There is much that goes into picking up venture capital funding. In this article, we take a look at the hard fact of venture capital funding you might not have considered closely enough. 

The first thing to consider is…real estate. Huh? Well, what is the first rule of real estate? Even if you don’t own a home, you know it is location, location, location. The same goes for venture capital funding. As strange as it sounds, your location is a huge factor in whether you get funding or not even though you would think a good business idea is a good business idea. Nope. Fully 80 percent of funding goes to businesses in California, New York or the great Boston area. 

What about age? Many people associate VC with brilliant young gurus like the obnoxious kid behind Facebook and the then young founders of Google. Alas, this isn’t entirely true when we look at the facts. The majority of companies receiving VC funding have founders in the 35 to 44 age range. The 25 to 34 age range did get more money in total, but had fewer awards to companies. What about the brilliant young gurus under the age of 25? There were almost no awards to these individuals. Perhaps they don’t exist.

Are there any other factors that you can bank one when considering VC? Absolutely. Two of the biggest keys have to do with the founders. Companies with more than two founders get the majority of funding, which is another way to say the one person with a brilliant idea image portrayed by the media doesn’t really happen much.

The other factor to consider is the history of the founders. The majority of companies pulling in the big funding packages have founders with experience. They’ve previously gone through the funding process and have previously been CEOs or other officers in other companies that the VC managers are familiar with and thus more likely to entertain funding ideas. 

Can you get venture capital funding if you contradict the above findings? Of course, but your odds are not nearly as great compared to aligning with them.