How to get funding for your scaleable business idea? In Prototron start-up fund, we've identified 7 key questions for you to have answers before applying for investor money.

1. Siim Lepisk
5. August 2014 at Startup Ideation Bootcamp at Arengufond
7 key topics for getting funded

2. In 2012, Swedbank, Tallinn Technical University
and Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol founded
Prototron fund to support building the first
prototypes that could get client feedback to
conquer the World.
We help talented entrepreneurs to get their
product to market, by granting our alumni with
money and 6 months of business development
services in Tehnopol Startup Incubator.
We build success stories

3. We focus on
*For ICT projects we support systems with complex algorithms
ICT*
Electronics
Mechatronics
Greentech

4. 50-100 ideas collected via www.prototron.ee
pre-evaluation committee selects top 20 ideas
and provides feedback to all teams
Tehnopol coaching for
top 20 teams
Best 9-10 teams
pitching to expert
committee
Expert committee
funds
2-3 teams
We finance 2-3 rounds /year

5. Since 2012, we have:
● Gathered 500+ ideas
● Had 6 rounds of funding
● Given out 180 000+ EUR for 14 teams.
All those start-ups are strongly growing.
Our alumni have generated 500 000+ EUR
revenue and raised 1 500 000+ EUR capital
We’ve already shown great results

6. 1. Team
2. Product
3. Market
4. How to earn money
5. Timing
6. Advantage
7. Proven first steps
Key elements of getting funded

7. ● At least 2 roles covered: business + tech
● What have achieved so far?
● Have worked together?
● Commitment?
● Passion on the topic?
1. Team

8. Team: rather good example
ABC – MBA, thesis defended on the subject, currently working
at XXX Ltd as a Business Development Manager.
XYZ – MSc in Business Information Technology, currently
working at RBS as a developer.
Team has worked together full time at RBS since 2010 and on
the product since 2012.

9. ● Clear value proposal
● Concise
● Can be visualized
● Validated by third party
2. Product description

10. Product description: to be improved
Easy to use, shared and collaborative environment for
project teams for efficiently planning, controlling and
monitoring project work at the field.
● Too vague
● Where’s your value?

11. Product description: good examples
Deekit is developing a multi-platform app
to help managers in growing IT companies
to increase their productivity by enhancing the visual
communication between teams and individuals with a
real-time team collaboration whiteboard
• Precise value proposal – what/who/how
Browserbite is an automatic cross browser testing tool
to check your website on 45+ mobile devices and
browsers

12. Who are your clients? Segmentation – only one
segment or many segments?
● Human, corporates, public sector
● Age
● Gender
● Income (higher / lower)
● Where they live (Estonia, Europe, Asia)
● Education level
● ….
3. Market description

13. ● Value proposition?
● What’s improved after your product/service?
● Are you able to generate more revenue to your clients
(preferred) or improve efficiencies?
● Where do you sell? (who buys)
● How do you sell?
You can’t always have the right answer: the business
model could quickly change in pivoting process, if the
‘market’ requires other kind of product/service
4. How to earn money?

14. ● Why is your product important today?
● Are customers ready to pay for your product?
● How can you prove that?
5. Timing: actuality of the idea

15. ● Why you, not 100 others?
● How is your idea different from the competitors product/
service?
● How do you protect intellectual property?
● How will you scale?
● Is your team exceptionally experienced in that?
6. Strategic advantage

16. ● Show progress
● Validated assumptions
● Anyone willing to pay?
● LOI – Letter of Intent from clients/vendors
7. Proven first steps

17. Start talking to your customers!
October 15th
Siim Lepisk, siim@prototron.ee