Investments are key to building a successful company, and every entrepreneur knows the pain of going through the process of finding a suitable investor that can help them take to the skies. Entrepreneurs and early-stage startups also require proper guidance in terms of preparing pitch decks, financial models, and round structuring support, and it’s necessary for venture capital and private equity principals to help them with the same.
Since its inception in 2016, Marquee Equity has dedicated itself to making capital raising easier for companies and startups alike. The fundraising service providers help companies build their data rooms which contain information like pitch decks, and get these companies to access the most relevant investors.
Birth of a fundraising company
The story behind the launch of Marquee Equity goes back to 2012 when founder Ash Narain was raising capital for his startup but had no contact with any angel investors or venture capitalists personally. This forced him to move to San Francisco and live out a hacker home and motivated him to solve the investor access problem for early-stage startups.
After leaving the startup in 2015, Ash identified four major problems that startups usually faced. First, he noticed that most startups were historically bad at building pitch decks and financial models themselves, which directed them to look for help. Second, he found that startups didn’t know how to structure and value their rounds efficiently.
Third, he saw that financial bankers usually try to avoid working with early-stage startups because of their tendency to prefer smaller raise sizes, which doesn’t appeal to their hunger for larger deals that pay larger commissions. Finally, all these reasons led him to conclude that startups don’t have investor relationships, which created a requirement for a fundraising service provider, which led him to team up with Raj Kabir to launch Marquee Equity.
“We wanted to create a solution that gave any and every entrepreneur access to the best investors in the world, and I’m glad to say we’ve been able to do that. For anyone raising capital, whether from angels, VCs, PEs or family offices, we are able to put them in direct contact with such investors, globally”, says Ash Narain, Founder & CEO of Marquee Equity.
Ash Narain
Marquee Equity as a company offers to help early-stage startups with pitch decks, financial models, and round structuring support and promises a turnaround time of 10 days for the documents to be created. Apart from that, it also provides startups with direct access to over 32,000 investors globally and offers in-house investment banker support throughout the course of the transaction.
This helps founders focus more on the business, and takes off all the pressure on them regarding the background and legwork.
USP, growth drivers, and future plans
What sets Marquee Equity apart from every other funding platform is the fact that it adopts a more one-on-one approach and helps companies actively target and reach out to the right investors, while other platforms act solely as listing platforms for investors.
Marquee Equity also offers global access to its users, actively functions as a banker in the transaction and isn’t limited to just investor interactions. The funding platform also helps startups screen potential investors on a no-name basis as well, which is helpful for large-funded startups to see if there are better deals available while they negotiate deals with existing investors.
Marquee also helps founders identify secondary market opportunities and find potential buyers for their businesses on a no-name basis. These value propositions have helped Marquee grow in leaps and bounds organically and find new clients through user referrals.
“The idea is to help clients with end to end fundraising, while they spend most of their time on their core business operations. Our team does all the legwork involved, right from documentation to identifying and reaching out to the right investors, all our clients need to do is pitch their ideas to investors once they’re interested”, says Nikita Garg, Director of Private Placement.
Nikita Garg
According to folks at Marquee Equity, the biggest challenge that they have faced is to be able to provide the service at a cost that is low enough for early-stage startups to be able to afford, while also maintaining a high-quality team.
“Our technology has not just helped us do a better job identifying the right investors but also reduced costs in delivering our services, which is beneficial to our clients”, says Raj Kabir, Founder & CTO.
Raj Kabir
In the coming days, Marquee Equity aims to help startups with debt-raising, and offer a targeted, first look, deal origination service for investors. The fundraising company also looks forward to helping early-stage startups with recruitments, PR, and marketing, which will put them in the category of comprehensive service providers for startups.
