2021 was a bullish year for investment. Between venture capital, private equity, and mergers and acquisitions, RH Strategic’s clients alone raised billions in funding for their technology, healthcare, and edtech solutions

However, they were far from alone. The technology landscape in particular was awash in new funding as valuations and investments soared to record highs and pervaded everyday news. Crunchbase recently reported that total global venture capital funding nearly doubled from 2020 to 2021, reaching $643 billion last year.

All signs point to this robust venture capital environment continuing in 2022, and PR plans must take this trend into account. In this new environment, how do you break through the noise to earn media interest and key coverage? What strategies should you keep in mind when trying to raise awareness for your company? At RH Strategic, we often find ourselves in the role of planning and orchestrating successful funding announcements, and we have found the following best practices useful:

Uncover a Unique Narrative

With the funding news landscape so crowded, the actual dollar figures of each round became less important. Of course, earning hundreds of millions of dollars was still newsworthy, but to breakthrough, especially with a more moderate amount, you needed a unique and compelling narrative to earn media attention.

Some questions to ask yourself:

  • How is your company or technology changing the industry?
  • What investors and partners are you attracting?
  • Where are you headed and what is your vision for the future?

Within your announcement materials, we also recommend highlighting recent growth figures, customer success, and your plans for using the funding to further your mission and ambitions. Are you planning to grow in a certain geography, make key hires, or invest in a core product or capability?

Note that these are questions to consider, and not all of them will need to be answered in each new announcement. In the end, your PR firm should know what media are interested in now and the best ways to make your funding story compelling to all your target audiences.

Harness Your Partners

It is also essential that your agency understands how best to integrate with VC and business partners to create a comprehensive strategy to bring your funding announcement to life. By knowing the unique value each partner provides to the announcement (whether though media relationships or adding an interesting component to the story based on their expertise, portfolio, or network), you can maximize coverage opportunities.

Typically, your PR agency also plays an essential role as the hub for orchestrating the overall funding announcement and global media outreach efforts. By leading media coverage, project management and communication between stakeholders, we help everyone work together for ultimate success.

Integrate Channels to Maximize Visibility

To bring everything together, you will want to integrate all content channels and ensure that PR is in lockstep with your marketing and social media teams. This will allow you to build a set of announcement assets that amplify your core brand messages. This package typically includes an announcement press release, corporate blog post, potentially another CEO blog post, social media content to promote each of these assets, as well as accompanying graphics and even animations or other videos to highlight the impact of your news.

To maximize the reach of the news outside your core audience, take advantage of the spheres of influence that exist with your VC partners, company executives and overall employees to customize and cross-share social content with their networks. If you are lucky, your VC firms will also create their own blog posts about the announcement.

The Road Ahead

While 2021 was a record funding year, the VC and private equity industries show no signs of slowing down investments in 2022. We expect the challenges of breaking through the noise with funding announcements to only increase this year. With creative strategies, media expertise and a firm that can help you bring it all together, great PR opportunities lie ahead.

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RH Strategic is a Seattle and D.C.-based PR agency with a nationwide presence and additional global reach via membership in the Worldcom Public Relations Group. We provide strategic public relations for innovators in the technology, government and healthcare markets.

Interested in joining our team? We’re growing, and we’re looking for experienced, energetic people to join us. Learn more at rhstrategic.com/careers.