Venture Capital Finders

To be honest, my BS detector goes off immediately whenever anyone introduces him or herself as a venture capital "finder" or "broker." These words are normally "tells" that you are dealing with a con who is going to ask you for an upfront fee. While there are rare instances of a middleman assisting in a financing, I have never come across anyone who could deliver the goods more than once. What I have seen over the years are people, who through luck more than anything else, happened to be in the right place at the right time when a financing went through. They then attempted to establish themselves as finders by greatly exaggerating the role that they had played.

So my questions are:

1. Do you know of any venture or angel capital finder / middleman / broker who has put together two or more financings?

2. Do they charge upfront fees?

Every week I receive emails from desperate entrepreneurs wanting to know if they should hand over advance fees to these people. There's even a west coast angel group that charges $2000 just for the privilege of doing a dog & pony show to its alleged members.

While capital from personal loans might be available it's not always the best beginning to a business model.

Comments

[LTS]

You're right about them. All scumbags who should be in jail.

[Time Piglets Studio]

Hi Peter,

My name is Byron; my startup studio is set to create a feature family animation movie. We are seeking $600K funding to complete art production, first of two rounds involved. We also need to establish financial controls as well as funding.

The upside is that our team members come from Pixar, DreamWorks, ILM, and Disney which means the production quality/product will be topnotch.

My questions are:
1. have you personally seen a project like this take off? Can you give us some insight?

2. what might be a major obstacle(s) in our finding funding

3. on the flipside, what might be our advantages?

In closing, I must ask if you know someone that would be interested in looking at our plans and movie informational, which is under 5-pages w/pictures =)

Well, I hope there are no malapropisms in this letter, oh and when you think about it—who doesn’t love a good family animation movie? =)

Have a great Sunday

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Byron Rourkacha
Executive Producer Creative
Time Piglets Studio
655 12th Street, Suite 422
Oakland CA 94607

phone: (510) 433-0776
skype: wildboar7
email / IM: cloudwalker7@gmail.com
rourkacha@yahoo.com

[Peter]

No. sorry. I don't know anyone in the film business.

[Darnell Bradford]

Hello Peter, I've subcontracted and ran (totally)a multi million $ business. I now want to do it Myself. I have a strong track record. Do you know of anyone that would invest in a Durable Medical Equipment company? All income comes from the government. Email me back ASAP please.
Ms. Bradford

[Jason]

I know of a new company that provides a service similar to the one you described -- a capital finder. They do not charge an upfront fee. Instead, they charge a 1-2% commission of any money they find, and collect nothing if they find nothing.

[Michael]

Yes we have a bad name, and for the most part you are right. My company ONLY charges fees for business plan writing etc. As far as finding capital / startup funds, we do that free of charge UNTIL you are approved by a lender. The only "upfront" fee is the $350 application fee which covers costs to apply with each lender (postage, admin fees and some lenders application fees). After we get you successfully approved you do pay $995.00 for our services, well worth it when you've been turned down 3 or 4 times, no?

Don't sell yourselves short, not EVERYONE out there is looking for a free ride! Thanks for reading and don't hesitate to contact me via telephone or email. Best wishes!

[Felix Kopfli]

Are you looking to invest in a company that can make a real difference to your children and their children's children?

An innovation that generate multiple business opportunities and leading to:

Grow to a global business
Create a strong brand name in a global environment
Help in children's education, focus on cultural changes and assist with environment issues
For further details visit www.mrrosti.com.

[Richard]

This message is for Jason, posted on December 10, 2006 at 11:51 AM, that stated he knows of a company that is a Capital Finder that does not charge an upfront fee. unless funds are found. This is the info that I need. If Jason reads this, please post this company info that I can contact them, or contact me at - mtc1701@yahoo.com

I am in the Entertainment business that contracts TV/Movie Celebrities for In-Person weekend appearances at Conventions. Fans can actually Meet/Greet their favorite Stars. Each of our Conventions have a show Budget that needs fundings for. Please let me know if anyone else has info to find Investors or Capital Finders for my financial quest. We are able a generous 10% finders fee to one that can help us. More inviting that 2%.

[autoprt]

never pay an upfront fee. i've been doing this for 7 years pt freelance finder and never charged upfront and always received money on back end.

make sure you have a contract that you will pay once the deal is done.

[John Siminopolus]

Hi Peter, I'm soon to be starting an SMS based shopping site. I've been thinking about contacting David Silver of Santa Fe Capital for help starting up based on info I found on one of his books. Have you heard of him or his company. The concept has great potential for revenue from multiple streams. Any recommendations on who else I should be contacting for seed capital?

[Marcel Huder]

Dear Sir I as a first officer one one of the large Cruise Liners fromthe Royal Caribbean Cruise Line I saw the increased pollution with my own eyes.Therefore I developed a Coca Cola like Ceramic mixture consisting of billions of round cermic balls and a very unique machine to manufacture large cylindrical ceramic filters 500 mm long 188 in diameter and 25 thick.Normaly it would take one day before ceramic filters can be put into the oven for "firing" or burning, with my method I can do this procedure within secconds. Well the filters have been tested over a long time period, and these filters could replace most RO and opther filtrtation systems. This enables us to clean water at half the present rates over a long time period without any replacements
We are presently looking for a sincere business partner or venture capital in the region of 2 Million dollars to establish a large manufacturing plant.
On request we could forward a comprehensive product description and
an up to date businsspan. We are looking forward to hear from you !
Kind regards Marcel Huder