Interesting Stats on Capital Connections
Author: Scott Burkett
Publication Date: 4 February, 2008 (00:58)
Tags: CapConn, startuplounge
We just closed off registrations for our upcoming February 6th, 2008 installment of the StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event. Looks like we’re set for another fantastic event with a full slate of 200+ people.
As part of our new platform (which is still under development), we’re tracking lots of different metrics about our events. Here are a few interesting numbers:
| Companies new to the event (haven’t attended previously) | 60% |
| Investors that are new to the event (haven’t attended previously) | 28% |
| Percentage of investors that are primarily angels: | 58% |
| Percentage of investors that are primarily VCs: | 42% |
| Companies that have revenues: | 42% |
| Companies that have filed patents: | 46% |
| Companies that represent a “first business” for the entrepreneur | 32% |
| Entrepreneurs interested in attending PitchCamp: | 58% |
| Entrepreneurs interested in participating in our FastPitch event: | 70% |
Quick analysis: A lot of numbers here. The biggest number to me is that 60% of the companies at this event are “new” - meaning that they haven’t attended before. Part of our goal is to help as many people as we can, but part of our goal is also to try and keep the deals at CapConn “fresh” for investors.
I also really like the fact that we are seeing lots of first-time entrepreneurs (that bodes well for the future of the community). I think this feeds into the strong demand for our free PitchCamp sessions as well. Looks like a fair number of companies have revenues and IP in place. That’s always good news for investors. And speaking of investors, there is a nice mix of angels and VCs to boot.
The 70% of entrepreneurs who jumped at the chance to participate in our “FastPitch” pre-CapConn event is great! In fact, it is so great, that we realized we’ll need to take some time to plan this feature to better handle the demand, which is why we’ve pushed its launch off until the next CapConn (spring).
Breakdown of Company Stage:
| Seed/Idea stage | 31.96% |
| Early-stage (product & maybe revenues) | 53.61% |
| Growth stage (revenues in place) | 14.43% |
| Later stage | 0% |
Quick analysis: I really like this statistic. Most of the deals in the room already have a product and/or revenues in place.
Breakdown of Product Stage:
| No product, but a great idea napkin! | 5.15% |
| R&D | 26.80% |
| Prototype | 31.96% |
| Production | 31.96% |
| Not applicable to my business | 4.12% |
Quick analysis: As with the previous set of statistics on company stage, most of the deals in the room have already made some semblance of progress as it pertains to their product offering. For those out there that think we fill the room with napkin holders, think again! They are in the minority at only 5.15%.
Number of Employees:
| Just me! (solo) | 24.74% |
| 2-10 Employees | 69.07% |
| 10-20 Employees | 2.06% |
| Over 20 | 4.12% |
Quick analysis: First, and obviously, most of the concentration is in the solo and 2-10 categories, however, there are some deals in other categories as well. I like the 2-10 category being the highest. This is usually indicative of an entrepreneurial “team” (i.e. the geek and the marketing guy). This is something that I know lots of thought leaders in Atlanta have have wanted to see more of (Stephen Fleming, David Ratajczak, Jeff Haynie, etc.). So this is encouraging!
Funding History:
| Bootstrapping | 58.76% |
| Friends/Family | 21.65% |
| Angels | 16.49% |
| Institutional (venture capital or private equity) | 3.09% |
Quick analysis: No surprise that since we are targeting early-stage companies for these events, that the trend clearly shows most deals in the room are either being bootstrapped or funded by friends/family thus far. I would like to slowly but surely see the crawl towards the angel bucket, and at 16.5% already, that makes for a good spread in the room.
Current Capital Status:
| Raising money now | 80.41% |
| Will need to raise capital later | 8.25% |
| Maybe, or not sure yet | 10.31% |
| Not raising capital or don’t need | 1.03% |
Quick analysis: Again, no surprises here. The 80.5% of people actively seeking capital are at CapConn for a reason. 
Nice to see some others there who are making connections for the future. As they say - the best time to befriend an investor is well before you may approach them for capital.
Top 4 Industries:
| Information Technology | 37% |
| Consumer | 14.5% |
| Healthcare | 13.5% |
| Media | 12% |
Quick analysis: Atlanta has had a large technology industry for a long time, so it is no surprise that tech plays are the top represented category. Tis is even more obvious when you consider how much easier it is to launch a tech company today than say, 5 or 10 years ago. This should dispel the rumor that the whole room is full of technology plays. There are certainly a large number of them there, but as you can see, there are plenty of deals to be had in other areas as well (including the dozen or so industries not listed here).
Fun numbers! See everyone on Wednesday ….
Cheers.
