How to Close a Modal?

Of those startups that fail to secure VC investment, what's the breakdown by how "close" they got?

• There are lots of statistics on this topic with varying degrees of compatability, but for the purposes of this question I'll cite the US Census Bureau's recent Survey of Business Owners which found: 2.7% of companies seeking funding (or any sort) actually received it 0.2% of requests to VC funds actually result in investment This is all well and good, but out of intellectual curiousity I'm interested to understand the breakdown of those companies in terms of how close to VC funding those that don't get VC funding actually are. If we were to take 100,000 startups. 2,700 would get angel funding (per the above figures) 200 would get VC funding But between 2,700 and 200, what happened? Of the 2,700, how many actually tried to get VC funding? How many went out of business before they got to that stage? Of those that did seek VC funding, how many never stood a chance? How many stood a chance but didn't get close? How many were very close to getting VC funding, but just missed out? How many struck a deal which didn't go through? Commentators love to narrate a story which has a binary backbone, where startups either get funding or don't; where firms either get backed by VCs or fail. I'm curious to see what the 'funding conversion funnel' looks like for the start-up world (in the US, or Europe, or across both).

• Answer:

  Every VC operates a little differently, but I'll provide my experience.  If we received 1,000 ideas, 100 would warrant a serious review w/phone call.  Maybe 50-75 would get a  2nd meeting.  Ultimately 5 of these would get funding.  Among the 45-70 that didn't get funding but had a second meeting there are varying degrees of "close to closing". Probably a 1/2 warranted a week or 2 of due dilligence.  Another 1/4 we would work on for 3-4 weeks.  The tough ones were the last batch where we worked on the deal structure, interviewed staff, competitors, customers, visited offices, interviewed potential CEO's and then at the last minute some one on the investing committee shoots holes in the idea for whatever reason.