How we can help with

Finding investors

We provide guidance on identifying the right investors for your business and how to approach them effectively. We assess the readiness of your business for investment and advise on the documents you should prepare in advance. Our expertise extends to negotiation tactics, guiding you through the typical aspects of a negotiation and what to avoid. Konsultori assists in determining the valuation of your company and helps you demonstrate its value to potential investors. 

go2market

Your challenges are taken care of

Which investors are right for my company?

How do I approach investors properly?

Is my business “ready” for investors?

Which documents should I prepare in advance?

What is typical for a negotiation and what is not?

What is the value of my company and how can I defend it?

Project-lead by a senior partner

Petra Wolkenstein © Konsultori

Petra Wolkenstein, CEO Konsultori

Petra is a highly accomplished professional with a wealth of experience in strategy and driving business growth. She specializes in providing strategic guidance and expertise in the areas of strategy, M&A, and growth. Petra is also an Investor and General Partner for Africa Startup Wise Guys, actively supporting and nurturing innovative startups in Africa.

With hands-on experience working with startups and investors since 2012, Petra has successfully led funding rounds and sales in diverse industries such as cybersecurity, eCommerce, SaaS and HealthTech. Petra’s extensive expertise, coupled with her proven ability to drive growth and navigate complex business areas, make her a valuable asset in the fields of strategy, M&A, and business development.

Expert partners

Work with experienced partners and benefit from their knowledge, proven strategies and decades of experience.

Hands-on Guidance

Receive ongoing, hands-on guidance to ensure effective and practical solutions throughout the process.

Diverse expertise

Access a broad range of expertise across strategy, organization design and finance, using trusted frameworks.

Tailored Solutions

Receive actionable advice tailored to your specific needs to ensure your company achieves its goals.

Investor capital, plublic funding and company exits secured
1 m EUR
Company valuations done
1 +
M&A projects closed
1 +

Areas in which we work with you

Ergebnisse Investorensuche konsultori

Key elements of work

  • We challenge your financial plan
  • We develop benchmarks together to validate your assumptions
  • We prepare your documents with key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • We evaluate your company from an objective perspective
  • We provide advice on the optimal definition of the process
  • We prepare your documents with you
  • We support you with the long list of investors you will approach
  • If required, we take over the project management of the process
  • We accompany you throughout the entire investor process up to completion
  • We compile your due diligence documents with you
  • We assist with tactics during the negotiations and prepare you for the next talks.

Results you will get

Financial plans
Financial plan and investment teaser
Project management
Business valuation and project management
List of investors
List of investors and negotiation support
Legal
Coordination of legal consultants and auditor

Expertise we bring

Business valuation

We specialise in business valuations for early-stage startups. At this stage, the future growth of your business is still highly uncertain, meaning special methods for valuation must be applied. Late-stage businesses use the DCF method as standard, combined with a multiples approach. Sometimes, an asset valuation is also necessary.

Financial planning

In the service industries and technology sector especially (platform model, SaaS model, corporate sales), we have several years of experience and provide templates for financial planning which are challenged using benchmarks.

Equity story

Investors need a few solid arguments to explain why your business generates added value and why your business valuation is forecast to increase exponentially in the future. That is summarised in an equity story and together with your investment teaser, it is the backbone of your investment story.

Investment strategy & process

We support business sales and funding rounds with strategic or financial investors. Depending on your industry, different processes need to be defined in order to be able to manage and complete the process within the scheduled timeframe.

M&A negotiations & project management

With 20’ years M&A experience in the corporate and startup scene, project management and keeping tight deadlines in mind is second nature to us. Assisting our clients with briefing and debriefing on future procedures during the negotiation process is also nothing new to us.

Approaching investors & business matchmaking​

A good network can definitely be beneficial. But these days you can reach out to investors and strategic partners with a short, well-crafted ‘cold’ pitch. We don’t believe that you need to approach business matchmakers for the sake of your network.

Our process for a project with you

01.

Initial consultation & project outline

We engage in a thorough discussion to understand your specific needs, goals, timeline, budget, and general project requirements.

02.

Challenging all documents

We give feedback on everything you already have and provide you with frameworks, templates, and inputs to the list of things to prepare for an investor process. From Financial Plan to  Strategy documentation, pitch-deck, etc. We provide benchmarks, look at inconsistencies, assess your business from an objective perspectives, advise on KPIs.

03.

Business valuation

We use different methods suitable for your situation to come up with your company valuation, a presentation of it including all the details and benchmarks and argumentation to defend your valuation in talks.

04.

Investment teaser and process

We support you in preparing your documentation including a revision of your pitch deck including all elements, being consistent, benchmarked, defendable, state of the art, readable.

05.

Long list of investors and pitch

We extend your existing list of potential investors by working on a clear investor profiling and ranking and providing more sources to build your list of investors. We jointly cut it down to a short list and prioritise outreach.

06.

Project management and negotiation support

We assume project management and coordination responsibilities during the whole process, give feedback, keep time management, brief and debrief for negotiations.

Book a non-binding consultation

Petra Wolkenstein © Konsultori

You are not ready yet?

Investor Readiness check

Investor readiness Check

Free Fundraising course

Finding investors course

Investor process canvas

Investor process canvas

Case studies

Insights

Other expertise in M&A

01.

Selling your company

We support you with strategic guidance in the preparation and selling of your company including valuation, potential buyer identification, deal structuring, due diligence, and executing the exit strategy.

02.

Business valuation

We develop, document, and provide the argumentation of a well-analyzed and benchmarked business valuation for your company.

03.

Financial plan

We support you and establish your financial plan or a revision of it. You will be able to communicate with financing partners and steer your company with a well-thought-through financial plan based on a proven tool.

04.

Harvard business negotiation

We work with you on your current negotiation challenge with tactics, preparation, guidance, briefing, and debriefing, as well as process and analysis to improve your negotiation results.

05.

Startup M&A as a Service for Strategic Buyers

If your market is consolidating and you’re looking to strategically acquire smaller businesses, we guide you in identifying potential targets, conducting due diligence, negotiating deals, and ensuring effective integration. 

Frequently asked questions

Convertible notes are a loan that can be transferred into shares at a later stage or need to be paid back. They are used as a bridge financing instrument between financing rounds or at the very early stages of a startup when there is still no full financing round. There are some mechanics included that define the future valuation and conditions at which the loan is converted into shares

You need to be able to survive for about 18 months once the money is on the table. Increasingly, startups are in “continuous raising mode”, but you might want to account for 18 months cash.

If you put in a higher amount than needed for the next 18 months, then you would give off more shares than needed. Moreover, if you do not get enough investors on board, then the financing round is not going to take place. It would be better to raise a realistic amount and if you could create more demand than money needed (potential oversigning) you can still decide to take in a higher round and scale faster, if you feel like being able to pull it of.

Depending on where you are located, there are different legal set-ups. Anything similar to a limited company is a minimum. Having a sole proprietorship, for example, is not an investment vehicle that would work. In some cases, investors would want to have an investment vehicle in their region, if they are not located in your region.

Statistically, anything between 10 and 25 % per financing round is within “normal” boundaries but there are always exceptions possible.

When you are well prepared on your documentation, you are investor ready and have at least 4 months runway still available, you would be ready.

The investor will have his/her own opinion on a potential valuation of your startup. To know whether this can be within a reasonable range, you need to build your own opinion and calculate a reasonable valuation range for your startup based on your financial plan, at least two different valuation methods and comparable benchmarks. Even in the case of accelerators who say that they would invest e.g. a standard amount for a standard share, this can be negotiated if your argumentation is right.

If you do not need more money, you would not raise more money because you would need, as a consequence, to give off more shares than necessary. However, if competition is using loads of money to pump into marketing and sales or to make a huge jump in tech, there is pressure coming from the side and you might be tempted to raise more. Still, your financial plan needs to reflect where the increased amount of money is used and you need to be sure to be able to deliver this.

If the valuation increases more than you give off shares and dilute, then it is positive for you to go into the next round. You would create more value with the additional capital you got into your company. You use the capital injeted for more value creation. So if all goes well, this is not bad for you. Think about it as owning a smaller part of a cake that is a lot larger. In absolute terms (if all goes well and that is the bet), you are better off in absolute terms even if you give off shares.

A vesting scheme between co-founders is a regime to build up respective shares per co-founder over time if performance is good and all get along well. Standard terms would involve a cliff (a period of time where a co-founder does not get any shares at all) and afterwards a regulation how many shares a co-founder would get per month.