So You Want to Raise a Series A? Here’s What You Need to Know
By: Amy Yanow Fairbanks
Tags: Clean Energy, Series A, Fundraising, Cleantech, Perspective

Insights from Locke Lord and Clean Energy Trust on how to prepare for fundraising

Orlando Saez, Chief Executive Officer of Aker Technologies, pitching

The discussion below focuses on key considerations for a cleantech or clean energy startup preparing for Series A financing. Preparation includes creating a compelling narrative for potential investors, gathering relevant documents and materials, and making a plan for your fundraising process.

Part I: Preparing to raise your Series A

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Each startup’s narrative will be unique and will depend on a number of factors. Deciding which factor(s) will grab the attention of investors during preparation is key when developing an effective pitch. In fact, your narrative may need to be customized depending on the specific investor because one “pitch” does not fit all, as discussed further below.

7 Questions to Guide Your Company’s Unique Narrative

Here are some of the main questions and factors to consider when assembling your materials and formulating your narrative:

1. What is the problem you are solving for and/or what is the opportunity you are capturing?

2. How are you solving the problem?

3. How does your product/service work?

4. What is your business model?

5. How much traction have you had thus far? What is your vision for the future?

6. What is the market landscape, and how do you see it growing over time?

7. Who are your key team members and what management processes do you have in place?

Try to answer these questions above before you start assembling your pitch deck. When you are ready to assemble your Series A pitch deck, check out this how-to guide.

In preparing the narrative and financial plan, as a clean energy or cleantech company, you also need to be acutely aware of and account for the regulatory environment applicable to the industry or business sector and where your company fits within the industry or business sector. Using simple, memorable key takeaways, the goal is to succinctly and clearly explain the intrinsic risks, how they will be mitigated, and how they can affect your operations and bottom line.

Personalize Your Pitch

How you frame the narrative will likely not be the same for each potential investor. The most effective story will depend, in part, on you understanding who the investor is and to whom you are presenting; what the “hot buttons” are; and what they expect from their portfolio companies.

For example, your explanation of how your company provides value to end-users will be different for strategic investors (e.g. potential customers) than it is for large diversified venture capital (VC) investors or impact investors.

With respect to VC and impact investors, it will be critical to be prepared to clearly breakdown and articulate:

the regulatory environment;

the value proposition that your product or service provides; and

how your company fits in with the overall value chain of the sector.

Nevertheless, it is important to focus on identifying potential investors that would be a good fit by targeting those that have synergies with your business (historically invest in your business sector, lifecycle stage, industry, geographic region, etc.) and your company satisfies its investment criteria.

Compile a list of these target investors. It should be long: you will likely need to talk to 30 or 40 prospective investors (or more) to secure your lead. Also, be sure to start these conversations with investors before you actually need the money. Fundraising is a long and time-intensive process; by connecting with investors early, it allows you to build a relationship and enables the investor to watch your progress over time.

Part II: Documentation needed for due diligence

Okay, so you’ve honed your narrative, developed your materials, and begun conversations with investors. You may be worn out from all the coffee chats, but there’s still more to do: due diligence. Below we share a preliminary checklist of the documents that you will need to provide in connection with a Series A financing.

Best practice is to organize your documents in an electronic data room hosted on your own server, on your counsel’s Extranet, or via another service provider, such as Box.com or Carta. As the information must be kept confidential, be sure to verify any third-party provider’s security measures and history before using them.

Due Diligence

When preparing for due diligence, it is helpful to remember that due diligence should tell the full story of the company via its document history — which means that you share “the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Due diligence is the opportunity for a company to disclose “the mistakes” and to explain how the mistakes were identified, what was learned, and how leadership corrected the mistakes and put processes in place to ensure they were not repeated.

No company has a perfect history. Due diligence is a company’s opportunity to manage the narrative.

Failure to Disclose

It is also important to understand that failure to disclose material information may constitute securities fraud. A claim of securities fraud gives investors the right to demand that the company repurchase the Series A Preferred Stock previously issued and, under some circumstances, to sue the company for as much as three times the amount that they invested.

As you can imagine, the reputational damage of such claims or awards is significant. Hence, due diligence is also the process by which the company is protected.

Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement — or the SPA

As you prepare to issue Series A Preferred Stock, you will come to understand that part of the documentation that you will sign is a Series A Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement (the SPA).

The SPA contains a list of representations that the company makes about its formation, employees, financial condition, board of directors and business operations. These representations are detailed and very specific. If the company is unable to make one or more of the representations, it has the right to modify them by providing additional information as an exhibit in a Disclosure Schedule. The exhibit to the Stock Purchase Agreement should reference information provided in the data room.

Accordingly, to help ensure that your due diligence is complete and well organized, the following is arranged in the proximate order that the representations appear in a SPA.

Document Checklist

1. Formation Documents: (i) Certificate of Incorporation and all amendments for the Company. (ii) Bylaws, including all amendments for the Company. (iii) List of subsidiaries, and Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws for each subsidiary, if any. 2. Capitalization: (i) Capitalization Table (current) for the Company. (ii) Proforma Capitalization Table for the Company which reflects the ownership of the Company on a fully-diluted basis (reflecting potential post-money investment including all additional stock options that may be authorized in connection with the Series A Preferred Stock). (iii) Capitalization information for each of the subsidiaries, if any. 3. Equity Issuances: (i) List along with copies of all SAFE Agreements. (ii) List along with copies of all Convertible Promissory Notes. (iii) List along with copies of all Series Seed Documents. (iv) List, along with copies of all agreements pursuant to which the holder is entitled to purchase/obtain equity in the Company (including warrants, rights or options not otherwise listed above in this Section 3). 4. Minute Books: (i) Board of Directors: Consents and resolutions of the Board of Directors, including (A) the election of the initial Board of Directors; (B) the election of the current officers; and © the authorization of the issuance of the Series A Preferred Stock. (ii) Stockholders: Consents and resolutions of the stockholders of the Company, including the election of the initial Board of Directors. 5. Litigation: (i) List of any and all pending actions, claims, proceedings, arbitrations, complaints and charges or investigations, with brief descriptions of each. (ii) List of any and all threatened (in writing or otherwise) claims, complaints, or charges with brief descriptions of each. 6. Intellectual Property: (i) List of all patents (including applications, Provisionals and utility patents). (ii) List of all trademarks, service marks, and tradenames and domain names (both filed and common law), along with copies of all trademark filings made and issued by the Patent and Trademark Office (or any state agency). (iii) List of copyrights, proprietary rights etc. along with copies of all relevant filings. (iv) List of all software owned or licensed by the Company. 7. Employees: (i) List of all current employees, including a brief description of position, salary and compensations (including bonus and benefits). (ii) Copies of all offer letters and employment agreements for current employees. (iii) List of all former employees (including copies of their offer letters, employment agreements, if any, and separation/termination documentation, if any). (iv) Intellectual Property Assignments. (v) Copies of employee stock option plan along with listing of grantees and relevant stock price (which should also be reflected in the Cap Table under Section 2. 8. Material Agreements: (i) List of all material agreements to which the Company is a party including all bank agreement, notes, license agreements, contracts, mortgages, customer contracts, listed separately along with copies thereof including all amendments, waivers or forbearance agreements. 9. Financial Statements: (i) Annual Financial Statements for the three most recent fiscal years. (ii) Quarterly Financial Statements for each fiscal quarter in each of the three most recent fiscal years. (iii) Monthly Financial Statements for each month in each of the three most recent Fiscal Years. (iv) Budget (both for the last three fiscal years and for the next fiscal year). 10. Tax Returns: (i) Copies of Federal Tax Returns filed by the Company for each of the three most recent fiscal years. (ii) Copies of each State Tax return filed by the Company for each of the three most recent fiscal years.

Note: Where the company has an especially unique product or relationship, additional items and details should be organized and provided, along with an annotated index for the data room to facilitate review.

After your cleantech or clean energy startup prepares for Series A financing, Clean Energy Trust invites you to apply for investment. Clean Energy Trust’s 501vc® Seed Fund invests $100k — $300k in early-stage cleantech startups in the Mid-Continent region of the United States. Learn more and apply at the following link https://www.cleanenergytrust.org/apply/.

Join us back here next month for another blog post in this ongoing series focused on preparing for Series A financing.