AIM Ventura reduced modeling time from one day to 30 minutes, while also increasing accuracy

AIM Ventura sought to streamline and improve scenario modeling workflows so that more time could be devoted to supporting their early-stage startups. Aumni helped the fund achieve a greater than 10x time savings and increased AIM Ventura’s confidence level in their models by 66%.

‍Challenge: Modeling complex deals with a lean team

As an emerging manager devoted to nurturing portfolio companies from seed stage onwards, follow-on investments play a key role in AIM Ventura’s strategy. Investing in multiple rounds means scenario modeling is a significant part of their process.

However, as a lean team with a growing venture practice, AIM Ventura needed a way to streamline manual modeling processes to claim back time and drive maximum impact for their portfolio. They needed to make investment decisions quickly and maintain their hands-on approach to founder support.  

“Spending time working with our investment management teams is where we can push the dial the most,” said Nick Singleton, Vice President at AIM Ventura Capital.

But Singleton often found his time diverted to looking through documents for deal information when modeling scenarios. With documents spread across Dropbox, Google Docs, and other storage systems, finding an individual term would sometimes take him hours. That adds up to many days and dollars lost during the course of a year.

At the same time, AIM Ventura needed to account for increasing deal complexity.   “Some of our investments have gone through multiple rounds. Some of them have been non-traditional, with lingering bridge rounds. That can make it difficult to project our positions while taking into account what's outstanding, say, on a convertible note,” Singleton pointed out. “We needed a scenario modeling tool that could account for a multitude of variables very quickly while minimizing the potential for human error.”

‍Solution: Implementing Aumni Scenarios

AIM Ventura implemented Aumni Scenarios to drive efficiencies and improve modeling accuracy. The tool lets Singleton and his team combine existing Aumni deal data with custom inputs to calculate the potential impact of new preferred equity financing rounds or exit events on company capitalization, distributions, and more. ‍

An intuitive round modeling tool and Excel-based exit waterfall template populates AIM Ventura’s Aumni deal data into relevant fields and then automates computations so they can understand dilution, distributions, and more. Once AIM Ventura’s data is exported to Excel, the firm has exclusive access to underlying formulas for further analysis and modeling.

“Aumni Scenarios takes the data from the legal documents I have already uploaded, so I know that it is pulling from an accurate source. If I have to build something from the ground up or plug it in, then there is the potential for human error on my side, but with Aumni, I have confidence that the numbers are reliable,” said Singleton.

“Aumni Scenarios takes the data from the legal documents I have already uploaded, so I know that it is pulling from an accurate source." - Nick Singleton, Vice President at AIM Ventura Capital

The formulas within the tool simplify the process, he adds. “I used to have a folder of different models that I would use depending on the deal. I would need to take into account various triggers and conversion mechanics using different formulas. Now I don’t have to figure out which model to use.”

The platform can model new preferred equity financing rounds based on existing company capitalization data to understand dilution instantly, also allowing users to test different deal scenarios and participation amounts before exporting the post-deal cap table to Excel. This not only saves Singleton time but increases his confidence in results. “Once the data's there, it flows accurately into a simplistic and understandable framework.”

In addition to the round modeling tool, the exit waterfall model gives AIM Ventura insight into prospective distributions from an exit event for each share class and participating fund with a robust, pre-built Excel template that includes functioning formulas.

“We're in an active deal fundraising right now, and there's a potential opportunity to take some chips off the table,” says Singleton. “Running those exit scenarios with our internal committee has really helped us to see what those potential deal funds look like.”

‍Results: Huge time savings, improved accuracy, better decision-making

“In the past, modeling would take up a big portion of my time, and it was difficult to get an accurate reflection of what I wanted from the model,” says Singleton.

The platform has reduced processes that took up to an entire day to mere minutes.

Singleton gives an example of when he had to put together three round scenarios and three waterfall scenarios for a presentation. “Pre-Aumni, that would have been an entire day’s work. But with Aumni, I was able to do it in about 30 minutes.”

“Now I have nearly 100% confidence." - Nick Singleton, Vice President at AIM Ventura Capital

Aumni Scenarios also increased his confidence in the models. For example, previously, due to the manual nature of the calculations, he would feel 60-70% confident in his conversion models when analyzing convertible notes. “Now I have nearly 100% confidence.”

All of this has allowed AIM Ventura to spend more time supporting founders and improving deal decision-making.

‍

Ready to get started?

‍

Already a customer? Log in.

‍