London-based Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform, has announced the launch of its Private Equity and Venture Capital division, AIV Capital.
Led by experienced investment manager Ethan Khatri, AIV Capital will invest between $10 -$75Mn+ into established businesses ranging from Growth/Series B to pre-IPO and has a flexible approach utilising both primary and secondary capital. Its sector agnostic focus will be on strong management teams with a demonstrated edge in the space they operate in.
AIV Capital Managing Director, Ethan Khatri brings 16 years of investment experience across the European and Asian venture markets. Over the course of his career, he has successfully completed 27 transactions achieving 13 exits, covering technology, enterprise software, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and consumer. He will be combining his experience with AIN’s early stage market coverage and portfolio of businesses they’ve historically funded. 16 year old AIN has a global network of more than a million entrepreneurs and more than 280,000 investors, winning investment for a host of powerful businesses including What3Words, Simba Sleep and SuperAwesome.
According to Mike Lebus, founder of Angel Investment Network: “AIV Capital is the natural next stage of AIN’s evolution. AIN has been a game changer in democratising access to angel investment and powering the dreams of so many startup founders on the first stage of their fundraising journey. With the right experience and team in place, led by Ethan, we are now able to support businesses right through the fundraising cycle, from the idea in a bedroom to seed funding right through to pre-IPO.”
According to Ethan Khatri: “AIV Capital is a powerful new force in private equity and venture capital. Building on the evergreen network of AIN, our experienced team has access to an extraordinary talent pool of growth to late stage businesses which we can match with the right funding structure to ensure they deliver absolute return opportunities. Our watchword is flexibility. We invest across the capital structure and this is the method by which we maximize returns for all stakeholders.”
How often do you replace your toothbrush? Have you ever considered where it ends up or the environmental impact? Tooth is a subscription toothbrush service, looking to reduce waste. We caught up with cofounders Joshua Oates and Kiana Guyon to learn about their recent investment round.
Tell us about Tooth and how you came up with the idea
Over 7 years ago now an idea was born that still holds true today. ‘What if we made a toothbrush where you just change the head, like a razor blade and you keep the handle forever.?’ Out of this question Tooth was born.
The oral care industry is inherently very wasteful and has remained relatively unchanged for over 100 years. We’re here to change the norm and disrupt the market with simple product enhancements, design and smart materials.
Tooth: the reusable toothbrush
Why did you decide to raise investment?
Like any startup, capital is needed to develop and grow the product and business. Physical products are capital heavy as it takes time to prototype, tool and manufacture the products. Having other minds on the project can lend some help and open up some pretty interesting doors moving forward.
What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?
‘People invest in people.’No one wants to invest in someone who is passionless, desperate and difficult. Sell yourself, sell the company, sell the product. You do it in that order you will raise funds.
What attracted investors to your company?
Having a clear vision, product timeline and strong core team all played a part in closing deals across our round.
The Tooth subscription box
My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Taking money from anyone. Make sure you actually get along and the collective vision is there. Be picky. This creates demand. You then supply that demand.
Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network? It provides a cost effective platform to get the project out into the ecosphere. The large network allows you to see if your idea is interesting or not to angel investors.
Our number 1 focus for Eco Tooth for the year ahead is: Proving our KPI’s (key performance indicators) is super important this year. Making sure we can hit our predicted acquisition costs, attrition rates etc will allow us to raise the next round of funding.
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.
A majority of US startups (52%) are now ‘very optimistic’ about the next 12 months, despite 62% seeing business growth negatively impacted by the pandemic. This was a key finding of a new study of US startup sentiment 18 months after the start of the pandemic, by Angel Investment Network (AIN). The study of 1,205 US based startups found 76% expressed optimism overall with 19% quite optimistic and 52% very optimistic, versus just 24% who were pessimistic. It followed on from a similar survey we conducted of UK startup sentiment last month.
The results show the extent to which confidence has returned to early stage businesses Stateside, who are emerging strongly from the downturn. Of the 62% of respondents who revealed they had been negatively impacted by COVID, 37% had been ‘very negatively impacted’. Meanwhile 63% of those who had been planning to raise funds said they had delayed a raise as a result of COVID.
Top strategies to mitigate the impact of stalled fundraising were: Focusing more on networking, favoured by 46% of respondents, holding off launch plans (38%) and bootstrapping instead (32%), with a similar number delaying marketing.
Entrepreneurs were also asked what their biggest challenges were going forward. The top result given was raising investment (84%), hiring/recruiting the right talent (22%) and product development (22%). Ongoing COVID issues were a problem for 13% of those polled.
US startups also believe more Government action is needed to encourage investment and help startups flourish. 57% favour making tax relief more generous to boost angel investment, 32% making R&D tax relief more generous and 22% lowering corporation tax. 70% of respondents are confident the US will retain its place as a startup hub.
AIN has seen surging growth on its platform with connections between entrepreneurs and investors up by 23% since the start of the year. Meanwhile revenues have increased by 40% to a new record, indicating the huge pent up demand from startups now seeking funding.
According to Mike Lebus, founder of AIN: “It is encouraging to see how US startups have shown their mettle to ride out this really difficult period and emerge battle tested and with high levels of confidence. Many have been negatively impacted but have used their time wisely to build up their pipeline of contacts and bootstrap their businesses as far as they can go. RaIsing investment remains the biggest challenge going forward and as the world’s largest angel investment platform, we have been encouraged by seeing a record number of connections between investors and startups.”
How did you respond to the pandemic?
Focused more on networking: 46%
Held Off launch plans: 38%
Bootstrapped instead: 32%
Delayed marketing: 32%
Held off making hires: 27%
Had to let staff go: 20%
Relied on business loan: 19%
Pulled back from R&D: 12%
What could the Government do to help?
Make tax relief more generous to boost angel investment: 57%
Make R&D tax relief more generous: 32%
Lower corporation tax: 22%
Offer more clarity on COVID restrictions: 14%
Make it easier to provide VISAs for recruiting the right talent: 13%
Gary Piazzon founded Porter after becoming frustrated finding a suitable hotel. He shares some of his key learnings from fundraising and his biggest mistake in this edition of #BehindTheRaise.
Tell us about Porter and how you came up with the idea
It was a nightmare, timely and stressful booking experience that led me to the idea of Porter; I visited one of the large online travel agents, entered my search criteria and was hit with a pretty intimidating 2,000+ results.
I wrongly assumed the hotels near the top of the list would be a great match for me. They were nowhere near where I wanted to stay and only appeared higher up as they were clearly paying a higher rate of commission.
That got me thinking, why see the results you’re not interested in?
Porter is designed to make booking a hotel simple and fun by learning about the elements that matter to users so it can assess the thousands of potential property options to help recommend the right places to stay.
In a nutshell, Porter simplifies hotel booking, by only recommending your best matches.
Why did you decide to raise investment?
Raising investment was pretty much a necessity to really get things off the ground.
As we’re building a very technical platform leveraging various levels of machine learning and artificial intelligence, we needed to ensure we could attract the right talent, as well as pay the bills for hosting etc. so raising investment was really important from that perspective.
Beyond the technical aspects, it’s also been crucial in helping us raise some initial awareness of the site, and further we purposely targeted ‘smart money’ and ended up with a collection of very experienced, knowledgeable investors, all of whom have contributed advice, support and knowledge to the business.
What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?
My top tip would be to ensure you have a clear story, and think about the traction you can show to demonstrate interest.
From a story point of view, I think it’s really important that when investors look at your pitch, or speak to you, they come away with a really clear understanding of what you’re trying to do, why you’re doing it, and how you’ll do it better than anyone else.
You should then be able to support this with some sort of traction that demonstrates people being interested. This could be in the form of users signing up to your pre-launch page, user engagement on your MVP, revenue numbers etc.
What attracted investors to your company?
I’d say there were a few key things:
· All of our investors resonated with the problem we’re trying to solve. They’d all experienced the frustration and wasted time of endlessly searching for the right place to stay when going on holiday. This immediately put us in a good position when discussing the business.
· Secondly they recognised that there’s an enormous opportunity to go after, and the market has proven itself capable of supporting numerous large players. Globally, the online travel agent market is worth c£440bn, but in the UK alone, the market is worth around £35bn. That means, even if we were to capture 1% of the market, we’d be achieving £350m of revenue.
· The final thing that attracted investors to our company was our strong founding team, and the interest we’d demonstrated through our pre-launch page. We built an initial team with experience spanning Development, UX, Product and Marketing and built a pre-launch waitlist of over 3,000 users. The combination of these two points gave our investors the confidence that we were the right team to try and tackle the problem.
My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Initially failing to adapt pitches and conversations for my audience. I quickly learnt that different types of investors were looking for different information from our discussions, with a big difference between angels who were much more interested in the vision and team, versus VCs who were much more focused on the quantitative side of things.
Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?
I was actually recommended to AIN from a fellow founder who has previously raised a number of rounds through the platform.
AIN was a no-brainer thanks to its ability to connect us with such a large number of investors. Not only did using AIN help us successfully close our pre-seed round, but it also helped us meet some really interesting industry experts.
What is the main focus for Porter for the year ahead?
We’ve actually recently started raising our next round of funding to allow us to accelerate product development, grow our team and reach more people.
This is a really exciting time for Porter. As travel restrictions start to ease, we’re already starting to see an uplift in people wanting to travel. Our focus now is ensuring we’re best placed to help as many users as possible discover and book their best matched trips.
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.
It’s not actually exclusively startups that raise on AIN, there’s a growing number of funds too. We caught up with James D’Mello from EIS Fund SideBySide to hear about their experience:
Who are SidebySide?
SidebySide is run by a management team responsible for over $1.5bn in exits to date. We have worked with younger companies for a number of years and concentrate on adding benefit to help these companies scale from startups to larger, growth businesses.
The UK management team is formed of our founder, John Bailye. Our Junior partner, Ben Ashworth. Our Portfolio Manager, Alicia Taylor, our portfolio company mentor, Sheli Gupta, and James D’Mello, who heads up our investor relations function.
John Bailey, Founder
Our investment thesis
“Although we score third globally in an OECD ranking of the number of start-ups created, we don’t make it into the top ten when it comes to businesses that grow into established, medium-sized companies that have a lasting impact on our economy” – The Independent, referring to the UK in the OECD Global Rankings 2017.
This is our focus and why we formed the SidebySide Partnership. We want to help founders take their business to the next level.
James D’Mello
What types of companies do you invest in?
We invest in fast-growing technology-enabled businesses with £1-10 million in revenue. These more established companies will usually be at least several years old and typically have over 30 employees. We look for companies where there is evidence of a strong customer acceptance of the product and service offered, and where we believe we can add value to them in the long run.
Tell us about your portfolio
We invest in “tech-enabled” companies. That translates to companies who use tech to change the way we do something by a company that is looking to define the way future companies in their sector will operate.
As an example from our most recent round. We invested in a company called Laundryheap.
Laundryheap offers door-to-door laundry and dry-cleaning services to consumer and business customers, including major brands. The platform allows users to have their laundry collected, washed, ironed, and returned to them in a guaranteed turnaround time of 24 hours.
One of the main reasons we love them is the fact that they are able to scale into new markets without the capital heavy constraints that have held back their competitors. Across its US and Asian markets, Laundryheap has seen particularly rapid growth since March 2020. In the US, where the platform is now operational in multiple cities, the business is reporting month-on-month growth between 50 to 100 per cent. As for the Middle East, where, customer growth is hitting between 60 to 80 per cent month-on-month.
What is it like raising investment as a fund? How is it different from raising for a single company?
Raising as a fund is very similar to raising as a single company, except, instead of talking about one company, we talk about many. Typically investing in 3-5 companies per round, there is a lot to talk about. We pride ourselves on the amount of time we spend with our companies each month, therefore can go into as much detail as a potential investor wants to go into.
What are your tips for raising on AIN?
Our first campaign with AIN received a lot of interest but the interest didn’t lead anywhere. We took things back to think about what we could do differently, One of the main things we changed was the points that we highlighted, less of the traditional X amount of revenue, aum etc – more of what made us different to other investment funds they may have seen. We were very upfront and frank with potential investors and made sure to schedule zoom/phone calls after speaking on AIN to allow them to meet us and ask their questions in a more conversational manner.
What are your plans for the funds? How are you deploying them?
We have invested in 6 different companies now over our last few deployments, in our most recent round we invested into a fashion marketplace that is changing the way retailers and brands sell their old season and discounted stock, a travel courier company that picks your bags/skis/golf clubs up and takes them to your holiday home/hotel for you so that you don’t have to worry about checking them all in and carrying them around.
How does SidebySide help startups? And what experience do you bring to the table?
Whilst a lot of UK VCs come from an investment banking/accountancy background, SidebySide is a team built from entrepreneurs and operator types. They have been responsible for founding, investing in and running over 30+ companies, one of which was founded and grown into a billion-dollar exit. The early mornings & late nights, the stress of running a company, the hurdles to overcome to scale your business, the team has been through all of it before, rather than just financed it and watched from the sidelines. We help the companies in our portfolio by spending time with them, a couple of times a month, going through whatever the company needs support on.
Any tips about pitching investors over Zoom?
I used to love nothing more than speaking in a room full of people at pitch events/industry talks. When Covid hit, these events were all moved to Zoom, Which as I’m sure many of you will have experienced by now, Is a whole different ball game. It’s very hard to read peoples body language and facial expressions when there are 50+ people in a Zoom call, you also don’t know if anyone is laughing at your bad jokes if they’re all on mute!
One of the main things I have tried to focus on and has seemed to work well so far is to try and concentrate on talking into the camera lens, it may seem like a small thing but it is the closest thing to eye contact you can do over Zoom. I also set out a couple of bullet points on my screen on a notes app to prompt me to go through set points on the call.
Lastly, A great tip I read in a guide from Sequoia capital – One of the mistakes most people make is thinking because you have a 60-minute meeting slot that you have that persons attention for 60 minutes – Spoiler, You don’t. You should use the first 5 minutes to earn their attention for the next 15 minutes which in turn will interest them enough to listen for another 30 minutes.
Where do you plan SideBySide to be in the next 10 years?
Unlike traditional VCs, SidebySide limits the number of companies that we invest in at any one time. We do this so that we can actually spend important time with each of them and make sure they have the best chance of success. So whilst most VCs would say in 5 years we want to have backed another 50+ companies – that is not us. We want to continue backing great management teams and working closely with them to help them scale their businesses to the next stage and become the type of company that defines the sector in which they operate.
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.
Each month, we share a selection of stand out companies that our team have picked out as particularly exciting, or high potential. This month we have selected the following:
Immersify Education
Immersify Education is a learning app, initially creating a totally novel experience for dentistry students, but ultimately a comprehensive solution that makes it much easier for students to learn across disciplines.
Immersify fast tracks the pace of learning by combining rich multimedia content and an AR experience that gives the students the sensation that they are working on a patient right in the dentist’s chair.
– The founder is an award winning edtech entrepreneur with an exit in the dental education space
– 100% recommendation for the B2B offering
– Rated 5 Stars on the app store
Immersify Education are raising £1.2 million and have SEIS and EIS relief available.
28 Well Hung are pioneering the regenerative restaurant concept in London.
All their food is chosen to help regenerate the planet, sequestering carbon and methane in the process and specifically working with farmers who are obsessed with regenerating the soil that they use.
Starting out as a street food stall, 28 Well Hung is now an established restaurant with £230k revenue that was profitable during Covid.
‘28’ are raising funding to expand, they have acquired a 9 year lease in Brixton and plan to open this summer, with a further London site due by the end of the year. Of note:
– Strong vegan and vegetarian customer base (50% of menu is veggie)
– Nominated for multiple awards including Best Street Food Trader
Scrubbingtons produce a range of bespoke personal care products perfect for kids, from hand sanitiser and soap to shampoo and bubble bath.
They use natural ingredients, perfect for sensitive skin, and make the product easy for kids to use themselves.
Why’s it special? It’s 98% natural, very soft, and has special foam that lasts twice as long as gel. It’s sustainable with refillable pouches and recycled.
– 4.9* average across thousands of reviews
– Already supplies 150 school and nurseries directly
– 400k revenue in 2020 with 200% Y-O-Y growth
Scrubbingtons products are widely available including in Tesco, Amazon and Ocado.
Alex Christodoulakis is co-founder of Wealthyhood, the app ‘to turn you into your own wealth manager’.
Alex shares his story about Wealthyhood, how he raised investment, and his advice for entrepreneurs:
Tell us about Wealthyhood and how you came up with the idea
A few years ago, together with Kostas, co-founder of Wealthyhood, we wondered how we could invest our money on a monthly basis. We were busy professionals at the time and couldn’t devote much time to research or execute any sophisticated investment strategies, and of course not in the position to actively trade the markets.
So, we spent time trying to identify what was out there to solve this problem. However, we soon realised we weren’t alone in that. The problem was everywhere around us. There was a typical question among our friends, family and colleagues: “How can I invest my money? I don’t have the time or the knowledge to trade…”.
But how will they do that?
Trading apps are usually too complex for beginner investors. They offer no guidance on how to get started or tools to create a long-term portfolio. They incentivise you to actively trade, by constantly notifying you for random price movements. Everyday investors get caught up on their emotions and end up gambling instead of investing. This was not the experience we were looking for.
So, we decided to build Wealthyhood to bridge the gap. Instead of just giving friendly advice to our friends, we decided to build a product that would guide long-term investors to build their wealth over time, by intelligently investing their money the way they want, with fewer fees.
It’s not only how our interactive guidance helps users to invest the right way, but also how we help them develop the right wealth-building mindset. You don’t have to be a millionaire nor an expert to have a successful and pleasant investing journey.
And this is how Wealthyhood was founded to become the first DIY wealth-building app for long-term investors.
Why did you decide to raise investment?
Unfortunately, Fintech is a very capital-intensive industry, even before you decide to spend aggressively on growth and marketing.
The initial costs have to do with securing regulatory approval and FCA compliance, even before you get started. And this is why we initially decided to raise some external money, alongside covering some operational costs and our plans to grow the team.
Apart from that, raising money from angel investors is a great way to validate your value proposition and showcase their belief in the vision of the company and the ability of the team to execute!
A successful angel raise doesn’t just get you money, but also access to the network and connections of your investors, so it’s a two-way process. The right investors can significantly accelerate our progress.
What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?
It’s always easier to approach angel investors, than early-stage VC funds. Start from your own network, pitch them your company and vision and then expand to your second degree connections, angel networks and of course the Angel Investment Network.
If you can’t persuade angel investors to invest in your company, then you should reconsider your pitch.
Always have a story to share; why you’re building this product, what’s the problem and why you’re the perfect team to succeed!
Any signs of initial traction are a great validation that you’re heading to the right direction.
What attracted investors to your company?
I think it was a combination of different things. Probably the most important is the problem we solve. Our angel investors immediately acknowledged the gap between trading apps and robo advisors and the need for a DIY wealth building app for long-term investors.
Our vision to create the wealth-building app not for the top-1%, but for the 99% fully resonated with them.
At the same time, our investors had faith in the team behind Wealthyhood and us as co-founders. The first angel investors were people from our close network with strong belief in our capabilities as a team. Then, friends of friends and finally professional angel investors, who got to know us better and believe in our determination and skills to execute.
Apart from that, we had already built some momentum, showcasing that we were heading in the right direction. We had more than 3,000 users signed up to our waiting list, over 10,000 followers in our LinkedIn and Instagram pages and had developed a community of 50 Wealthyhood Ambassadors across Europe.
Last, but not least, a few months ago we won 1st place on FinQuest Accelerator and are currently participating in the VISA Innovators Program, which for angel investors shows strong progress.
My biggest fundraising mistake was…
My biggest fundraising mistake was that we began by approaching early-stage VC funds, instead of angel investors.
This was wrong; it cost us time and money, but we soon realised it and switched our focus to angels, who were a much better fit for our stage and needs!
However, it helped us challenge our value proposition, improve our deck and positioning and make it more robust.
Why did you choose to use the Angel Investment Network?
Angel Investment Network was an amazing way to connect with the right investors for our company. It’s very time-efficient for founders and probably the best portal to share your story from a fundraising perspective.
It was first suggested by our advisors and we soon realised they were right to insist.
Our number 1 focus for Wealthyhood for the year ahead is:
To build the investing experience we envision and make it publicly available through a web platform, iOS and Android apps. We’ve already launched a beta version of the product and are onboarding the first users from our waiting list.
Over the coming months we want to onboard the whole waiting list and give instant access to new users in the UK and EU!
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising fundraising yourself, you can find your local network here.
Each month on the Angel Investment Network blog we feature some of our start-ups making waves. Here are some of the ones to keep an eye out for in June:
Vitabeam
Vitabeam has developed a patented LED technology that mimics the sunlight spectrum to stimulate plant growth, extend shelf life of food and kill unwanted pathogens, such as bacteria and mould.
Vitabeam has £1.72 committed sales, a pipeline of £6.5 million, and has received 2 Innovate UK government grants valued at £640k. Tests have shown biomass increase in herbs as high as 54% from using Vitabeam.
Mintago helps businesses save on their workplace pension tax bill, whilst improving the ‘pension well being’ of their employees. Mintago helps businesses to structure their pension in the most efficient way using HMRC’s salary exchange scheme reducing NI contributions, whilst rolling out pension optimisation tools.
Founded by the founder of Perkbox, and with the team ex RBC, BDO and Atomico, Mintago is growing at 100% MoM and saved customers over £250k despite only launching in December 2021.
KiKapay enables merchants to collect payments from customers in a manner that is typically 80% cheaper than card payments, by using their bank’s secure customer authentication process, and because it doesn’t require an app to be downloaded, KiKapay provides a frictionless solution.
With open banking payments increasing ten fold in 2020 and 25 billion card transactions having been processed in the UK alone. KiKapay has brought onboard an experienced team with 75 years experience, including a partner at Deloitte and the ex Head of Advisory for European payments at EY.
eleXsysEnergy has raised £640,000 through Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform. eleXsys Energy has developed a unique, international award-winning, enabling technology that will drive the transition of global energy grids to a clean energy future. The eleXsys® technology enables large commercial and industrial rooftops to become grid-connected, solar power plants. eleXsys® is the critical enabling technology being installed to build the IKEA eleXsys Microgrid at IKEA Adelaide, which will become 100% powered by renewable generation by 2025.
The raise took four months and was part of a larger £5m funding raise, including a Series A round of £3.55m, with the funds allowing the business to continue its investment as it rapidly grows its global reach. eleXsys Energy’s innovative technology unlocks the full potential of electricity networks to host multiple times more clean, distributed energy without expensive network infrastructure upgrades. By providing services that enable a two-way flow of electricity on grids, the platform supports the most efficient, low-cost means of delivering clean distributed solar or wind energy.
The company originated in Australia but has now reorganised and is headquartered in London. This is eleXsys Energy’s first raise overseas and marks a significant step for the company. The company has over 270 customers including 11 industrial rooftops across schools and government, agricultural and commercial buildings. The raise will allow the business to continue to invest in its technology as it rapidly grows its global reach.
According to Richard Romanowski, co-founder and Executive Director, of eleXsys: “We are delighted to have completed a successful round of fundraising with Angel Investment Network. Our technology is critical for the transition to clean energy – one of the world’s most pressing challenges. Funding from investors across the world confirms the transglobal appetite for investment opportunities in new cleantech solutions, aiming to tackle global carbon reduction targets. We are a rapidly growing business and with the capital raised, we will be able to further drive our strategic plans for expansion and deliver on our goals for our new and existing investors.”
According to Sam Louis, Head of Consultancy at Angel Investment Network: “We are excited to be working with eleXsys Energy in this period of significant growth for the company. This raise ensured that eleXsys secured the backing of strategic and experienced investors as they expand their global reach and make their mark on international markets. Our passion-driven investors want to support businesses that solve real problems and there’s arguably few greater problems to solve than how to dramatically scale the move to clean energy.”
Up next, Ziglu, a digital platform bridging the gap between cash and crypto; Yang Li, Chief Growth Office, shares his story behind the company’s £6.1 million seed round:
Tell us about Ziglu and how you came up with the idea
Ziglu was born out of the realisation that both traditional and challenger banks were preventing their customers from having access to cryptocurrencies. With the rise of cryptocurrencies we could be seeing the biggest ever transfer of funds into a new asset class, and decentralised finance (DeFi) is providing unprecedented opportunities to grow wealth.
Yet the majority of consumers are unaware of the opportunities of cryptocurrencies and DeFi, or are confused by them, or have no affordable way to participate in them. To solve this problem, Ziglu has been designed and built to combine modern challenger banking features for everyday spending with safe, simple, affordable and insured access to cryptocurrencies.
Why did you decide to raise investment?
We saw some remarkable early customer engagement and wanted to accelerate our customer acquisition, particularly to coincide with the amazing bull run we’ve been seeing in the crypto market. Giving ownership to customers also gives them a chance to benefit in our growth and success too and that’s at the heart of what we stand for.
Furthermore, our product and tech team had built an innovative but aggressive roadmap of features that they wanted to deliver. Fundraising has meant we can now deliver new features and improve customer experiences pretty much as fast as we can think of them.
What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?
Don’t overly focus on how your product compares to competitors. Be clear about how your product truly delights customers. No startup has failed due to competition alone.
What attracted investors to your company?
Ziglu has an experienced team with a proven track record of building amazing startups like Starling, Monzo, Wirex, Meituan, and a product that provides a significantly better crypto-investing experience for beginners and aficionados alike. This combination of a proven track record and a visionary product and proposition has proven to be very attractive to investors.
My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Worrying too much about the aesthetics of the pitch deck.
Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?
Angel Investment Network stood out to us because of its superb track record of assisting innovative startups to find strategic investors: investors that provide us with first hand advice about disrupting huge industries, broaden our network of partners and add significant value beyond cash.
What has the funding enabled?
The funding has allowed us to significantly ramp up our marketing, build new features faster and accelerate our plans for international expansion. The team is currently very focused on Ziglu’s international expansion, with our first overseas launch slated for the second half of 2021.
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising fundraising yourself, you can find your local network here.
