How to Find the Right VC for Your Company

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What's more, Private Equity Hub has a section that lists M&A exits.

• VC partners/directors who worked on the deal: Often, they are quoted in the funding press release. I would collect their bios from the VC Web sites.

• Lead investors: They are also mentioned in funding press releases.

In fact, the last factor can be vitally important. A lead investor assembles other investors and also conducts the due diligence and prepares the necessary documents (a process that can be expensive). In other words, if you are pitching to a follower investor, you likely won't get much traction.

Finding Lead Investors

Now, to get this information, you can set up filters with online news services including Google News (GOOG) or RSS news aggregates. Keep in mind many VC fundings are published as press releases, which you can find at PR Newswire and Business Wire (both have RSS feeds).

There are also other helpful Web sites:

• The Deal's VC Ratings

• Venture Capital Update

• The Funded: This site allows entrepreneurs to rate and review venture funds (there are more than 3,700 funds as well as 17,000 investment professionals).

Of course, you can subscribe to premium services. One example, PE Data Center, has subscriptions starting at $325. With it, you get access to an interactive database that includes deal terms, corporate counsel, key company contacts, actual certificates of incorporation, investment history, and even valuations (the deals are searchable by region, calendar quarter, and business sector). To get this information, PE Data Center researches hard-to-get government filings.

Collecting Criteria

And finally, there are some other high-quality premium databases:

• VCPro Database 2008 ($119.95): There are profiles of more than 3,800 venture capital firms (across the world), which include criteria such as types of financing and geographic and industry preferences. The database is updated three times a year.

• The National Venture Capital Assn.'s Online Membership Directory: This database includes 450 U.S.-based VC firms, with contact information and investment preferences.

Tom Taulli is a noted finance author and blogger.