The challenge of fundraising for a company, whether in Silicon Valley or Orlando, boils down to one simple thing, and it’s not “location, location, location,” business owners who have raised millions here say.
“It’s a fallacy to think that because you’re in a particular market you’ll have a more- or less-investable company,” said Rob Wight, who led Orlando tech company Channel Intelligence through multiple investments and up to its 2013 acquisition by Google. “A good company can find investments in any market.”
Wight will be on the panel of founders at the 26th Florida Venture Forum, which will start Thursday in Orlando and include a panel of former founders who have successfully raised money. The two-day conference starts at 10 a.m. at the Waldorf Astoria, 14200 Bonnet Creek Resort Lane, adjacent to Disney.
Early stage companies, whether based in Orlando or elsewhere, can face challenges when trying to raise money, including a lack of local funding sources or an outside investor who requires a relocation.
Mike Mason, who sold his company Zentila last summer to Connecticut-based software company etouches, says it is difficult for a company to attract major investors if a region has not had a string of successes.
At the same time, those successes are hard to come by without major investment, he said.
“Capital becomes available when you have a couple of hundred-million-dollar exits,” he said. “It’s a little bit like the chicken-and-the-egg situation.”
The solution, he says, is to grow available resources for businesses but especially for startups, or early stage businesses that often need money to survive until they can grow to become large companies.
Mason says Central Florida has resources that can help small businesses. University of Central Florida’s business incubator helped in Zentila’s early stages, he said.
However, he also says he has seen a disconnect between these programs and the city.
“If it weren’t for Central Florida, I wouldn’t have gotten off the ground,” said Mason, who now works for etouches. “But we need a city that understands what it takes to support this startup industry. We still have some work to do there.”
Highlighting people or companies who have taken positive steps can help either cities or startup-based groups, or any tech-focused efforts, Wight said.
“You need to take those who have built successful companies and build them up,” he said, adding that there is a false impression that there is no capital here when, in Lunabet fact, it’s a shortage of successful companies that make the region attractive to investors. “It’s true that it’s harder to get funding in Orlando — but we also don’t have a well-spring of successful companies that have succeeded in an exit.”
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