When Are Investors Putting Money Into Online Startup Deals?

I always assumed that investors typically invested at the beginning and at the end of a company’s raise. I thought they would either try to get early bird discounts and secure their seats at the beginning of a raise or procrastinate, do deep due diligence, or wait to follow fellow investors and invest at the end of a raise. My belief was supported by an industry-wide belief that most startups receive investments during the first 14 or the last 14 days of their raise.

Spoiler alert: I was half right.

In this Chart of the Week, our team looked at the daily investment amounts in each raise in 2022. We categorized the investments based on the median percentage of investments during the first 14 days of a raise, the last 14 days, and the days in between. We also separated the data based on the final amount raised by startups to see if we could observe any patterns.

The results are clear: The first 14 days are the most important in online startup raises.

It’s especially true for startups that collect less than $130,000 in a raise. More than 95% of their investments happen during the first 14 days. It’s not surprising. These small raises are often way lower than what founders would like to raise. And when they cannot bring many investors on their journey, the first ones to invest — friends, family, and mentors — are usually the only ones to invest.

As the amount invested in deals increases, the funds seem increasingly spread over time. This makes sense. A successful raise attracts risk-averse investors or those who only occasionally browse new opportunities in the online investment market.

Investors can learn a valuable lesson from this chart. For any given online deal, they can look at the start date, the close date, and the amount already raised and try to predict the final amount that will be invested in the raise. This Chart of the Week, more than ever, gives investors an edge.

Note: All data on online startup investing used for the Chart of the Week comes from the KingsCrowd database and represents a snapshot of the U.S. crowdfunding market.