A Venture Capital Association is typically arranged as a member-based organization comprised of many individual venture capital firms. These firms unite together to support and protect the interests of the venture capital community. A Venture Capital Association can fulfill many purposes including acting to lobby government regulations on behalf of VC firms. A primary function of any Venture Capital Association is to provide its members with aggregated industry data on the latest funding trends, economic growth, and key stats on entrepreneurship. These associations also act as a great platform to network with other VC firms for benchmarking of best practices and for potential facilitation of deal flow.

Find a Venture Capital Association

If you're interested in locating or joining a venture capital association through The Invstor.com Network, get started by setting up an account on the system. Setting up a profile on Invstor.com only takes a minute and won't cost you a dime. Once you're set up, you can quickly search for venture capital associations, individual firms, and entrepreneurs. Another great benefit is that all of these parties will then be able to locate you in the very same way.

Contact a Venture Capital Association

Once you have created an account on Invstor.com and located the Venture Capital Association or firm that you are interested in reaching out to, you will then need to compose a message to send to that particular contact. We highly recommend conducting a great deal of research on the association or firm before making any attempts at contact. The last thing you want to do is burn your bridges by massively emailing every association a form email stating that you want to contact them or join their group. Word travels quickly and you will soon have made a bad name for yourself if you aren't respectful! For example, don't bother contacting a late stage VC group if your opportunity pertains only to seed stage startup businesses.

The Follow Up

Following up on an initial contact can be key, but only after you have taken the right steps. After you have completed the appropriate research and contacted an association that looks like a good fit, you can then feel free to follow up with the point person. However, be patient! These individuals are often very busy and will get around to your request as soon as possible. If it's only been a day or two, don't worry! They haven't forgotten about you.

It may take more than a week to hear back from these groups. Investors are constantly hounded by entrepreneurs and even other investors. So step back for a moment and put yourself in their place. It takes time to sort through all of the junk mail. Be mindful not to pester these people or you may not get any response at all.