FSDA Company Limited
Finance from private sources (Private Equity)
This type of finance concerns investments, from professional investors (Venture Capital organisations) and/or by individuals (so-called "BusinessAngels"), in companies which are not quoted on the stock exchange.
This kind of finance:
v is solely for your enterprise (i.e. there is usually no need to collaborate with other companies)
v means you may have to allocate a position on your Board to your investor
v means that the investor is looking for a real monetary return, usually between 3 to 5 years after the investment has been made
Venture capital investors generally receive their returns by making a capital gain on the ultimate sale of investments.
Exit methods include:
- a trade sale (i.e. selling their shares to an individual or to another company - this is the most common exit method),
- flotation on a stock exchange ("IPO - Initial Public Offering" - which is quite common),
- a share repurchase by your company or its management, and
- a refinancing of the business (least common).
Share purchases by another venture capital firm are also an increasingly common phenomenon.

FSDA has access to a wide network of organisations, companies and inviduals who can provide you with finance.
Our network is particularly experienced in the finance of innovation-intensive enterprises.

We offer you some advice - and a commitment.

You may be surprised to learn that when you submit your business plan, it will be read, in the first instance, for on average, TEN MINUTES.

The people assessing the business plan will not usually be known to you.
They will be impartial 3rd-parties - usually, with good knowledge of your area of technology and/or business.

So your business plan has to "stand out from the crowd".
If you are the CEO - you have to stand out from the crowd.
So does your technology, and your appreciation of the market.

As a facilitator, and via our network of private equity investors, FSDA is able to help companies who are looking for:
v private equity for their high technology enterprise
v seed (startup) or product development phase capital and expect turnover to reach at least 10M Euros within 5 years.
v market development (growth phase) capital and expect turnover to reach at least 50M Euros within 5 years.

We also know that you want to know, quickly, whether your business plan is likely to be of interest, or not.

Our commitments to you:
v we will inform you very quickly (usually, within 2 working days) whether your business proposal is likely to be of interest to our network, or not
v where your plan looks to be of interest, we will assist you to attract the attention of investors
v we will keep you informed on all progress of the assessment of your business plan
v we will treat your business plan as confidential

Because we've been there before:
- we have hands-on knowledge of new technologies: microelectronics, embedded systems, web technologies & telecoms;
- we've all worked in industry;
- we've produced ideas for new technologies and patented them;
- we've created and managed business units and businesses;
- we've had to look for finance too;
- we know how to distil and present the essential ingredients to make your idea look attractive to investors.

If you wish to contact us, we will be pleased to discuss your requirements in confidence.
Alternatively, if you would prefer to send us directly either your business plan, or an executive summary of your plan/idea, we will quickly provide you with feedback.
Acrobat PDF or Microsoft Word format is fine.
Our contact details are on the FSDA home page.

Lastly, we offer you guidelines to the preparation of a business plan.
This 10-page document has been compiled from sources which include:
* Arthur Young (now Cap Gemini Ernst & Young) consulting;
* European Commission Innovation/SME programme documents;
* various web sources on the business of "dot.coms"
* our own experience at FSDA.

We hope you will find it to be very useful. To obtain the guidelines, click here.

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