Venture Capital Reporter - Help

VCR is a complete directory of more than 4,700 investment sources. These sources can be angel investors, venture capital firms, private investors or private equity firms, and investment companies, and include these types of data:

Contact Details like the company name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, physical postal address (country, state, city, ZIP code, P.O.Box) and the company website.

The types of investments preferred, the stage of the firm they would like to invest in, the general fund size, the funding requirements and other industry preferences.

The location of the investors in mostly concentrated in the following areas:

The U.S. , Canada, Europe, East-Asian locations such as Hong-Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan, Israel and Australia.

The software includes more than 4700 companies structures by criteria like stage preference, industry preference or location. Any investor can be found immediately and contacted via e-mail from within the program. The interface is easy to use.

The database is accessible offline even if Internet access is not available.

The Help Contents

Interface Analysis

The Homepage includes a tabbed window and three clickable panels.

The Info tab activates the Info panel.

The general settings and other info are found here.

If the computer is online, the user can browse the websites of the chosen companies.

The Find panel is activated by the Find button.

Here you can execute a search and specify special criteria. The results will be found in the third panel.

The Lists panel is activated by the Lists button.

VC companies are organized in list which you can customize there.

Reactivate the startup screen, get help info, register the software, or use popup menu by pressing the graphical buttons or by right-clicking on an unused space of the software.

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The Info panel

...is the first thing you see.

You activate it from the Info tab or from the popup menu.

You can find USEFUL LINKS here, CONTACT US, REGISTER the software, or read HELP info.

From here you can browse sites of the VC companies (double-click on the url ).

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The Find panel

...is what you see when you click Find tab and is present in the pop-up menu.

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"About search criteria"

For each search you must decide what criteria to use. Clicking on the checkbox to deactivate a checkmark will deactivate a search category.

Use the KEYWORD category if you want to search something specific.



"Choosing source and target"

Choose what list to search from the Search and Results tab in the top-right :

All (all the database), Main, or Custom

"The Save and Load functions"

Use the buttons on the top to save the search criteria.

Click SAVE, insert the wanted name in the box hit the Save button.

Click LOAD to load or delete previous data by selecting them from the list and clicking the chosen buttons.



"Resetting the criteria"

Click RESET to go back to Default.

Save, load, delete, and reset are available in the popup menu.

The Lists panel

...is what you see when you click Lists

"Main & custom list"

Organize results in the main list, always visible and which contains all the firms or in a custom list.

For several lists activate the custom list on top of the main list.

To show the hidden custom list click on appearance on the bottom of the screenand select Show custom list. Another way is to right click on main list and select Show custom list. If data is added to the custom list it will automatically show. Double-clicking on a firm from the main list will add it to the custom list..

Double-click on a firm`s URL to visit website or on e-mail address to send e-mail. Click details for a currently selected line to view the website externally.



"List control buttons"

If you want further control of the list use the six buttons under it, on the left.

Info about the position selected at some point and the total number of companies can be found near the numbers.

By pressing the content button, you can manage the entire list through a special menu or by pressing the selection button you can manage only the highlighted firms.

Select several firms by using a combination of the CTRL or SHIFT key and clicking.

Set the style and sort order by pressing the appearance button.

Right-click on the list and you get a popup menu that has all the above functions.

"Customizing details"

In the top part of the software, you can read details about what you selected.

There are three Style buttons that will activate three different viewing styles. You can achieve the same result if you click the appearance button and select View style. Another way is to right-click and select View style.

The appearance button found on the bottom of the windows allows you to see the full list or only just a part of it. For that select Full lines or Names from the popup menu.

Sort the content of the lists: • In full view mode Click on the column heading. If you click again it will toggle between ascending and descending order. It can be done from the appearance button or by choosing Sort order from the popup menu.

In full view mode drag the side of the heading to make the column as wide as you want. Move it where you want by dragging the heading in the desired place.

"Saving and loading"

Click the buttons found on the menu line to save the content.

Click SAVE, choose a name for the list and insert in blank field or choose one of the old names and hit Save again.

Use the LOAD button to load a list by selecting a saved named or to delete a saved list. Hit Load or Delete.

These functions are available on the list content button below the list or by right-clicking on the list.

"E-mailing by list"

You can send an email to selected firms just by pressing the SEND E-MAIL button.

You can use the main or custom lists to do this. The SEND E-MAIL button is red and can be found on the bottom of the list.

After you click it, you can choose to send To al the list or only To selected firms.

You will be informed immediately of the number of valid emails. The number of firms that can only be contacted by filling out a form in their website will be also shown.

You can use the create contact list option to generate a custom list of contacts and e-mail addresses when you create the message.

The software will create several e-mails with a maximum number of recipients per each e-mail if the list you have selected is too big. There is a max. recipients per message field where you can set the maximum number of recipients for every e-mail which depends on the e-mail client, operating system and configuration.

It is advisable to address the messages using the BCC field (blind carbon copy) so you can hide multiple recipients from each other.

For more than one firm check the use BCC field box and the contact e-mail will be inserted in the BCC line of the e-mail. If you do not do this the recipients will see that you have sent the e-mail to other firms.

Set the default message text and subject by selecting customize message content. When you do this field where you can enter your message will appear.

The Start button starts the creation of the message.

You can save the messages in a favorite folder by selecting save messages to disk. You can use your e-mail client to edit or move a message to the e-mail server.

If you do not do this, the created messages will appear in your default e-mail application. For the system to work you need to have a standard e-mail client (for example: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express or Netscape Messaging) installed and properly configured for sending e-mails.

Select the use compatibility mode option if you think that the e-mail client program will have trouble in handling standard .eml files. The software transfers created messages to the e-mail client using mailto-protocol (a very common method used on hyperlinks). Depending on the operating system and the installed software and due to compatibility mode the number of recipients and the length of the text will vary.

"Exporting the list"

The main and custom lists can be exported. At the bottom right part of the list there is an EXPORT button which after you select the desired format will export the list. You can choose between pure text, web page (html), and CSV - delimited text (the latter being compatible with programs like Microsoft Excel or Access).

Registration

An unregistered version of the software has a limited amount of data. The purchase of a registration code will give you full access. The code can be obtained directly from the software, or from our website. If you press the Register button on the top of the screen you will receive more info.

The Direct Activation button, will activate a safe order form. Enter the necessary information, click continue then put in your credit card info before clicking the “Make Payment” button. Once the payment has been made, the software will Update Online. More than 4,700+ firm listings will be downloaded to your software instantly. The firm list will be accessible whether you are online or offline.

Another way is to order by clicking Order Thru WWW and the Online Secure Order page will open. Enter the information, click continue then complete the credit card info and when you are finished press the “Make Payment” button. Once the payment is made, check your email as you will receive an auto-reply e-mail with the registration code and further instructions.

When the email with the registration code has arrived, press the Register button in the software, insert the registration code and press Continue. The software will connect to the web server (you will need internet access) to retrieve your license. After the process is over you will have immediate access to more than 4,700 firms whether you have internet access or not.


Online Update

If you have a registered version of the software, you can download the new firms added to the database from the specialized server by clicking the Online Update button.

You must firstly make sure you have internet access, then activate the Update button, and press ONLINE UPDATE. Information and details about the recent updates will be shown. The download will start automatically if you license is still good and if the update does not exist yet in your software.


Troubleshooting

If you encounter errors, the most common problem is that Microsoft Windows installation contains out-of-date system libraries.

To avoid the problem upgrade to the newer versions. Download and run the upgrade application from Microsoft.


System Requirements