Today we’re speaking with Alexa Fleur, the CEO and co-founder of CritiqueIt, to learn how her company used CapLinked’s platform to manage their capital raise.
What does your company do?
CritiqueIt is a software as a service (Saas) product that allows users to embed text, audio and video feedback on virtually any type of file including images, text documents, presentations and spreadsheets. CritiqueIt provides an entirely new way to collaborate on documents; a cost-effective cloud solution that eliminates the software barrier.
How did you use CapLinked?
We used CapLinked for a six-figure capital raise last year, and it worked so well that I’m currently using it again for a bridge round. I’m also using it to send updates to CritiqueIt’s existing investors and advisors.
What surprised you about the process of raising capital?
It’s difficult and it takes a long time. Having a solid business plan and putting together a good deal for your prospective investors aren’t enough.
You have to be relentless in seeking out leads and asking for referrals. If you don’t get your deal in front of the right people, then you’re not going to get funded. And you have to expect to be told “no” a lot of times along the way.
How did CapLinked help you during your capital raise?
CapLinked made it a lot easier to manage my list of prospective investors. Salesforce and Outlook have good CRM tools, but they really aren’t designed for managing investor contacts and they don’t have tools meant specifically for putting a private deal in front of leads.
My co-founder and I were able to import our contacts into CapLinked and share CritiqueIt’s deal with them. We could then see who had viewed the deal and downloaded documents. And whenever we met someone who expressed interest, we immediately shared our deal with them.
It was also very convenient to get email notifications from CapLinked every time someone viewed my deal. It let me know who was viewing my documents and when I should follow up with them.
What role did your network play in this process?
I reached out to my contacts and prospective investors to ask them if they knew anyone who might be interested in our deal. I sometimes had to follow up multiple times, but it worked and it yielded big results.
It’s critical that CapLinked allows the recipients of a deal to forward it along to other people. But I didn’t just wait for people to use the feature. I was proactive about asking investors for introductions to other accredited investors in their networks. That’s how a deal gets done.
