A funding announcement press launch will allow you to amplify one of many nice milestones in constructing your organization.
Elevating cash is a giant deal for rising tech corporations. As soon as your traders have signed their paperwork and the funds have been wired, it’s time to let the world know that you simply’ve secured new funding.
Writing a press launch is easy, nevertheless it’s merely the start line for a profitable marketing campaign. An efficient funding announcement requires loads of planning and coordination.
In the US alone, 4,720 corporations raised cash in Q1 of 2024, in accordance with York IE Gasoline. That’s loads of funding information floating round on the web.
What’s one of the best ways to chop by means of this noise? At York IE, we assist our purchasers reply this query on a regular basis. Our staff has helped many consumers — together with Keep Ai and Lytica — efficiently announce their funding and construct momentum.
Let’s dive into one of the best ways to put in writing a funding announcement press launch and how one can amplify the information.
In case you’re seeking to kickstart your announcement, you may as well obtain our free funding announcement template.
3 Essential Features of a Startup Funding Press Launch
Profitable fundraising is usually a watershed second on your firm. It may well appeal to media consideration, new investor curiosity and, most significantly, new clients.
For this reason it’s so vital to nail your announcement. Listed here are the three most vital elements of a profitable funding press launch:
Investor and Companion Relations
A funding announcement needs to be a collaborative train.
You may merely write your individual press launch, amplify it in your firm’s social media channels, and name it a day. However you’re solely more likely to generate a small quantity of buzz.
As an alternative, you need to loop in your traders and companions at each stage: setting your announcement date, drafting your preliminary funding press launch, sharing the information on social media, and so forth. This will provide you with entry to a wider viewers and generate potential connections to media members and different trade influencers or trusted voices.
Media Technique
A funding announcement is an opportunity to achieve third-party validation from a media outlet. Along with saying the information by yourself channels, you need to take the chance to pitch journalists that may function your organization on their website or of their publication.
Regardless of what you’ve heard, a function in Forbes or TechCrunch isn’t the usual for a profitable funding announcement. Positive, it’s good to have your organization’s title underneath the brilliant lights. However typically, a point out in a distinct segment trade publication will attain your target market in a extra significant approach.
With hundreds of fundraising occasions every quarter, reporters would possibly cross in your information. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to nonetheless construct relationships with publications for the long run.
Repurposing and Distribution
A funding announcement press launch is just a car on your information. It ought to solely be the beginning of your promotional efforts.
That is the place our drumbeat advertising and marketing philosophy comes into play. Your organization ought to take the core messages of your funding press launch and repurpose them throughout totally different channels.
The forms of advertising and marketing collateral we’d produce with one among our purchasers throughout a fundraising occasion embody:
A press launch
A founder’s story weblog that profiles the corporate and founder’s journey in direction of the spherical
A thought management article to pitch to a third-party media outlet
Graphics and duplicate on your firm’s social media accounts
Graphics and duplicate for traders and staff to share on their private accounts
An e-mail announcement to blast out to your community
Elevating cash is a giant deal. Your announcement course of ought to mirror that!
How Do You Write a Funding Press Launch?
To write down a funding press launch, collaborate together with your management staff and traders to determine the core messages of the discharge — after which collect supporting proof within the type of quotes and statistics. Setting inner deadlines will assist everybody keep accountable to your goal launch date.
Under, we’ve outlined seven key steps within the funding announcement press launch course of. We even have a information to writing a press launch in case you’re on the lookout for a high-level overview.
1. Set an announcement date.
Set up your launch date earlier than you start drafting your funding press launch. This can assist preserve the method organized whereas holding your staff accountable. Bear in mind to think about potential delays by including buffers to your timeline. Pulling collectively your advertising and marketing supplies would possibly take a couple of weeks, so make sure to give your self loads of time.
Will you announce your information earlier than attending a convention? Does your announcement have relevance to a vacation or seasonal occasion? Is there different trade information you’ll be able to latch onto?
Take into account all of those angles earlier than setting your date. When you do, guarantee that all stakeholders are aligned.
2. Set up your organization boilerplate.
In case your announcement goes nicely, new individuals will begin studying about your organization. That’s why it’s so vital to have clear, constant messaging earlier than your startup funding press launch goes dwell.
We all the time advocate conducting a messaging hierarchy train together with your government staff. This can allow you to re-establish the core elements of your message: who’re you, what you do, the way you do it and who you do it for. You don’t have to reinvent your self; simply be sure your wording is present and captures your model.
These parts will make up your boilerplate, which is the paragraph that seems underneath the “About Firm X” part on the finish of a press launch.
3. Outline your dream headline and key takeaways.
Earlier than you write your launch, it’s vital to ascertain what you’re attempting to say. In different phrases, you’re answering the query, “so what?” Why ought to your target market care about your new funding?
Let’s evaluate two totally different headlines:
Headline A: “Firm X raises $5 million Sequence A so as to add new options to its automotive dealership customer support platform”
Headline B: “Firm X raises $5 million in Sequence A funding to assist automotive dealerships ship higher customer support.”
What do you discover? Whereas Headline A focuses on the funding, Headline B focuses on the affect of the announcement.
A funding announcement press launch isn’t about patting your self on the again. It’s about exhibiting your viewers (potential traders, clients and companions) the way you’re executing your imaginative and prescient.
For key takeaways, think about how this funding spherical suits into your organization’s total development technique. Are there particular initiatives, product improvement or expansions that the funding will assist?
4. Finalize your funding spherical particulars.
Be sure to have solutions to the next questions:
What stage of funding are you saying?
How a lot did your organization increase?
Which traders participated within the spherical? Who led? Is anybody becoming a member of the board?
These are desk stakes for any funding announcement.
5. Collect key metrics and milestones.
Along with your funding, you may as well share current highlights to point out your organization’s momentum. Take into account particular development metrics, product launches, notable buyer additions, awards, expansions of your staff, and so forth.
6. Supply quotes from key stakeholders.
A compelling startup funding press launch normally consists of a number of quotes. You must all the time embody a quote out of your founder or CEO that highlights their distinctive experience and explains how the information aligns with the corporate’s imaginative and prescient.
You must also embody quotes out of your traders and key clients for added validation. We advocate drafting a quote on behalf of those stakeholders as a place to begin and sharing it with them earlier than together with it within the launch. This offers them one thing to work from, whereas nonetheless providing flexibility to tweak or personalize the quote.
7. Coordinate mandatory approvals.
Approvals can usually be the longest a part of the announcement course of. However you’ll be able to’t announce funding with out first reaching sign-off from everybody concerned within the information: traders who participated within the spherical, companions who had been quoted and, after all, your inner leaders.
Your funding announcement press launch needs to be absolutely accepted by all events nicely forward of your launch date. This offers you satisfactory time to pitch media retailers (extra on that shortly) with a completely accepted launch for his or her preview. Many reporters gained’t think about that includes your organization if they will’t have a look at the press launch earlier than.
How Do You Promote a Funding Announcement?
To advertise a funding announcement, comply with these steps:
Create graphics and promotional supplies
Coordinate with key traders and stakeholders
Construct your media record
Conduct focused media outreach
Ship the discharge over the wire
Promote the announcement on owned channels
Execute an intensive messaging audit
1. Create graphics and promotional supplies.
We advocate accompanying your announcement with a graphic. This might be a easy social card that reads “Firm X raises $5 million” together with your brand or an image of your government staff. These graphics can be utilized on social media or as a featured picture on your press launch. (Take a look at the instance above that we created for our portfolio firm, PeakMetrics).
When you have time, you may as well make customized graphics on your traders and companions to share on announcement day. Easy and clear graphics will do wonders!
2. Coordinate with traders and key stakeholders.
Preserve your companions within the loop on announcement time and any anticipated media protection. Take into account writing social copy on your traders and key stakeholders; this can make them extra more likely to submit on announcement day.
Your announcement will land a lot better in case you’ve received a number of individuals prepared to love and share proper when the information drops.
3. Construct your media record.
Determine your key media targets. Search for retailers that cowl your trade, in addition to journalists that cowl your discipline for his or her publication.
Communicate together with your government staff. Have they got present relationships with reporters? What about publications they need to be featured in? Bear in mind to set practical expectations for any public relations outreach.
When your information goes dwell, your government staff would possibly obtain media requests. Do some prep work earlier than to ascertain key speaking factors, in addition to matters to keep away from. Your execs will really feel way more comfy after some preparation, and also you’ll really feel higher in regards to the messages they’re sharing.
4. Conduct focused media outreach.
The primary 4 steps targeted principally in your inner staff. Now it’s time to assume externally.
You must proactively pitch your finalized funding announcement press launch to media retailers earlier than it goes dwell on the wire. We advocate beginning this course of two weeks previous to launch.
Generally, you’ll share your information underneath embargo or as an unique:
Underneath Embargo: Supply the information to a reporter earlier than the information goes public, with a mutual settlement to carry off on protection till the announcement date. This offers the outlet time to overview your press launch, interview sources and put together tales previous to the launch date. Understand that a reporter should comply with the stipulations of the embargo.
Unique: Grant unique entry and an early reporting alternative to a single information outlet. The publication is incentivized to cowl your story, however this additionally limits your press choices to a single get together.
5. Ship the discharge over the wire.
Many corporations pay to submit their releases to a newswire, which is a feed of releases from corporations that journalists and media retailers can simply entry. At York IE, we advocate our purchasers use ACCESSWIRE, because it presents broad media publicity and not using a hefty price ticket.
Make sure you prep your funding press launch on the wire no less than a couple of days upfront, so you’ll be able to see what it appears like in preview type. Some wire companies let you embody a featured picture, which is the place your graphics turn out to be useful.
6. Promote the announcement on owned channels
Selling your announcement consists of repurposing the discharge on a couple of totally different channels:
Firm Web site
The funding information ought to dwell in your firm’s web site. You may submit the press launch as-is or write a brief submit that summarizes the information and provides a brand new spin. Take into account including a callout banner to pin the information to your web site homepage.
One among our favourite techniques is writing a founder’s story weblog submit that accompanies the press launch. This submit, from the angle of your founder(s), will point out the fundraising information. It’ll additionally give attention to the genesis of the enterprise: the issue you’re fixing, the early days of the corporate and another private anecdotes.
Having follow-on content material will allow you to preserve momentum together with your viewers after capturing their consideration with the primary announcement.
Social Media
Plan to share your information on your whole firm accounts: LinkedIn, X, Fb, and so forth. However don’t cease at your organization accounts! As I’ve alluded to, an important announcement is a product of collaboration.Ask staff to share the information on their private accounts. Encourage traders, companions and key clients to share. For every of those events, write up some quick pattern copy (and think about making a graphic) to make their job simpler.
E mail and Publication
Don’t overlook to interact your community over e-mail, too! We work with purchasers to put in writing up a brief e-mail saying (and linking to) the information. This may be shared together with your clients, traders, companions, family and friends, and so forth. When you have an e-mail publication, make sure to function your funding entrance and heart within the subsequent version.
7. Execute an intensive messaging audit.
As your announcement good points steam, your organization profiles will garner extra views. Return by means of your whole public accounts to make sure that your boilerplate and messaging are constant and updated.
Take into account asking staff to replace your organization description on their private profiles, if relevant.
Fundraising information includes loads of shifting elements. However efficiently issuing and selling your funding announcement press launch is usually a game-changer for growing new relationships with traders, reporters and potential clients.
Elevating cash is a large accomplishment. Benefit from this milestone second!
