Knowledge Base: The Boost Feature

This Article covers:

• What is Boost?
• Why Founders use Boost?
• The Investor Experience
• How to Create a Boost Page
• FAQ's

What is Boost?

While you're running a funding round with FounderCatalyst, we help you promote your round to potential investors using our free Boost feature.

The Boost page centralises all the initial information you want to share with potential investors in a single, company-branded location. You can share your pitch deck, intro video, high-level summary of the round (e.g., how much you're raising, valuation, SEIS/EIS availability), and details of the founders. You can share via email or social media your customised landing page with potential investors using a sharable link or QR code.

While many founders struggle to keep track of investor names, status and progress during raises, the FounderCatalyst “Boost” functionality enables founders to keep details of the round updated in real time to ensure no investor has out of date information. Founders can also track who has accessed the page, and investors have the opportunity to express their interest directly to founders in one click.

This video shows the end-to-end process, including the investor perspective:

Why do Founders use Boost?

1. Host everything on one page

2. Avoid emailing massive files

3. Ensure viewers are accessing the latest version of your documentation

4. It’s free

The Investor Experience

Boost makes evaluating the investment opportunity and expressing interest incredibly straightforward.

Potential investors will click on your Boost link and first need to complete a short form and confirm their investor status for FCA compliance. After viewing the Boost page, they can choose to express their interest to you and can also book a meeting if you've shared a calendar link. All very straightforward.

We have also created a comprehensive article on using FounderCatalyst as an investor.

How to create a Boost page on FounderCatalyst?

To start creating a Boost page, you need to have a free account on FounderCatalyst, enter all your company details, and define a funding round. You can see how to set up and close a funding round in this video

You can leave the Specific Disclosures out at this stage. They are normally completed just before closing the funding round.

From there, it's easy to configure your Boost page:

On the left side menu, click "Boost page"

You'll see a small amount of introductory text to the feature. Click on the "Boost your company" button

Fill out the configuration form. We recommend completing as much as possible for the best appearance of your Boost page.

If you don't have the hex code for your brand's primary colour, the default value is FounderCatalyst’s primary blue.

Upload a banner image. Ensure important design elements are central, as the display size may vary depending on the viewer's device. Recommended dimensions are shown on the screen, which match LinkedIn's banner image size

Fill out the other fields: Company introduction (ensure there is enough information), Trading name, Location, Round stage, Tags (B2B, B2C, B2B2C), website URL, Calendar URL (makes it easy for investors to book meetings), LinkedIn account, Twitter account, Introductory video URL (hosted on Vimeo or Youtube only), Pitch deck.

To choose your pitch deck, ensure it's uploaded to Folder 4 - Disclosed Items in your Intelligent Data Room. The pitch deck must be in PDF format. If you have a PPTX, export it as a PDF and upload it.

After completing all fields, click the "Save Boost Page" button.

We can also provide investors more details about each of the founders (‘Meet the Team’ section). To do this, click on the "People" menu on the left-hand side, select each of the founders in turn and choose "Edit Details". Scroll to the bottom of each page and you can now enter links to LinkedIn and other sites and choose "Bio"

You should also ensure you've got a picture associated with your FounderCatalyst account. To do that, head to ‘My account settings’ at the bottom left of the site, choose ‘Picture’ and you can upload a picture on the picture tab.

If your Boost page says that you don’t have SEIS/EIS or advance assurance and this is incorrect, you can amend that here on the first page of step 1 in the funding round editor.

Once everything is set up, return to the Boost page to find your unique Boost web address and QR code. Right-click on the link below the QR code to download a high-resolution image for print media. You can also copy the URL to share with potential investors.

For founders viewing their own page, the "I’m Interested!" button is inactive but will be active for others. You can test this with an incognito/private window in your browser.

As detailed above, investors following your Boost link will first need to complete a short form and confirm their investor status for FCA compliance. They will then receive a confirmation email.

Investors can express their interest or book a meeting with you if you've shared a calendar link.

As a founder, on your Boost details page, you can see statistics on how many people have viewed your Boost page and expressed interest in investing. Click ‘Manage interested investors’ to view and update these potential investors with notes and investment amounts.

You can now view and update potential investors. It’s your choice how you’d like to manage these relationships, but we’d recommend reaching out to each one individually. A suggested process might be: contact them, offer a Zoom call to pitch your proposal, and then gauge their interest. Once an investor is committed, you can invite them to join the platform.

Later, when they are ready to invest, you can easily add them to your current open funding round using the same form.

Then your round will proceed as normal with your new investors.

FAQs

There isn't a section on the Boost page to view our founder agreement or cap table - is that ok for investors? Yes, that's fine. The purpose of the Boost page is to get investors interested in the opportunity to book a call with you (or registered interest so you can follow up with a call invite / share pitch deck / forecast model etc.).

Can we remove the minimum ticket size from our Boost page?

Including a minimum ticket size as this is useful information for investors. You can decide of the appropriate figure to not put off investors. In Boost you can hide:

• Hide progress completion bar
• Hide valuation figure
• Hide due to close date

Is there a way to ask people to enter their email address to view the Boost page?

No, but FounderCatalyst will not share your Boost page for you. The only people that will see your Boost page are those you share the link or QR code with (or people that they share the link with). We do collect email addresses for people that access your Boost page. As good practice, we suggest you only share information on a Boost page that is not confidential in nature.

Should I get an alert email when an investor:

a) views the boost?

We don't send an email on a view (though you can check here: https://www.foundercatalyst.com/account/boost/impressions to see who's visited

b) clicks 'I'm interested'?

You will get an email when 'I'm interested' is clicked.

Can I change the order of Directors on the Boost page?

No, it is not possible to manually put the directors in order.