Scroobious - Filling The Funding Gap For Investors

The Problem

According to an article from Stanford Business School, the abilities of a founder and management team are the most important factor driving investment decisions, often more important than the product or technology itself. People invest in people, but you can’t put a person’s character in a static pitch deck, which creates huge inefficiencies in the fundraising process. The opportunity to communicate personal characteristics can literally make or break an under-networked founder’s company when it comes to securing funding. On the investor side, warm intros limit the type of deals seen. Investors have an acute need to make first meetings dramatically more productive to see more of the best deals. The impact of restricted sourcing funnels is evidenced by the huge funding gap for diverse founders. For every $1 raised by men, women raise $0.38, and black women raise just $.02. Diverse founders are under-invested and deliver higher returns, making them an undervalued asset class and creates a huge opportunity.

What The Company Does

Scroobious is building a video-based platform to put the person back into the pitch process and make it easy for investors to find diverse opportunities. They have created a pitch learning program for guided creation of a compelling pitch deck and video, which is then displayed on a platform for investors who are looking to diversify how they source. Investors get faster sourcing of the best deals through a broader funnel and personalized curation. Both sides get a human-first experience and by incorporating human connection during cold sourcing, they systemically better the odds for under-networked founders. Pitch videos allow investors to have 12 “first pitch” meetings in an hour so a first meeting can be more like a second meeting.

The Market

Based on their pricing model, the bottom-up U.S. total addressable market is over $15B. The long and growing tail of active early-stage investors and the increase in new startups create a venture scale market potential. They plan to initially launch in Eastern U.S. hubs, which is a $3B market, where they already have strong roots. Once they validate their business model, they plan on scaling nationally. 

Business Model

In an effort not to burden founders who are cash strapped, Scroobious will offer flat fees for a-la-carte options including the pitch learning program for deck and video creation, a year’s access to the platform where their video will be displayed to investors, and one-on-one consultations. Angel and institutional fund investors will pay a tiered monthly fee to access the platform.

Traction

Unfortunately, COVID hit just two months after incorporation , which slowed down their development plans. Nevertheless, Scroobious has a functioning prototype with 13 founder videos posted to the platform, 40 more in development, and 25 investor beta users. They recently brought on a CTO and will turn the prototype into a true MVP to expand the beta with more robust capabilities. Scroobious is also discussing partnership opportunities with multiple accelerators and entrepreneurship programs.

Founding Team Background

Allison Byers is the founder & CEO of Scroobious. She is a female fellow with The Capital Network and was selected as an All Raise Visionary Voice.

What They Need Help With

The Scroobious team is currently in growth mode. They are also looking for intros to early-stage investors looking to diversify how they source; founders actively raising a pre-seed or seed round, accelerator, and entrepreneurship programs; and speaking opportunities. Connect with The Scroobious Team.

Subscribe To Storied To Get More Startups In Your Inbox