Merar Gives the Word to Investors: The New ‘Offer from Investor’ Feature

Merar implements new feature enabling investors to announce their interests and requirements to the wide public of entrepreneurs as response to customer requests.

So far, there have been two mechanisms on Merar for investors to find investment opportunities:

1. Independently browsing throughout the investment projects database
2. Subscribing for a regular update on the investment opportunities matching their criteria. 

We are proud to say that this model proves to be effective: up to date 145 connections between Merar members were established. However, some investors shared with us their willingness to play a more proactive role in finding potential partners. Furthermore, although they acknowledge the deal flow on Merar as impressive they sometimes experience difficulties in finding exactly the type of information they are looking for in the project descriptions provided by entrepreneurs.

Here is our solution: a new feature enabling investors to announce their interests and requirements to the wide public of entrepreneurs.

To publish such an announcement (or offer) investors need to log-in and go to the “Submit an Offer” page:

In their offers investors can say:

• What amount they would like to invest;
• What investment opportunities they are particularly interested in in terms of industry, region and stage;
• Are they providing debt or equity investment;
• What criteria a business should meet to become eligible for funding;
• Whether they like to be silent investors or to actively take part in the business.

The new feature benefits investors by enabling them to:

• Clearly state their preferences and requirements;
• Build credibility by telling more about themselves;
• Be contacted by entrepreneurs whose businesses fulfil their criteria;
• Make informed decisions on which entrepreneurs to establish contact with.

Similar to investment projects, the offers from investors will appear on our website and will be visible to everyone. Entrepreneurs can view them at the “Offers from Investors” page:

Regardless whether entrepreneurs have already published their projects on Merar or not they can initiate contact to the investors whose offers they believe to qualify for. To do so, they need to open the offer, fill in the contact proposal from on the right side of the offer and submit it:

In their contact proposals entrepreneurs are supposed to make it clear:

• How much funding they need;
• Do they need a loan or equity capital;
• What their business (idea) is about;
• What exactly they need funding for; 
• What benefits their business will bring to investors.

As communication on Merar is a paid service, before writing the proposal the entrepreneurs have to make sure they have at least one available connection on their Merar accounts.

To sum up, our new feature “Offers from Investors” allows entrepreneurs to:

• Browse through the offers of real investors;
• Contact investors whose interests and requirements they meet;
• See what kind of information investors require;
• Get an insight on what kind of opportunities investors are looking for.

After reading the proposals the investors may accept or decline them.

We are introducing the ‘Offers’ functionality with the intention to:

• Enable members be more active and have a wider choice of options towards approaching potential partners;
• Ensure a balance in the supply of and demand for investment-related information; 
• Increase the chance for our members to find the right business partner.

Check it out and tell us what you think. As always your feedback is more than welcome!

Image courtesy: David Patrick, 2006, Flickr CC.