初创企业如何绕开融资后的“无人区”

    “无人区”往往指的是战场上敌我壕沟之间的区域。我发现，越来越多的初创企业陷入了种子期融资和真正的A轮风投融资之间的“无人区”。

    出现这种情况的原因很多，其中包括种子期融资不足或产品未能面世。一旦遭遇这种困境，企业家该何去何从？

    很多企业家会展开新一轮的种子期融资或利用先一轮的种子期融资进行投资追加。尽管这些都是不错的办法，但真正奏效的却屈指可数。因为给予初创企业种子基金的投资者当中，大部分只有在回收投资后方能提供更多的种子资金。除此之外，天使投资人更倾向于投资新项目或首轮种子期融资项目，然后才会向旧项目或在第一轮种子期融资期间成为“烂尾楼工程”的初创企业追加投资。

    为了确保不会避免陷入“无人区”，明智的企业家往往会做两件事。第一，在种子期融资期间，他们不会追求庞大的明星投资机构阵容，而是力求找到少数几家有足够实力的机构种子基金来提供超过3/4的融资总额，这样这些机构投资者在初创企业将拥有更多的所有权，对于企业的未来也更加关心。第二，明智的企业家会仔细权衡拿到第一轮A轮融资所需完成的业绩，然后再以此倒推达到该目标所需的资金额度。尽管不一定绝对准确，但这却是企业家应有的意识，因为没有公司愿意拿到了种子期融资之后就加入徘徊在“无人区”的企业大军。

    本文作者爱德华•斯姆是BOLDstart风投公司的创始人以及Dawntreader风投公司的联合创始人。

    "No Man's Land" is traditionally known as the area between two trenches on a battlefield. Increasingly I am seeing many seed-funded startups get caught in "No Man's Land" between the seed round and a true Series A round led by a venture capitalist.

    This can happen for many reasons, including not raising enough capital in the seed round to begin with or not getting your product out the door. So what does an entrepreneur do when caught in this predicament?

    Many try to do an additional seed round or add-on to the prior round. While not a bad idea, this is rarely successful because many seed-funded startups have way too many investors who are more apt to write off the investment then to bridge more seed money. Moreover, many angel investors would rather invest in that shiny new car or first seed round then add more capital to a used car or startup that did not "get there" on its first seed financing.

    Smarter entrepreneurs are increasingly doing two things to make sure they don't caught in "No Man's Land." First, rather than getting 20 great names as seed investors, they are making sure to get at least 3/4 or more of the round invested by a couple institutional seed folks that may have deeper pockets and more ownership in the startup to really care about what happens in the future. Second, the smarter entrepreneurs are really thinking carefully about what milestones need to be hit to raise that first Series A round and work backwards to determine how much financing they need to get there. While not an exact science, it is imperative to think like this as you don't want to be one of the many seed-funded companies that will linger in "No Man's Land."

    Ed Sim is founder of BOLDstart Ventures and co-founder of Dawntreader Ventures.