9 sources of capital for orthopedic startups.

Entrepreneurs, inventors and founders call me asking for advice on finding funding. They often think about the “family and friends” approach or dealing with those blood-sucking VCs.

But there are other sources of funding for a new startup.


Below are 9 sources of capital that I can think of right now:

1/Self-funding: Using personal savings or assets to fund the startup.

2/Seed money: Early-stage funding typically provided by angel investors or seed-stage venture capital firms to help a startup develop its business model and achieve initial traction.

3/Angel investors: High-net-worth individuals who provide capital in exchange for equity in the startup.

4/Venture capital: VC investment firms provide capital to startups in exchange for equity.

5/Crowdfunding: Raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Monogram Orthopedics showed us all how it can be done here by raising $22M with 13,000 crowd funding individuals.

6/Incubators and accelerators: Organizations that provide funding, office space, mentoring, and other resources to startups in exchange for equity or a percentage of revenue. There is probably on in your city today.

7/Government grants: Funding provided by government agencies to support innovation and research in certain sectors. Government organizations like DARPA will give you free money if you have an interesting proposal.

8/Bootstrapping: Building a company from the ground up with little or no outside funding. This is my favorite in the early months in order to reach proof-of-concept.

9/Debt financing: Raising money by borrowing from banks, financial institutions or individuals.

Royalties financing: Raising money by selling the rights to future revenue streams generated by the business.