The main role of the Bulgarian Business Angels Network (BBAN or the Network) is to present and find the proper investment for projects with strong growth potential in an easy and effective way.

The whole process and all the associated services offered by the Network has been designed in a way to meet this goal. Regargless if you are a business angel or an entrepreneur looking for funding, there are various phases to go through to reach a successful equity investment through BBAN.

One of the main advantages of the proposed process is the fact that when using the Network each party can decide for itself if, when, and for how long it will be needing the services of BBAN or any of its partners.

To be able to benefit from the complete range of services offered by BBAN, business angels should first become members of the Network. Non-registered private investors can only browse through the published projects online and, in case they find one of interest, purchase the contact details of the author of the idea.

Unlike them, the business angels who are members of the Network can define their initial investment profiles (project search definition sets) to then recieve just those projects which fall within the range of ther defined investment criteria.  Moreover, they will also be albe to define if their interest should also be visible publicly in the form of a simple overview of their investment profile while still keeping their anonimity. This will increase the number of entrepreneurs who might identify themselves as being such and offer their ideas to our members, thus not only increasing the amount, but also the quality of investment proposals received.

If an author of a project submits a filled-in form, our gatekeepers at BBAN will analyse the idea and send its outline to registered and potentially interested business angels according to their pre-defined investment search sets (profiles). Plus, our members recieve the so called Project Rate enumerating which marks our experts' assessment of the profitability and the success probability of the project. The entrepreneur is not entitled to become aware of its mark, though BBAN can provide initial project assessment upon request from the entrepreneur.

In several days the very same project outline (summary), however with no Rate associated, will also be published in the integrated database online. Depending on the entrepreneurs preferences it can either remain hiddent to all users other than those registered in the Network or it can be sent directly to a certain business angels (custom presentation) in response to an available public investor profile, without it being published anywhere. Other projects may as well remain online for a period from 1 week to 1 year which also depends on the preset preferences of the entrepreneur. In case the validity period of a submitted project a new business angel appears and registers as a member of BBAN whose criteria would match the investment proposal, BBAN will send it.

The entrepreneur as well as the business angels who have registered their investment profile or the summary of their investment project proposal will also be able to recieve statistics about the number of hits that their published searhes/ideas have lead to. This is why the Network can also be a useful add-on tool for initial surveying and assessment of the interest to a certain type of projects.

After the ideas has been reviewed, the business angel can decide to take several actions. The members of the network can ask for additional details about the project from the entrepreneur - e.g. request a business plan, information and fesiblity studies and even send a questionnaire. BBAN will in this case send the information request to the author of the idea and also recommend some of our partners to provide complete or partial assistance depending on the needs of the entrepeneur. 

To limit the potential risk of any conflict of interests arising, BBAN provides only limited consultancy and does not assess or prepare business plans insted of or on behalf of the entrepreneur.

Mutual trust is essentail for the success of an investment. This is why we try to build it from the very beginning even before the potential investor and the entrepreneur meet each other. The business angel may decide to provide a short personal presentation to the entrepreneur in response to such a request. This information cannot contain any contact details such as name, personal data or similar. 

The next step depends on what the investor and entrepreneur decide, If the entrepreneurs has approved of the investor (based on the angel overview submitted earlier) as a potential future partner of the newly/established company and if the investor confirns his interest in the deal both sides may decide to meet each other. BBAN can provide additional support (logistics, translation and partner selection services). In case other services are needed such as consultancy, accounting, financial, legal aid or due dilligence our pre-selected partners may assist both parties.

If the deal is successfully concluded we can also offer support services in the start-up, follow-up or exit phase of the investment.

The investor and entrepreneur are those who decide if they wish to follow each of the steps described above or limit the process to a certain level.