Valuation plays an essential part in the growth of a startup, especially when the company is raising capital. Valuation determines the amount of equity that an investor can take in exchange for a certain amount of capital.

In our recent Brown Bag Workshop Session, we learned from Kenny Au and the executive team at Elevate Ventures how startups can leverage opportunities and resources toward increasing their valuation without necessarily tapping into external funding. This includes building use cases toward establishing strategic partnerships that can improve the optics of your startup to potential partners, customers, and investors as well.

A few highlights

Raising capital and pitching investors–is fundraising really that important? Entrepreneurs sometimes spend too much on selling the story, that it gets lost in translation. What is the achievable goal? What are the metrics? It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur and at the same time expending energy to raise funds. Focus is key.

If you find fundraising difficult, what could you do first?

Why don’t we think about resources? How do we tap into that?

Turn them into opportunities. When we have these opportunities, money will come. Either the company will become profitable, or investors will come knocking at your door.

Identify strategic resources. Build use cases. Identify prospects and their resources. Determine how these resources benefit you or other people.

View the recap video below