Traction & investment for 87+ start-ups

As part of our work with incubators and accelerators, we were tasked with supporting 87 start-ups across all industries and technologies (Blockchain & AI). Our mission was to build effective go-to-market strategies and significantly increase their traction to make these businesses more investable.

The Challenge

Customisation

In Q4 of 2023, we had to create and implement bespoke strategies for 19 diverse startups, ensuring their distinct market and investment readiness needs were met.

3 months

We had 3 months to not only build market traction for each startup but also to ensure this momentum translated into securing more investments.

The Approach

Understanding the uniqueness of each startup, we identified that different services were needed for each. For example, a conversational AI app for English learning and a SaaS for mortgage management in the UK demanded distinct marketing approaches for initial user acquisition.

However, the fundamentals for achieving growth are almost always the same.

Therefore, we developed various tools, systems, and masterclasses focused on increasing traction.

Across all start-ups, this is what worked to capture traction.

LinkedIn for B2B client acquisition, product validation, user interviews, and booking demo calls

We've found targeted LinkedIn outreach particularly effective across multiple B2B and SaaS startups, especially for booking demo calls and validating MVPs. The tactic focuses on connecting directly with the ideal customer profiles and demonstrating the product's value. Our experience has shown that personalised engagement through LinkedIn is the cheapest, most effective way for product/feature validation, partnerships and sales for early-stage start-ups. Np: This strategy is dependent on the founders' existing LinkedIn presence.

Email marketing and warm introductions

Leveraging existing connections and asking for introduction calls by email has impacted the rate of positive responses the most. However, this is compounded even more when you build CRMs and systems designed to track and improve email marketing efforts. We believe that industry connections bridge the trust gap between the new startup and its potential clients.

Webinars for trust-building

Webinars have worked greatly for B2B and even B2C startups. They primarily serve them to get noticed and show off their know-how. By talking about the latest industry trends and providing value through their offers, we've drawn in more people, making our startups go-to experts. This helps them stand out to future customers and partners. The most interested participants during the webinar converted at 50% to paying clients after the retargeting campaigns.

Community groups for B2C user engagement and great product launches

Community groups for B2C startups especially have been key for engaging users and launching products successfully. These groups offer a space for direct interaction with users, gathering feedback, and building excitement around new releases. This approach has led to more traction that shows viral growth potential for investors.

Paid advertising to validate the best offers, keywords and personas

For startups in their early stages, using Meta, Google, and LinkedIn ads is a secret to test their business ideas and showcase growth to potential investors (especially when combined with custom landing pages). These ads can be advantageous as you can target specific clients most likely to purchase or use your product. This helps you identify your real customers, demonstrate your business's potential for growth, and determine how much of that growth is organic or viral versus paid. It provides more precise estimates for costs such as ROAS and CAC, which can help you stand out in investor conversations.

Explanatory video animations

When pitching to investors, you compete to stand out and attract attention in the first 3 seconds. One of the best ways to do that, especially online, is through video. We created 9 intro videos for startups, which they used in their demo events when conversing with investors and clients. A video can turn a complex concept into an easy-to-digest one and can serve to explain demos to clients too. Start-ups that started their investor pitches/client presentations with a video scored higher than those who didn't. And their value propositions were more remembered.

We leverage the traction we've made and our investor network to capture investments for the start-ups we are working with.

Capturing Investments (our secret sauce)

The secret behind increasing investments lies in turning a startup's traction into an easy-to-understand story built inside a pitch deck. It creates the undoubtedly most evident perception that it is on its path to unicorn growth today. Aziz - Syrena Founder & CEO

1 - We look at what matching investors from our network consider to validate value and growth. What can be counted as traction: users, clients, revenue, engagement, partnerships, great co-founders, great team, communities, followers, advisors, letters of intent etc... 2 - We capture the right traction. We make that specific traction part of the objectives and key results of the go-to-market strategy we build collaboratively with each start-up. We then use different marketing services (mentioned above) to capture that traction. 3 - We create compelling pitches and make introductions to the matching investors We ensure the pitch decks capitalise on the built traction, maximising investment potential. We then leverage our investor network to make warm introductions for the start-ups we are working with.

The Results

£7.1M

In total funding acquired.

+1K investors

Attended at least 1 of 24 investor events we advertised.

Our services consistently scored more than 8.5/10 in quality and deliverability from founders who attended 1 of our masterclasses.

Incubators we worked with are now 3rd in early-stage investment or First in AI start-ups (UK).

Many of the start-ups we engaged with are still working with us today.

Craig Massey, CEO at AI Forge

Syrena was a game changer for our marketing. Their growth hacking approach was exactly what we needed, and our metrics went up more than 10x while also boosting all our investor outreach.