any of the results of the research, please contact Brad Furber of Carsted Rosenberg Advokatfirma. The full research results and analysis are available curtesy of Aery Advisors.