Tiger BufordYour Orthopedic Industry Expert (free today)

Leveraging your network when your startup is pre-commercial and raising money.

11 Apr 2025 · 2 min

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1:41

Tiger Buford explains why pre-commercial startups need different fundraising strategies. Early stage companies should approach angels, high-net-worth individuals, and industry insiders rather than larger funds. TrackPatch raised seed money from orthopedic surgeons who believed in the product's clinical potential, then moved to bigger rounds later.

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Are there different approaches depending on where your company is? Just say you have, you have IP, but, and you don't even have a regulatory clearance yet versus you have a regulatory clearance and you're preparing for commercialization.
Yeah, I think you have to really think about if, if I'm, if I'm really early stage, I'm probably going to be raising money from, you know, the network that you have, um, personally or from angels, right? You're not going to get, you know, that's why I said match the stage and the sector you as a company are in to an investor's thesis, right? The investors that write, you know, $3 million checks are not going to invest in a million-dollar seed round. So in a way, other than, you know, maybe you can do some networking there, Um, you know, that's not going to be, um, the investor that you close. So, so I think you really have to give some thought to if, if you're a seed type, you know, stage company, look for those appropriate angel groups, high net worth individuals, industry insiders is where I had a lot of success. When we were raising money for TrackPatch early on, um, we got You know, really the orthopedic surgeons that believed that monitoring patients pre- and post-op was going to make a difference, we got them to invest. And so that's, you know, was really helpful in getting us far enough along that we could then get others to invest.