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VC hunt day 1

Today I finally got started on researching , compiling and contacting venture capitalists for the purpose of securing funding for launch of my business plan. I was thinking today just how amazing it is that the resources to so many firms are literally at my fingertips. If this were 20 years ago I'd have to be doing some serious leg work just to get the chance of being in contact with these firms , today many are just an email away.

The online VC funding business is alive with incredible diversity as far as resources that can be used to get in touch with the right firms. The very first search landed the go big network, this seems like an excellent place for a company with a product can go to be connected with investors with the funding. I was all excited about signing up and eagerly hit the "join us" button, I was taken through the task of specifying my company and personal details and detailing a loose description of my funding needs. The hook didn't come until the very end of the sign up process, the site mentions the ability to send funding requests to all their member funding firms but it doesn't mention that this is a pay service until the very end. No problem with the payment for such a service (it is an invaluable time saver to have them send the requests to their list of firms) but I paused from the sign up process and went back to do some more searching. Sure enough the next interesting link I clicked on took me to venture capital update and this seems to be the mother load. It provides a daily update of news in the funding industry (not really my thing since I want funding I am not starting a firm) but it also provides a free directory of venture capital firms. The cool thing here is that all the contact information is also provided, so I decided to simply go through the list and methodically contact the firms that grant funding for internet and technology companies. Since this list is a list of funds that may not be on the go big network as well as funds which have, I may be exposed to a larger field of prospective firms. Sure, I still have to manually contact each firm but I have the time...if I don't get the response rate I want I will probably pay for a fund request at the go big network but for now it is phone and email time. I went back to the go big network and noticed they also allow access to their investor contacts directory without pay ...so now I have to lists to mine.
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