9 Places To Look For Investors To Fund Your Business Idea

You’ve been burning the candle at both ends all year. You’ve done your research, created your MVP, and validated your idea. You are 100% certain you’ve got the next best thing under your fingertips. What now? More often than not, it’s the time when startups need to pound the pavement until they find someone willing to fund their idea. If you don’t have deep pockets, you’re going to need to find someone who does.

You’ve exhausted family and friends, pitched to a few local investors, and have been rejected by all the local banks. The truth is, finding funding isn’t going to be fun, simple, or quick. You may need to hear hundreds of “no’s” before you finally find someone who believes in your idea as much as you do.

Don’t get frustrated; this is just part of the process. If you truly have conviction, you will find someone eventually – but it sure helps if you know where to look when it comes to finding investors for your business idea.

Here are 9 places you can look to find startup investors, mentorship, and entrepreneurial communities.

Angel Capital Association provides access to trending ideas and professional knowledge to help improve returns and promote effective public policies for both angels and startups.

Angel Investment Network is available around the globe with regional opportunities and connects entrepreneurs and angel investors directly.

The International Business Innovation Association is a global network of incubators, accelerators, and other entrepreneurial support organizations. You can search for programs in your area or industry.

Startup Nation is an online community that’s jam-packed with resources for starting a business, funding, scaling, and more.

Angel List helps people find jobs (and equity) in startups, invest in startups, and post vacancies for their own startup ventures.

Gust is a community and tool that connects startups with a massive collection of investors from around the globe.

Meetup is a social site that connects people who have the same interests. They have a wide variety of options and you can search for meetups in your area, or even create one yourself.

AngelsDen connects investors with businesses and their site is full of resources for both startups and investors.

Republic is a crowdfunding platform with access to leading venture capitalists, top angel investors, and more.

Before you head down this road though, just make sure you know what you want out of it. No one is going to give you money for free, so you need to ensure you go after the right partners, and only give away a percentage of your company you can feel good about.

Getting a startup off the ground isn’t easy, but you don’t have to do it alone. Finding investors for your business idea can be done. There are plenty of investors and online communities out there who want to support great ideas.