90: What matters most when rating companies for venture capital investment | Richard Blakesley of Venture Cubed

Assessing companies for venture capital investment is often more of an art than a science. Richard Blakesley, Founder and CEO, is trying to change that with Venture Cubed. Its rating system aims to objectively assess how investible new companies are. We asked him to talk about how they built their rating system, what it tells us about the venture industry and how it might change it going forward.

We had such a good discussion that we have split it into two parts. In this episode, we discuss how he measures companies. In the second part, we talk more about the wider industry. Here we discuss:

• What Venture Cubed’s rating system aims to measure;
• How Venture Cubed assesses how good the ratings are;
• What are the important factors in the rating;
• The weights that are given to those factors;
• How Venture Cubed quantifies factors that are more qualitative;
• The challenges in analysing financial models;
• Where founders don’t understand what investors want;
• How founders can get good advice on fundraising;
• The process of giving feedback to founders and how receptive they are;
• The mistakes that founders often make;
• The proportion of companies that are really investible;
• What investible really means;
• Where the funding gaps are.

As you can see, we covered a lot of ground. Whether you are an investor thinking about how to assess companies or a founder considering fundraising, there’s a lot for you here. And don’t miss part two!

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Richard’s email: [email protected]