As is evident, the global economy in general and the local economies, in particular, is in a state of contraction and severe vulnerability as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.It became clear that the world before COVID-19 would not be the same as the world after it, and as a direct impact, many VCs and investors’ behaviors will change in the coming period, especially with regard to the risk measurements.Although the money still there but the investment decisions will be slower and Startups and entrepreneurs will need to do more efforts to persuade investors in these difficult times.Here you are the most important determinants that may help an investor make an investment decision, where it becomes more essential in the time of the pandemic

1.Talent and skills

• Both financial and strategic investors will be interested in the quality and skills of the people in the business, their level of expertise, their agility, the team diversity and homogeneity…

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2.The Growth Potential in your Chosen Markets.

• Investors are seeking high growth businesses.
• Operating in high growth markets with room for expansion and with the skills and scalable infrastructure to grow.

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3.Unique Selling Propositions (USPs)

• In order to stand out, you must be able to demonstrate unique and defensible unique selling propositions (USPs).

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4.Go to Market Strategy

• What is your product or service offering?
• How are you pricing it?
• How are you taking it to market?
• What are your distribution channels?
• Do you have the right relationships to deliver this?

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5.What does your revenue look like?

• The ability to demonstrate a proportion of your revenue as recurring, such as through licensing of technology or a sticky customer base, provides investors with additional comfort around the sustainability of future revenue streams.
• This will improve the predictability of forecasts and could attract a greater multiple on investment.

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6.Defensible IP (Intellectual Property)?

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• If your startup starts to scale quickly, a strong IP portfolio will be vitally important to your ability to play the long game.
• Corporates in particular may be looking at the acquisition as an opportunity to acquire skills and technology to improve their operations and business models.
• They will seek a business that is able to develop its technology mostly in-house and not be overly dependent on a third party to do so.

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