Category: Investment

Generative AI: Revolutionising industries and investment opportunities

Generative AI, once a niche topic, has rapidly become a global conversation, even being used in a slanging match between rivals in the US Presidential Election. Its promise is to revolutionise industries and reshape the way we interact with technology.

In our latest Sector Focus article, Christian Teichmann, CEO of Burda Principal Investments (BPI), provides insights into what Generative AI means, the reasons behind its surge in interest, the challenges it faces, and the enticing investor opportunity.

What is generative AI?

AI is a broad term that refers to software or hardware exhibiting behaviours, which appear intelligent, whereas modern AI is mostly focused on a set of techniques called Machine Learning (ML). This enables software programmes to learn through training, instead of being explicitly programmed with rules. Thus far, machine learning was primarily deployed to make predictions.

Generative AI refers to a new wave of ML models – most prominently transformer-based large language models (LLMs) – that are able to create original content in response to natural language prompts. They enable machines to produce text, code, or conduct other creative tasks.

What are the reasons for the rising interest in generative AI?

Another highly exciting feature of these most recent models – besides their ability to not only make predictions but generate original content – is their flexibility driven by scale. While earlier generations of AI systems were mostly good for one specific purpose, newer models can be reassigned from one type of problem to another, closing in on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). These models are also called “Foundation Models” and promise huge economic potential as general-purpose technologies. We have come to believe that AI will trigger the next wave, i.e. the third wave, of 21st century digital tech innovation, after mobile internet and cloud computing.

What barriers does generative AI need to overcome?

We are at the beginning of the Generative AI journey and foundation models are still in their infancy. The question of what this new platform will look like and who its gatekeepers will be cannot be answered yet.

However, for Generative AI to sustain its promise beyond the initial hype, there are some fundamental challenges to be solved both on the foundation model layer and on the application layer. On the foundation model layer, questions around output explainability, data privacy and copyright concerns need to be answered. On the application layer, startups still need to find innovative ways to derive real and sustainable customer value from the capabilities of generative models. Another challenge for startups is the importance of data and the capital, when it comes to building defendable products in this space; here, large incumbent companies typically have an advantage over young companies.

What is the investor opportunity?

So far, most VC-backed companies within the Gen AI landscape are either active at the core infrastructure layer or providing horizontal applications across industries. Most funding allocated on the application layer is being invested in horizontal use cases that address various industries with function-specific generative capabilities (e.g. customer support or sales communication). In some of the more obvious segments we already identify a very high number of early-stage startups (e.g. up to 140 for text generation for marketing purposes).

For the future, we expect more Generative AI applications to emerge for domain-specific use cases as the core infrastructure platform matures. The reasons for this assumption are the following: Tackling of industry-specific challenges and access to unique proprietary data.

Vertical-specific products will be better equipped to leverage domain-specific datasets to create or finetune more precise and defendable models. Additionally, companies focused on specific verticals or domains may be more able to come up with novel and unique user interfaces between customers and models to solve industry-specific challenges. These user-interfaces don’t need to be as flexible as those for horizontal use cases that serve multiple industries, further raising barriers of entry. However, the addressable market size of vertical applications is likely to be scrutinised, due to their narrower focus.

Which companies are doing interesting things in this space?

On the foundation model layer, Aleph Alpha has built some unique capabilities (e.g. explainability) into their large language model Luminous, which is the only European large language model operating at scale. On the application layer, we see more and more interesting cases of vertical use cases emerging. For example, Harvey or Casetext in the Legal Vertical or Genei and Scispace in the Education Vertical.

Tell us about your forthcoming DLD AI Summit?

DLD (Digital, Life, Design) is the international conference and innovation platform of Hubert Burda Media and BPI is a long-term partner of DLD. On September 7th, the first ever DLD AI Summit is taking place in Munich and BPI is co-hosting the conference alongside other partners. The DLD AI Summit will address AI´s technological evolution and its impact on all areas of life. The topic will be discussed on an interdisciplinary level, and we are looking forward to high-level speakers on the panel, such as Jonas Andrulis, Founder and CEO of Aleph Alpha, Dex Hunter-Torricke, Head of Global Communications and Marketing at DeepMind, Mark Surman, President of the Mozilla Foundation and Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board of SAP.

About BPI

BPI provides long term growth equity for fast growing digital technology companies, primarily investing in platforms & marketplaces, fintech, B2B SaaS, digital networks, cybersecurity, AI, food tech and commerce-enabling tech.

There will be a livestream of the DLD AI Summit: https://dld-conference.com/

Join the world’s largest angel investment network, where global angel investors meet the great businesses of tomorrow.

Who owns what?

In this guest blog, Carine Schneider, President of Astrella, providers of leading cap table management software, gives a 101 on understanding your cap table, and some of the key risks to avoid when it comes to share ownership.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PRIVATE COMPANY OWNERSHIP 

So, you’ve got a game-changing idea that’s going to disrupt your industry and you are ready to raise funding and change the world. Congratulations! You’re ready to move fast and break things, to turn it up to eleven, to do what most won’t, to live like most can’t. You’re ready to build your very own rocket ship

And we love that about you. But take a breath. 

The startup landscape is a wild world. Sobering statistics are often tossed around about the single-digit percent of startups that make it, with relatively few companies receiving venture capital funding. 

But there are steps you can take from the start to significantly increase your chances of success, from negotiating the initial agreement that lays out the foundations of your partnership with your co-founders to your five-year road map. Decisions you make now will determine how sustainably you grow, the quality of investors and investment you attract, and the level of control you maintain. 

Let’s build that rocket ship on rock-solid foundations. 

WHO OWNS WHAT? 

“A lot of entrepreneurs don’t really 

understand how the pie is divided,” 

Carine Schneider, 

President of AST Private Company Solutions. 

Too many founders think it’s just slicing up the company and distributing (or selling) the pieces. They think ownership is locked in with a one-time decision that lays out clear-cut, unchanging percentages (maybe they’ve watched too much Dragon’s Den…). They may think they own half the company and will always have the final say in decisions that affect it. 

All too many learn the hard way that things change. 

Even in the simplest scenario, where you and a co-founder are splitting company ownership 50/50, you’ll need to put aside 10 to 15 percent for the employee equity compensation plan. So, the slices have gotten more complicated before you’ve even thought about accepting investments from multiple rounds of investors. 

What’s more, regardless of share types and percentages, your board will make important decisions about your company’s finances, strategy, and even ownership (more on building your board in a future post!). 

Equity is all the same… OR IS IT? 

“Shares” sounds simple enough. 

Except that the shares you and your employees hold in your company aren’t necessarily the same as the shares your investors will own. It’s important to understand the variables among different shares and share classes; the powers and responsibilities that come with them can vary significantly. 

“Say you and I each own 100 shares of a private company,” Schneider says. “We can’t really compare that value until we understand when we each bought the shares, what kind they were, and the rights and privileges that came with those shares.” 

Although this can get far more complicated, the first key distinction to understand is between common and preferred shares. Broadly, common shares – the kind you issue in your own company – come with voting rights and low or no dividends, while the preferred shares, which are what you may typically sell in priced rounds, usually do not have voting rights and pay higher dividends. In a private company, there is a lot of flexibility on the rights and privileges that can be assigned to different shares. 

Experienced investors will negotiate preference items that affect how the shares are handled in the event of different outcomes, including at exit, which could be an acquisition or stock-market flotation, or maybe a liquidation. 

Think of company ownership as a line of shareholders. You and your co-founder and your early employees were there first, so you will always be at the front of the queue, right? 

Wrong. 

The thing is, the people who set up chairs and camped out from the start (holders of commonshares) can get trampled by the investors (holders of preferred shares / share-classes) who showed up much later with more money. 

Savvy early backers will try to negotiate anti-dilution clauses to keep their percentage from shrinking, even as later investors line up preference items to ensure their full amount is returned to them. At your company’s exit, you may be surprised to find yourself at the back of the line. 

In short, ownership can be complex and not intuitive. 

You need to make sure you always understand who has what type of shares, what the terms are, and what the implications are for your ownership. 

You will be well served by lining up expert advisors who
can help you make sure you are making the best decisions for your company from the earliest steps. It’s also important to have access to a system that provides you with both exit as well as “next-round” modeling tools. Real talk: the incredible disappearing stake. There 

OK, so seriously… WHO OWNS WHAT? 

With all the complexity involved in ownership, how do you keep track of everyone’s place? Enter the capitalisation table. 

The “cap table” is a tool that tracks company ownership data. In short, it determines that line of stakeholders by tracking their equity stakes over time. A good cap table means
no surprises. 

A common mistake new founders make is waiting too long to create a cap table. Nearly as common—and just as harmful—is creating a poor (or inaccurate) one. 

While a simple spreadsheet may give a snapshot of a moment in time in ownership, it can be dangerously inadequate. Spreadsheet files can get lost, or a simple typo can change your billion to a million. It’s important to use a robust tool. to store, track, and model ownership data that tracks the changes to ownership over time. 

The cap table is one of the first things any potential investor will request when considering an investment. In addition to showing constant, real-time ownership data, it will model the changes to your ownership under different potential investment scenarios. “A smart investor is always going to want to look at the cap table, and a smart investor is not going to want to look at a cap table that comes from a spreadsheet,” Schneider says. 

Companies raising capital through Angel Investment Network benefit from complimentary access to Astrella for up to 15 stakeholders, with the following code used during registration: 

LAURENCE15


For more information about Astrella please click here.

About Carine Schneider

Carine Schneider, FGE, is the President of AST Private Company Solutions. She was honored in 2019 with the ProShare Award for Services to Employee Share Ownership, in 2017 as one of the 100 Influential Women in Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley Business Journal) and one of “17 Women to Watch”​ in 2017 by Brown Brothers Harriman.

Carine was invited to become a Fellow of Global Equity (FGE) in 2019. An experienced and well-connected leader in private market & global compensation industry. Carine was formerly the President, NASDAQ Private Market Equity Solutions

For any equity related queries or cap table assistance contact Laurence@Astrella.com.

An Introduction to Litigation Funding

Out investment series continues with an exploration of litigation funding, with a guest post from Sophie Liu at Axia Funding:

AxiaFunder is an online litigation funding platform that connects investors with pre-vetted commercial litigation opportunities that we believe have the potential to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. We are specifically targeting cases on the lower end of the legal market which, in our view, has been underserved by existing funders. 

To date, AxiaFunder raised £2,387,843 for 14 commercial cases, of which six have already reached a positive resolution, generating a 12-94% return to our case investors each over a period of 2-15 months (with an average IRR of 48%). The remaining 8 cases are currently ongoing. There are no losses to date. *

What is Litigation Funding?

Litigation funding is where a third-party agrees to finance the legal costs of a dispute in return for a share of the proceeds that would be eventually recovered by the funded party. Litigation funding is typically provided on a non-recourse basis, meaning the funded party has no obligation to repay the funder in the event the case is unsuccessful.  

What are the benefits of litigation funding as a new investment asset? 

Litigation funding can potentially generate significant returns to case investors. It is common for investors of a winning case to expect to double, triple or quadruple their initial investment.* This asset also has zero correlation with the fluctuations in the broader economy and other assets. In addition, each case is almost entirely uncorrelated with each other. Thus, this offers further diversification. 

What are the impacts of post Covid-19 economic environment on litigation investment? 

In contrast to other investment opportunities (such as equities or real estate), litigation investment has zero correlation with the fluctuations in the broader economy and other assets. This makes it a compelling investment in current economic environment plagued by volatility and ongoing uncertainty over the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, litigation itself is expected to increase during an economic recession due to a sharp increase in a number of business insolvency related claims.

What are the social benefits of litigation funding? 

Litigation funding helps to level the playing field by offering access to justice for those who need it the most. The litigation process is well known to be an expensive and often lengthy exercise with the final legal costs being uncertain. SMEs or individuals who enter contractual agreements with large companies often find themselves exposed to additional commercial risk due to the prohibitive cost of protecting their legal interests. Litigation funding offers claimants a means of pursuing a viable claim while preserving liquidity and minimising risk. 

Can you give any examples of your funded cases? 

• An unfair minority shareholder prejudice petition, where the defendant, the majority shareholder and a director of a company, allegedly diverted economic value from the claimant, a minority shareholder, who was instrumental in developing the business. This case has resolved successfully generating a 33.1% return to investors in 14 months.*

• An insurance claim by the builder, whose development was subjected to an arson attack, against both the insurance company for unreasonably seeking to avoid settling the client’s claim on its insurance policy, and the insurance broker for the non-disclosure of information on the basis of which the policy has been voided. This case has resolved successfully generating a 11.8% return to investors in 2 months.*


How do you select litigation cases? 

Cases have to satisfy the following criteria:

• Legal merit: The legal merits of the claimant’s case must be strong. Typically, independent legal counsel will have endorsed the case with a high probability of success.

• ATE insurance policy: Each case must have an ATE insurance policy in place. It protects AxiaFunder’s case investors from adverse cost risk and helps to eliminate low quality cases.

 • Case economics: The estimated damages normally have to be at least 5x the estimated costs of pursuing the case to trial. 

• Enforceability: There must be clear evidence that the defendant has the financial resources to pay the damages and that any court judgement can be enforced.

• Experienced legal team: AxiaFunder will only fund cases for which the claimant’s legal team are clearly competent and have in-depth experience in the relevant area. 

• Alignment of interest: The claimant and his legal team should share some downside risk in the event the case loses. 

Other considerations include regulation, security for costs, pricing, and funding strategy to trial.


What are the risks of investing in litigation cases and how to mitigate them?

Litigation funding is typically provided on a non-recourse basis. As a result, an investor stands to lose all or most of their original investment if the case is unsuccessful. However, the downside risk of losing the entire investment can be significantly reduced by investing in a portfolio of litigation cases. This is illustrated in the article Single case versus portfolio litigation funding.

There is also a risk of having to pay the other side’s costs in the event the losing party themselves lacks the capital to cover these costs. The adverse cost risk can be mitigated by having After-The-Event (ATE) insurance policy in place. It provides protection against the liability to pay the other side’s costs in the event the case is unsuccessful. 

How to invest with AxiaFunder?

Investors need to register on the AxiaFunder platform and complete the onboarding process which involves completing identity checks and passing the investor suitability test. Once these steps are complete, investors are ready to invest. 

* Past performance is not indicative of future results & Capital at risk. Returns are not guaranteed

An Investor’s Guide to Key Startup Metrics

Angel investors generally invest early in a startup’s life, meaning that if they identify successful investments, there is potential for huge returns. One of the key steps for angels to assess investment opportunities is looking at metrics and benchmarking against other similar companies. 

To be clear, every sector, and indeed every startup, will have different relevant metrics, but these should be of use as a starting point:

Churn rate 

A company’s churn rate is the percentage of customers that cancel in a given period. It’s of particular importance, in that acquiring new customers is typically considerably more expensive than acquiring new customers. 

Furthermore, if a company has a high churn rate, it can be a sign that there are issues with the product, or potentially that the service does not provide long term value for the customer. 

Liquidity on the Balance Sheet

Looking at a company’s balance sheet to determine the spending power of a company gives a number of important insights: how long the company can cover expenses and continue to operate, a company that is overextended, for example, may give cause for concern about their management style, consequently having an impact on whether you wish to invest. 

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Particularly relevant to subscription businesses that will have new customers signing up, as well as existing customers cancelling (churning). MRR gives you an effective way of evaluating the growth of a company and projecting ahead. 

MRR is calculated by multiplying the number of customers on a monthly subscription by Average Revenue Per User. 

Customer Acquisition Cost 

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the cost to acquire a new customer. Typically for new companies this will be high, as they only have limited insights as to how to target their customer and have yet to fully optimise their conversion funnel. 

However as they start to scale, there will be a competing factor, as you start to bid for more traffic in auctions on platforms such as Facebook and Google Ads, it will become more expensive on a per user basis to get more users. 

EBITDA

EBITDA is defined as earnings, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are subtracted. EBITDA is a profitability metric that strips out expenses that might obscure how a company is actually performing and therefore gives a cleaner interpretation of how a company is actually performing.

A higher EBITDA margin (EBITDA divided by total revenue) indicates a more financially stable company with lower risk.  

Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

By measuring customer lifetime value (CLTV) in relation to customer acquisition cost (CAC), you can estimate the length of time it takes to recoup an investment to acquire a new customer. 

Customer lifetime value is calculated by taking the average purchase value and multiplying it by the average number of purchases that the company in question obtains. 

A predictive customer lifetime value model will take account of the fact that customers’ future behaviour might change, i.e their purchasing may become more frequent in the future due to certain factors.  

Break-even 

Getting to break-even is the point where total revenue reaches total costs. When a startup reaches break-even point, any money earnt above that is profit. As such, the startup becomes less reliant on raising future investment to keep growing. From an investment perspective, if the company is likely to achieve break even quickly, then it has the effect of de-risking the investment.  

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score is a measure of the overall customer experience. NPS is calculated by asking ‘On a scale of 0-to-10, how likely is it that you would recommend our service to a friend or colleague?’. Customer that score a 9 or 10 are classified ‘promoters’, those that score 0-6 are classified detractors. NPS is the total number percentage of promoters – the total percentage of detractors.

NPS provides an insight into how happy customers and is therefore a leading metric that can be used to understand the potential for revenue and value capture in the future.

Keen to hear more 

As your investment journey continues, you will become more familiar with the investment metrics that you should pay close attention to. If you are looking to learn more about investing, you can read our investing guides here.

Acing Due Diligence: Selecting Startups Like a Pro

Antonis Argyros is the CEO of Vesquad, in this guest post he shares advice about getting Due Diligence right – from setting up processes and using relevant tools, to getting to know the founders. Vesquad support investors by enabling them to provide hands-on support to their portfolio companies through an integrated approach.

As an angel investor, handpicking promising startups that actually do have the potential to succeed is one of the most challenging tasks you’ll have to undertake. Europe in 2021 had one of the best – if not the best- years in terms of startups’ revenue, which possibly exceeded $100 billion in total venture capital investment, according to a report created by Atomico for the investment firm Cambridge Associates. But how can you ensure that you’ll secure a piece of that revenue?

By creating a transparent and objective process of evaluating which ideas and early-stage startups are worth investing in, you’ll be able to identify the most profitable opportunities and increase your revenue through successful exits. Building and implementing such a process allows you to identify a startup’s weak points early on to evaluate which of these can be improved through operational support or which could lead to failure.

For a VC firm with multiple investors, one profitable exit for every ten investments might be an acceptable ratio. For an angel investor, however, a thorough due diligence process is essential in decreasing investment risk as much as possible. Bonus points, providing constructive feedback to the founders of startups that were not selected for funding, gives them the opportunity to improve any weak points and emerge again as a candidate startup with more potential in the future.

However, handling an entire portfolio of companies and at the same time evaluating new investments can be very time-consuming. To make things easier, we’ve gathered the most important steps that will help you during the due diligence process, and the things that you should look out for before investing.

Build a structured process

Before moving on to financials, you probably already have certain basic criteria that a candidate startup needs to meet before investing in it, such as a specific area of focus or a specific market both in terms of technology and geography. If not, make that your number one priority.

Assuming that you have, in order to better examine if those criteria are met, you’ll need to build a structured and transparent process that will ensure there will be a careful evaluation of all the desired parameters before a startup becomes part of your portfolio. The best way to do that is by dividing your process into stages and identifying what you need to examine during each stage. This will help you to quickly eliminate any startups that you don’t think would be a good addition to your portfolio and focus on the ones that seem fit.

Get to know the founding team

We’ll start with the basics, as this is something that is often overlooked, usually due to everyone’s hectic daily schedule or due to the fact that we tend to focus on business and forget about the people. Dedicating some time to grasp a founder’s vision can reveal a lot about the startup they’re trying to build. What their background is, what skills they have and what value they can bring during later stages, what inspired them, and what drives them are all questions that will help you establish a relationship with the people you’ll possibly be in contact with until that much-coveted exit.

Enrich your inventory with the right tools

To gather all the necessary information that will guide you in the right direction and help you conduct the due diligence in the most effective way, you’ll need a series of different tools for each stage of your process. You could start with simple tools, such as an extended questionnaire with targeted questions that will give you an idea about the basics, such as the vision, the value proposition, the market size, and the KPIs. Keep in mind that the entire process should be guided by a positive attitude since the goal is to find the ideal fit for both the investor and the startup so that there is a win-win situation.

At Vesquad, we’ve developed a series of tools exactly for this purpose, that can help you automate the due diligence process by going past the basics and defining in precision the maturity level of each venture.

Adopt the best negotiation tactic for your personality

When negotiating financing, it is important to aim for a result that will be fair for both sides, keeping everyone content, and that the relationship between everyone involved remains intact. The composition of a legal term sheet that will be beneficial to you and at the same time attractive to the startup’s founders, can be achieved through the right negotiation tactic that matches your personality. These tactics have analogs and can be useful or ineffective in reaching a negotiated agreement. It’s crucial to understand how different styles complement one other, how some conflict, and how some have inherent advantages.

Being prepared in advance of the meeting and having a specific plan is crucial. This will give you the opportunity to be prepared about which terms you will be willing to accept and when to abandon the deal, which if it is left to be decided during the meeting can lead to mistakes and ruin the relationship with the founding team. This is why building a relationship beforehand, as mentioned earlier, is crucial. Knowing the people who will attend the meeting could reveal their strengths, weaknesses, motivators, and insecurities, which can give you valuable insight and ensure a better deal.

Venture Building Framework

After the deal has been sealed, what’s next?

We said that selecting the right startups that will lead to a successful exit is one of the many challenges an investor will face. The next big challenge is everything that takes place during the interval right after the investment is made and during the startup’s exit. Maintaining a close relationship with the founding team is equally important even after the investment has been made. There is more and more data showing that founders expect more than money from all their funding sources. So how can you stand out and satisfy that ever-increasing need?

By offering an added value that goes beyond capital itself and focuses on the operational needs startups and their founding teams have in order to grow. This is exactly the value we offer both to investors and entrepreneurs at Vesquad. We can help you adopt an operational model and provide hands-on support to your portfolio companies in order to accelerate their growth and minimize failure rates. From sourcing new ventures to supporting your existing ones, we’ll connect the dots for you so that you can focus on the cool stuff.

How to become an Angel Investor

2021 saw a record number of investors join Angel Investment Network. We expect to see the trend continue into 2022, with both established investors and new investors joining the platform. 

If you are thinking about taking the plunge for the first time and getting involved in backing some of the great businesses of tomorrow, here’s our guide for getting started:

What is an Angel Investor?

An angel investor is an individual who backs one of a startup’s first rounds of funding, investing their own money, rather than a venture capitalist (VC) that invests pooled funds at a later stage.

The term ‘angel’ apparently originally came from Broadway theatre, where wealthy individuals gave money to help bring the theatrical productions to life. 

Why should you become an Angel Investor?

Backing startups whilst high risk, opens you up to much higher potential returns than traditional forms of investments. In some countries, governments also provide tax breaks to investors that back startups. 

Who can become an Angel Investor?

In the UK, to qualify as an angel investor, you will need to meet the criteria of either a self-certified sophisticated investor or a high net worth investor:  

Self-Certified Sophisticated Investors 

Self-certified sophisticated investors need to broadly meet at least one of the following criteria:

– Have been a member of an angel network for at least 6 months;  

– Made two investments in an unlisted company in the last two years, this could for example include on crowdfunding platforms;

– Work or have worked in the last 2 years in private equity, or providing finance for small and medium enterprises; 

– Be a director of a company, or have been in the last 2 years with annual turnover of at least £1 million.

High Net Worth Individual 

Achieving high net worth individual status broadly means that you have a salary in excess of £100,000, or net assets excluding property of over £250,000.  

US – Accredited Investors 

In the US, angel investors are normally (but not always) individuals who have accredited investor status. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defines an ‘accredited investor’ as one with a new worth of $1million in assets, excluding personal residence, or having earned $200k income for the two previous years, or $300k for married couples. 

How much do you need to invest? 

Whilst startup ticket size varies hugely, a typical amount that an angel investor might invest is between £10k and £50k in the UK, and $25k to $100k in the US.

Should I diversify?  

Many investors aim to diversify their investments by building a portfolio with 10+ investments, in the hope that a few successes will counter any companies that are unsuccessful, leading to a positive Internal Rate of Return (IRR) on their portfolio. 

How do you get started? 

On the Angel Investment Network platform you can set preferences for the kind of deals that you are interested in and get relevant opportunities sent to you, or use the search facility to find deals worldwide. 

Providing you either meet the criteria of a self certified investor or a high net worth individual, you can sign up as an investor on Angel Investment Network here. 

Looking Back & Looking Forwards

Looking Back

When we reflected on the year at the end of 2020, a few things sprung out: the sheer chaos inflicted by the Coronavirus, or COVID, as we now call it. It caused all kinds of new problems – with new startups emerging to solve these problems.

Redundancy and furlough led to the talent pool increasing and the quality of start up teams increased, a key predictor of startup success.  Productivity jumped as people found new ways to save time, skipping their daily commute and switching meetings to shorter Zoom calls. 

Whilst 2020 was devastating on a personal front, there was no shortage of innovation. So where does that leave us towards the end of 2021?

The Antisocial Networks

Whether it’s Brexit, anti-vax debates, or anything in any way political, it’s clear that social networks are incurring serious strain in their never-ending challenge to chase engagement. Facebook’s recent rebrand ‘Meta’ makes logical sense to deflect some of the focus away from it. 

Facebook’s commitment to the metaverse has led to considerable interest in the space from Venture X, with key investors coming out as hugely bullish, even if very few people can clearly define what the metaverse is, or will become. So what is a metaverse, anyway?

According to Andy Liu from Unlock Ventures “It’s the intersection of the physical and digital worlds, where augmented reality, virtual reality, blockchain-based environments enable people with blockchain development skillsets to develop and live in new ‘worlds’ — a fully immersive experience to express themselves, connect, interact, conduct commerce, and experience a whole new reality.”

One of key questions on investors’ lips is will the metaverse be dominated by the Metas and Microsofts, or more nimble startup? Eitherway, expect an onslaught of new metaverse startups emerging in the new year.

Good COP, bad COP?

COP26 had some clear outputs from cutting methane emissions to curbing oil and gas exploration, protecting forests and shifting from coal to clean power. Whether COP26 went far enough or not to keep the goal of a 1.5 degree temperature rise by the end of 2030 is still for discussion.

 However, in the words of AIN’s Head of Impact and CEO of SeedTribe, Liv Sibony, 

‘If you’re looking at predictions, one thing I would say is that big companies and governments are now committing to much higher standards of environmentalism, and that demand will stimulate growth/the market for start-ups offering environmental solutions, especially in the B2B space’. 

Whilst it’s too early to see the direct impact on start up innovation, it will certainly be interesting to see the startups that step up as a result of COP induced changes in legislation. 

Are we WFHing?

As the COVID pandemic started to recede, only to spike again with Omicron, one of the things that became clear is that no one knows where they are going to be working. 

There was the colour coding your bookshelf stage, the pimping your home office with external mic, light and webcam, and then the ‘pingdemic’, with those in shared offices in particular, waiting to be pinged. 

In short, we’ve tried a lot of different ways of working over the last year, and the one thing that we can agree on is, well, it’s hard to predict where we’re going to be working next year. 

Whatsmore with escalating inflation and a spiral in wage demands, there’s a clear war for top talent emerging. How to attract and retain top talent is going to be clearly front of mind for startups in 2022. 

Diverse Investing

According to Nadine Campbell, Ace Entrepreneurs, ‘in the UK while just 5% of founding teams have two female founders, research has also shown that only 1% of venture-funded startups have black founders. In the USA, black startup entrepreneurs still received only a tiny fraction, 1.2%, of the $147 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. startups’.

With movements such as Black Lives Matter providing a catalyst for a growing number of new funds and outfits supporting underrepresented founders, there’s a growing acceptance about how diverse team are better rounded, have less blindspots and ultimately, are better positioned to achieve a higher valuation multiple. 

We see some positive steps in the right direction and challenge our whole investor community to think about what you can do to help accelerate this.  

In Summary

At AIN, our mission is ‘to connect the world to enable investors to back the great business of tomorrow’.

For us, it has been a strong year, we’ve launched a fund, AIV capital, enabling investors to back later stage, high potential companies, we’ve had record number of investors signing up to the platform, and a 15% increase in investor connections being made with entrepreneurs. 

Ultimately, it wouldn’t have been possible without you, our investors and entrepreneurs, and the AIN team for all their hard work. 

We know how hard it can be to switch off, but hope you get a chance to recharge in the festive period. See you in 2022.  

StartUpBuzz

In the run up to the festive period, the AIN team highlights some of the companies that they are most excited about. With two companies shaking up the property market, a chocolate brand targeting the very top of the market, and a company that is revolutionising 3D printing.

Virtual View App 

During the pandemic, viewing properties has been difficult, at times impossible, but one of the lasting effects of it is more and people screening potential properties with virtual tours. 

Virtual View’s ‘Vieweet’ app helps amateur photographers create a 360 view, or virtual tour on an app. It’s useful for viewing potential property to buy or let, but other use cases span insurance, interior design and surveying. 

Key Facts

– Vieweet currently collects data on the 7% of the UK properties sold every month 

– Partnerships with some of the largest property sites including Zoopla

– Customers include some of the largest estate agents, such as Purple Bricks and Countrywide

‘The thought of them already collecting data on 7% of UK properties sold every month before turning on the revenue taps showed me just how confident the founder is. The levels of data they can gather on each home will help further stimulate several other industries’ Xavier Ballester

Find out more about Virtual View App. 

PropertyLoop 

Continuing the property theme, PropertyLoop is an end to end lettings platform. Making life much easier for property landlords. It’s also the world’s first commission free letting platform. 

Landlords typically spend thousands on unhelpful agents just to find a tenant. On PropertyLoop, landlords list their property only once, the listings then are posted on to hundreds of portals including Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket. PropertyLoop verifies renters identities, as well as sorting tenancy agreement, deposits and renewals.

There’s also a ‘Smart’ tools service where tenant report any issues with the property online, where it is automatically sent to relevant, qualified contractors who bid for the work. Property Loop takes care of all the access, proof of work and invoicing so that landlords don’t have to. 

Key Facts

– Multi excited founders 

– sold one of London’s biggest retail estate agency chains, taken care of $1 billion of property every year. 

– 95% of the market still being dominated by High Street Agents, the ‘Blockbusters’ of the Property Market

Total Addressable Market – £1.7 trillion rental market

‘Having spoken to a number of landlords about PropertyLoop each of them said they would be crazy not to use it. Everything to do with the running of your property under one roof and free is definitely a problem being solved!’ Xavier Ballester

Firetree

Firetree

There’s expensive chocolate, and then there’s Firetree – chocolate is priced at a price point that you wouldn’t really expect to see chocolat at, more the territory you would expect to see a fine wine.

Firetree is a new chocolate brand positioning itself at the top of the end of the market, and therefore avoiding the competitive mid-market with the likes of Cadbury and Mars. Chocolate is roasted in its shells using a slow chocolate craft production process to ‘optimise their complet taste characteristic’.

Firetree believe they are the only serious player who can capture the top of the market with an experienced team that combines both mass market and high end chocolate experience. 

Key Facts 

– Set for £1m in revenues in 2021

– Retailers include Harrods, M&S and Ocado

– Vegan, Dairy-Free, Nut Free, Halal and Kosher Certified. 

‘ I tasted them and know just how delicious they are. My wife is a big chocolate snob and says she has never tried a better chocolate. Firetree could be the brand to take over the super premium category.’ Xavier Ballester

Find out more about Firetree.

Wayland Additive

Wayland Additive

Wayland Additive have overhauled additive manufacture (3D Printing) of metals, making it faster, more reliable and allowing for the printing of larger structures than has commonly been possible. 

Wayland aims to create metal Additive Manufacturing (“AM” – 3D printing) machines to sell to  industrial organisations, including in the aerospace and medical industries. With highly advanced tech created from the worlds of scanning electron microscopy and electron beam lithography. 

As a result of these innovations the machine will offer higher productivity, unparalleled process monitoring and control, and versatility in materials.

Facts

– First client signed in N. America (£850k) and working with the MOD

– £29m pipeline of opportunities

– Raised £2.1m of a £3m round backed by Longwall Ventures

To hear more about Wayland Additive, reach out to Ed Stephens directly ed(at)angelinvestmentnetwork.co.uk.

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.

#SixtySecondStartUp with Society

Up next for #SixtySecondStartUp we have Matthew Billington, Co-founder of Society. Matthew noticed that student usage of Facebook was falling off a cliff and set up a startup to help student societies manage their members with their own branded apps.

What does Society do?

Society is your own branded community app in an instant. With over 1,700 clubs with group chats in over 217 Universities in the UK and worldwide, Society is now the fastest growing app at University for clubs and societies.

App features include push notifications direct to all your members for instant alerts and updates for events and announcements. It has your club’s calendar of events, an instant searchable network, personal profiles, direct messaging, group chats, free e-tickets and much, much more. And, it’s completely free for students. 

The Society App

Why did you set up Society?

When I entered my 4th year as a dental student at King’s College London, I soon discovered that being elected President of the KCL Dental Society of 800 members came with its fair share of problems. Engagement was falling and falling, Facebook was becoming increasingly outdated especially with freshers. Year on year, we were seeing a progressive decline in engagement with university students.

With popular event booking platforms such as Eventbrite and Fatsoma, having high transaction fees, I wanted to create a platform with the lowest possible ticket transaction fees for students, whilst remaining free for free events. WhatsApp groups were also a terrible way to manage a society and events. 

How did you get your first customer?

After engaging with Presidents from other dental schools I soon discovered that nearly every new President of a university society is in the same boat, re-creating the wheel, each and every year.

I originally came up with the idea of the Dental Society app to have a profound and positive impact on committees and society members at all 16 dental schools. Helping committees to save time through automating event management, certificates, ticketing/e-tickets for events, whilst having the committee displayed and available for all members to directly contact through the chat. 

We knew we were onto something when?

Suddenly, the Presidents of King’s College London Medical Student Association wanted to use the Dental Society app. Then 18 months ago when the app was re-engineered and relaunched as “Society” for all student clubs, Aston’s African Caribbean Society wanted to use the app. That’s when we experienced exceptional growth from 12 clubs to 800 clubs to now over 1700 clubs in the last 18 months.

Our business model:

Society co-founders chose pre-monetisation to maximise and prioritise viral growth without friction. Over the next 12 months, we are proving multiple revenue streams to find optimal ways of aligning monetisation with viral growth.

Our most effective marketing channel has been:

Word-of-mouth with students. The new academic year saw more than two hundred Society Ambassadors attend Freshers Fairs at Universities across the UK to promote the Society app to clubs, societies and students. All ambassadors wore the Society hoodie while spreading the word about the features and benefits of the app. The awareness campaign was a huge success.

Society Brand Ambassadors

What we look for when recruiting:

Insanely great people with ideas and raw talent, passion and energy that don’t need to be managed. They have to believe in the Society app, our vision and be fun. 

The biggest mistake that I’ve made is:

Not immediately realising the full potential of the Society app as an instant community app for absolutely everyone in the world. ESN UK is set to digitise the student exchange experience with their new Society App partnership. Formally the Erasmus Student Network, ESN is the largest student-led organisation in the world in over 1,000 Higher Education Institutions in 42 countries.

Together with Society App, ESN UK are launching a new app specifically for their members to help them to develop skills to a higher proficiency. As seen in The Daily Telegraph, the ESN partnership presents a global opportunity for the Society app and is one of the pathways to having a world-wide presence in 2022 with student brand ambassadors in every country.

We think that there’s growth in this sector because:

Significant traction has been made in the new academic year post covid lock downs. In the last 90 days, clubs have doubled and grown by 100% across 1,700+ Clubs, now also with 1,700+ Group Chats. Memberships have grown by 130% and engagement has grown by 700%. Over £50,000 has been collected via Society Pay, the in-app payment gateway. This exceptional growth since launch only 18 months ago, means the Society app has already cornered 13% UK market share and is expected to double in 2022.

The app’s success reflects UK University only, excluding parallel, international and enterprise markets. There’s still time to invest in the Society app (EIS approved) this year to support the team growth of student brand ambassadors and react native developers, which will allow greater scale and global ambitions to be achieved. 

We worked with AIN because:

AIN was highly recommended and we found AIN to be one of the best ways to reach and communicate with potential investors.

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.

#SixtySecondStartUp with IBS Coach

Liamhl Asmall shares the story of IBS Coach, a digital dietary treatment for the 800 million people affected by IBS.

  1. What does your company do?

We help the 1 in 7 people who suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to get instant and effective digital treatment from the phone in their pocket. It may come as a surprise, but IBS is one of the most common digestive conditions on the planet. It’s not life threatening and is still taboo (which is most likely why it’s been so overlooked for so many years), but it severely impacts relationships, work, travel, and ultimately, quality of life.

In one study patients with IBS were willing to give up 15.1 years of their remaining lives to achieve perfect health. People are desperately seeking a cure.

  1. Why did you set up this company?

Healthcare for IBS is inefficient and unaffordable. It is incredible that patients have to wait a reported 1 year to see a specialist on the NHS, or pay up to £320 for private treatment. We set out to solve this problem that our friends and family had faced. Our mission is simple: to make effective digital treatment accessible, affordable, and scalable for this 800 million person IBS healthcare market.

The IBS Coach App
  1. How did you get your first customer? 

When developing a medical product you’ve got a long road to walk before you can sell to customers. Our journey went from achieving medical compliance to setting up a closed beta testing group for people with IBS, to launching in the app stores. The overwhelming positive feedback gave us confidence that patients would buy our product. We launched commercially in October this year and had our first sale almost immediately. It’s a good feeling to know we’re helping people manage their IBS.

  1. We knew we were onto something when? 

We interviewed 30 people with IBS at the start of our journey and just listening to their stories and frustrations showed us there was a clear need for an affordable, simplified treatment for IBS. Very early on we shared a post on Facebook and had almost 200 sign ups in the first 24 hours. These were early points of validation and were supported by lots of desk research.

  1. Our business model: 

IBS is a lifelong condition that needs ongoing symptom management. Because of the ongoing nature of IBS, we aim to support patients throughout their life. The business model is a recurring revenue subscription and we are currently testing our acquisition channels and pricing. One of our goals is to establish a marketing flywheel with our next SEIS fundraise. 

  1. Our most effective marketing channel has been: 

Organic sales in the iOS app store. We’re now putting marketing spend behind Apple Search Ads and Google Ads which are ‘high intent’ channels. We’ve run multiple Facebook campaigns to test landing pages and messaging, and we’ll be exploring ways we can partner with brands.

  1. The biggest mistake that I’ve made is:

One of the early mistakes was focusing too heavily on the product (we have a great product, and as a medical product we perhaps needed to spend a lot of time here!). However, if I were to start over I’d spend slightly less time on product and more time testing sales channels. It’s a fine balance as founders have to wear many hats. The risk is that founders focus on the jobs they like, or feel most ‘comfortable doing’. It’s good to be aware of our bias towards tasks.

  1. We think that there’s growth in this sector because:

IBS is a lifelong condition and the latest reports suggest the rates of IBS have actually increased during Covid. Couple the above with the mass adoption of digital healthcare, the large unserved market, and the scalability of our effective digital program and we have the right trends for our company to grow. 

  1. We worked with AIN because:

AIN has a reputation as one of the best platforms to share our ambitious plans with engaged angel investors; We hope to make many new connections and raise our current SEIS round.

If you are interested in learning more about IBS Coach, please get in touch via the Angel Investment Network platform.

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.

AIV Capital completes investment into meat alternatives business Eat Just Inc.

AIV Capital has announced investment into alternative food business, Eat Just Inc. Eat Just Inc develops and markets plant-based alternatives to conventionally-produced egg products. Founded in 2011 by Josh Tetrick, the San Francisco based business is reducing dependence on chickens and battery farms for egg production by creating a realistic and viable alternative from mung beans.

Eat Just Inc. has raised over $500Mn to date and will use its latest round of funding to continue to improve the unit economics of the business and to focus on international expansion outside of the US. It was announced recently that the key ingredient in its plant-based JUST Egg products received approval from the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) expert panel on nutrition. This opens a pathway for the initial launch of JUST Egg to occur in Europe in mid-2022. Its high profile produce was also on the menu at Barack Obama’s recent 60th birthday.

The company has also raised over $400Mn for its subsidiary, Good Meat which focuses on cultivated meat as an alternative to traditional chicken based products. Good Meat is the first company in the world to receive regulatory approval to sell the cultivated meat products which are now available in Singapore. Earlier this year, the company secured rights for a manufacturing facility in Qatar as a partnership between Doha Venture Capital (DVC) and Qatar Free Zone Authority (QFZA).

AIV Capital is the recently launched institutional investment arm of Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform. Led by experienced investment manager Ethan Khatri, AIV Capital’s focus is on investing 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. 

According to Khatri: “We are delighted to have partnered with CEO, Josh Tetrick and the team at Eat Just Inc. With the demand for plant based products soaring they offer a viable alternative to conventionally-produced egg products and are offering impressive returns for all stakeholders. This is a prime example of the sort of business we will be working with at AIV Capital. One with a strong management team with a demonstrated edge in the space they operate in.”

BehindTheRaise with Paperclip

Rich Wooley is the CEO and founder of Paperclip, a challenger marketplace taking on eBay. Rich shares lessons from his fundraising in #BehindTheRaise: What’s the biggest thing he thinks investors look for? What would he do differently if he did it all again? And well, does AIN really work?

Tell us about what got you into start ups:

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset – my first business was at school selling Big Red chewing gum that I imported from the US, it certainly made me more money than my paper round!

At university, my housemate, Alan, (later, co-founder) and I made good money importing clothes from the US and selling them on eBay, and we saw an opportunity there for a challenger marketplace to take on eBay’s monopoly. We shelved the idea at the time, and both went into our respective management consulting careers – but eventually I thought that if I didn’t do something entrepreneurial soon, I might never, so I took a career break and started attending startup events in London like AngelHack and London Startup Weekend. I pitched Paperclip, we came second place, and we got to work.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

Being a marketplace, we realized that we’d need to go for a few years without any discernible revenue, and so we sought investment to fund the runway. Not only this, but we wanted to get a strong network of investors onboard that could add value on the journey – introductions for commercial partnerships and to other investors, and so on.

Marketplaces are always tricky, and it can take a while until the critical mass of buyers and sellers and unit economics start to take shape. However, when they do get it right, they have the power to influence people’s everyday lives – which is something that excites me a lot. Platforms like Amazon, JustEat, Uber, Deliveroo, and Depop are a testament to that – they provide value to millions of people, and have made massive returns for their investors, but they were cash hungry at the start and required significant investment to get to that scale – we are no different in that regard.

What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?

It’s always tricky at the start.  Your personal network can help a lot at that time – my first investors were a friend from university, a family friend, and my old boss! But other than that, seek investors that add value in the right areas -speak with founders that have exited similar or complementary types of businesses.

Any government support such as grants can help a lot to get momentum going, and speaking to pre-seed funds that can match fund will help things significantly: if you have an offer on the table for match-funding (e.g if you raise £100k then the fund will match that with £100k), then it helps things along significantly.

I’d suggest not being too inflexible on your valuation, but be wary of adapting your investment terms to something you’re not comfortable with, such as giving away too much control or appointing directors that don’t share your vision, or that might become an issue later down the line. The right kind of investors can make your journey far smoother, the wrong type can make it hell.

What attracted investors to your company?

I think investors like the concept of what we’re trying to solve and the novel way that we are approaching it – it helps that the secondhand goods market is massive and also set to expand 500% over the next 5 years – and so the potential is huge. However, at the start, investors are mostly investing in the actual team – and having a strong team really helped with that.

We were fortunate enough to get some high profile investors onboard at seed stage, such as  David Buttress,  co-founder and former CEO of JustEat and Hayley Parsons, the founder and former CEO of GoCompare. Most people in the UK would have either seen or used their platforms, and so it added some credibility to our cause.

Rich Wooley, CEO, Paperclip


My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Probably the biggest fundraising mistake I made was not pushing back on some of the investment agreement terms in our first VC raise. There are a bunch of reporting, corporate governance and approval processes that I have to go through. For example, I need to gain approval for spending over £5,000 on something, or hiring someone with a salary of over £35,000. 

These terms ultimately do benefit and protect our shareholders, so they’re not all bad – but for the stage we’re at, they can be slightly onerous; they  can slow things down at times or take me valuable time to report.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

Over the years, I had heard of Angel Investment Network, but I never wanted to pay for it!  Then one day at the Natwest Accelerator, two of the founders I was mentoring came over and told me they’d raised over £250k each on the platform, and so I signed up right away.

I’ve also tried other platforms, both UK and US focused, and have never had the same level of success on them. It’s clear to me that Angel Investment Network has the largest and most active pool of angel investors in the UK – perhaps in the world; I’ve met some incredible people and received investment from all over the world; Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa – the list goes on.

What has the funding enabled?

Investment has made a huge difference to the talent we have brought onboard, and the build phase that we’re in. Some of our investors have made valuable introductions, and so it has had a massive impact on our business. Going forwards, I can see that the investor base that we have will be able to provide us even more value as we grow.

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.

#BehindTheRaise with Wedo

Wedo is a Neo-Bank set up for the freelance community by 5 times founder Indiana Gregg (Indy); in our latest #BehindTheRaise Indy shares her top tips for fundraising success:

Tell us about Wedo and how you came up with the idea

Wedo is the place to start or grow your online business: create live video and audio alleys, share content, take payments and send and receive money completely hassle-free.

I’m a 5x tech founder and have also run a digital media company where a lot of our gigs came from freelance sites. I had an exit five years ago and focused on learning everything there is to know about the freelance communities that were shooting up and getting tons of traction; so, I became a freelancer myself. It quickly occured to me that this rapidly growing piece of the global workforce would soon be in trouble. Freelancers pay to play. It’s not very cool. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a more fair way to serve them with an ecosystem where they weren’t having as much as 20% of their earnings paid as commission fees. Wedo was the answer.

I started building a prototype at the beginning of COVID and by June, 2020, we had a team. The team bootstrapped for the first eight months and then I came onto the AIN to look for pre-seed investors at that point. We raised £515,000 on a £5M pre-money valuation early this year (2021) This allowed us to get regulatory coverage in the USA, UK and Europe to operate as a bank challenger and we built the SaaS technology MVP and began to private test users this spring. 

We are a community with tools that help create the network freelancers need to connect with clients – They can onboard new clients and connect with existing ones by creating their own Alleys (these are video and audio conference rooms where they can discuss with clients, share files, take instant payments, send and receive invoices and bank seamlessly). 

With Wedo, you can set up a payment link to your conference, consultation or subscription. The deposit goes directly into your Wedo account. You decide whether to use it to pay for something or to transfer it to another account.

Indiana Gregg, CEO, Wedo

Why did you decide to raise investment?

We raised investment in order to build the technology and acquire the partnerships and some of the tech rails we needed. We were also at a point where we needed to hire more people to fill skill sets we were short on. We are currently raising our Seed round again here on the AIN and it’s been epic! We’ve met a lot of amazing investors. We aim to close the round by the end of October. 

What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?

Don’t raise money until you have thought through your business model and can communicate what you are building/creating or selling very succinctly. If investors don’t understand what you are aiming to achieve, it means you aren’t communicating the problem you solve properly yet.

Practice with people in your surroundings to see how you can improve your pitch and ask experts their opinion of your model, you projections and your deck to refine and develop it so that when it’s time to present your plan to investors, you are confident and they are confident that you will be persistent and hit a home run for the company. Investors are on your side. They want you to succeed and if they say no, ask for feedback. Sometimes it’s just not a match; however, oftentimes their advice and feedback can be invaluable. 

What attracted investors to your company? 

Our team is brilliant, the timing is right for the market opportunity,and our technology and business model is a first. 

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Oh boy. I  probably have a lot of these. Raising investment is a learning curve over many years. However, probably introducing an idea too early before it has been baked and refined can be a time waster. Ideas are just ideas. When you begin to execute your idea, it becomes more real and you have an entire research and discovery period to go through prior to asking other people to invest in it. You also have to be fully invested yourself. If you aren’t and it’s too early, don’t go out to raise. Make sure you can validate your idea during each step of the fundraising rounds and you have KPIs and targets that you will hit with the capital that you raise. 

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

I chose angel investment network because I’ve had great experience finding investors for my companies and other companies I’ve consulted in the past here on the AIN.

It’s a really big network and I love that you can search and really pinpoint investors who are most likely to be interested in the company you are building. There is an enormous spectrum of investors globally with varying interests and it’s a great way to connect. 

Our number 1 focus for Wedo for the year ahead is:

Our number one focus will be penetrating the market heavily, we’re going after small businesses and freelancers who open accounts and use our services. We’ll continue refining our tech into full product/market fit, and customer retention. Wash, rinse and repeat! If you’re reading this now, please join us!

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.

#SixtySecondStartUp with Cancha

For this edition of #SixtySecondStartUp we have Jack Oswald, founder of Cancha, he shares how his experience as a professional tennis player led him to set up Cancha – unique tennis bags designed from the ground up:

  1. What does your company do?

Cancha is a customizable sports and travel bag brand. Our bags feature a unique modular design, which allows different accessories to be mounted and detached from each other in a matter of seconds, allowing users to tailor their bag to their favourite activities and daily routine

Cancha Bags are also made from an abrasion-resistant, high-tenacity nylon, and incorporate the latest advancements in textile manufacturing processes, such as laser-cut fabrics, heat-bonded zips and RF Welded construction. Cancha launched during the pandemic of 2020, and has since seen a strong uptake among sporting and outdoor enthusiasts looking for an innovative and durable way to travel with their gear.

Jack Oswald - Cancha
Jack Oswald, Founder of Cancha
  1. Why did you set up this company?

    As a professional tennis player traveling around the world for over a decade on the circuit, I became frustrated with the tennis and travel bags out there for sport and active-minded people. I saw the need for a better tennis bag; One that could adapt for the next trip or activity and durable enough to keep up with an active, travel-hungry lifestyle. 

However, I soon became aware of the wider demand for durable, highly customizable sports bags that could adapt to each individual’s daily routines.  So I teamed up with my friend, who is a world-class soft goods designer, to develop a modular system that would allow a backpack, tennis bag, wet-dry clothes bag and shoulder travel bag (our first range of products) to attach and detach with relative ease. 

This took much longer to develop than originally planned – our 6-month schedule starting in early 2018 ended up taking almost 3 years! We refined and refined the designs, tested them among top tennis players, travelers and anyone who would be willing to try the bags out. We went through over 50 prototypes, all painstakingly built by hand in our small workshop. Eventually, after countless hiccups along the way, we were confident that our bags were ready for the wide world. 

  1. How did you get your first customer? 

I remember very clearly; It was in November of last year. The first batch of bags had landed in the UK and we had just launched the site. A lovely lady in London was our first customer, who bought a bundle of the Backpack and the Wet-Dry Bag attachment. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the order confirmation appeared in my inbox. I think we have never packaged up an order so carefully!

However, the hunger for more sales very quickly grows, and the desire to improve the customer experience starts to becom a bit of an obsession – whether that’s improving our website and social media touchpoints, responding fast enough to customer queries and, of course, continually finding ways to innovate the products themselves!

  1. We knew we were onto something when? 

The first few sales are always a bit of a novelty, but when the consistency of sales kicks in, that’s when you start to believe you have got something. Retailers actually wanting to stock the bags was also a huge confidence booster for us. I remember sending out samples to stores and just being petrified that they would hate the design, or that they would simply say that they didn’t believe there was a market for our products. When we started to get into some stores and have their validity and backing behind our products, things really started to kick off for us. 

  1. Our business model: 

Our bags are currently manufactured in Asia and then shipped off to the UK from there, where we fulfil our orders internationally. We make a large part of our revenue through ecommerce sales on our online store, but partnering with both online and brick-and-mortar retailers has given us the stability to grow.. 

  1. Our most effective marketing channel has been: 

Media outreach. With eCommerce being a big part of our business, we have to mix a wide range of marketing channels into our strategy. However, being able to spread the word on the Story behind them brand, my background as a tennis player and the need we are filling, we have really been able to connect with our customers. I often get customers emailing after their order saying they heard me on some such podcast and the story alone swayed them to buy our products. It’s one of the most overjoying moments when you hear from people all over the world that they identify with our background, our mission and reason for being. This is why media outreach has been so successful for us, as it has allowed both Cancha and myself, as the founder, to get our message across in a sincere and personal way.

  1. The biggest mistake that I’ve made is:

Committing too early (financially and mentally) to a project. We launched our crowdfunding campaign in December of 2019, when our product wasn’t near enough to a  production-ready stage. My own desire to get Cancha’s offering out there made us rush our marketing strategy and meant that backers of our campaign had to wait substantially longer than forecast to receive their Cancha Bags. This is something I think that founders tend to struggle with in general; their passion, desire and determination to achieve their goals sometimes overtakes their company’s progress. While this characteristics is extremely useful, (crucial in fact), sometimes it can cause a company to pull the gun too soon, when it would have been more beneficial to build strength a little longer. 

  1. We think that there’s growth in this sector because:

Times are changing, and we’re changing with the times. Cancha is not just about designing innovative and sustainable soft a products for consumers. We’re also committed to creating a sustainable and highly technical manufacturing service for western athleisure brands. The reality is that shipping products 3,000+ miles from outsourced production or assembly sites in lower cost nations has been the go-to strategy for western brands for some time now. However, we are seeing a substantial shift in the business environment, both among customers and brands for closer proximity of manufacturing and more responsive business models. We want to be a leader in driving this trend, providing more responsible methods to drive innovation and customer experience in the textiles and soft goods industry. 

  1. We worked with AIN because:

We’re looking to bring some forward thinking, ambitious individuals into the project. We’re looking not just additional capital, but also for expertise in retail and production to help propel Cancha in this direction. AIN’s comprehensive network of investors across a wide range of backgrounds and industries made them the obvious choice to share our project.

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.

Angel investment Network announces launch of Institutional investment arm, AIV Capital

Ethan Khatri

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.” 

Ends

Behind The Raise with Tooth

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.

Majority of US startups very optimistic about the next 12 months

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?

  1. Focused more on networking: 46%
  2. Held Off launch plans: 38%
  3. Bootstrapped instead: 32%
  4. Delayed marketing: 32%
  5. Held off making hires: 27%
  6. Had to let staff go: 20%
  7. Relied on business loan: 19%
  8. Pulled back from R&D: 12%

What could the Government do to help?

  1. Make tax relief more generous to boost angel investment: 57%
  2. Make R&D tax relief more generous: 32%
  3. Lower corporation tax: 22%
  4. Offer more clarity on COVID restrictions: 14%
  5. Make it easier to provide VISAs for recruiting the right talent: 13%

What are your biggest challenges going forward?

  1. Raising investment: 84%
  2. Hiring/recruiting the right talent: 22%
  3. Product development: 22%
  4. Ongoing COVID issues: 13%
  5. Consumer sentiment: 12%

Behind The Raise with Porter

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.

#StartUpBuzz


Each month our team selects some of the companies raising on Angel Investment Network that really stand out, as part of our #StartUpBuzz feature.

This month’s picks includes: Smart Container Co – real time tracking for beer kegs, Bx Technologies, a platform facilitating carbon offsetting by connecting corporates with farms, and ARQ, an investment platform for personalised wealth management using AI.

Smart Container Co

Enabling Transparency and a net-zero draught beer supply chain.

Smart Container Co turns traditional kegs into ‘smart’ containers, so that breweries, distributors and pubs can monitor the state of the beer inside, by combining a small waterproof IOT device connected to each keg (a KEGTRACKER), with their BEVEREDGE software.

It means that relevant parties can track the location, volume, temperature and motion for the liquid inside, reducing the risk of wasted stock, helping obtain more accurate shipping information, and gaining granular information about which product is being consumed where and when.

– UK patent pending 
– Chairman with 30 years experience including SAB Miller
– Piloting technology with Brewdog.

Sam Louis, Head of Consultancy, Angel Investment Network shared why he is most impressed by Smart Container Co:

“We’ve known the Smart Container team for a while now and have been incredibly impressed with their progress. What we like is that they have a product that integrates smoothly into an exceptionally large existing market, giving significant opportunity for fast scale.

Since we first spoke with them, they’ve built strong relationships with some of the largest brewers and keg owners in the world, all of which have approached them cold. The timing is also very good – the pandemic has meant pubs and bars have become increasingly open to technology, something that was previously a hurdle, and many breweries have seen strong profits from retail sales.

All in all, it sets the company in a very strong position going forward and we’re excited to see where they go next”.

Find about more about Smart Container Co here.

Bx Technologies  

Helping farms prove carbon emissions and offsetting – connecting farm to corporates.

Farmers are incentivised to maximise crop yields, but are rarely accountable for their carbon footprint. However, there is enormous interest in carbon offsetting from corporates to help them meet their ESG goals. 

Bx Technologies is the first two sided marketplace that connects corporations with farms and agriculture, reversing climate change through carbon offsetting and economic service investment. 

Bx Technologies use a farm management SAAS system with a trading platform powered by blockchain to create a carbon credit investing platform, allowing farmers to see both their carbon position and the profitability of their orchard. At the same time, Bx offers Ecosystem Service Investments for corporates, securing a long term supply of carbon offset tokens. 

– 1st SAAS client signed – paying $200k per year. 
– Expected to hit profitability by March ‘22
– Pipeline of over 12k hectares established 

In terms of what excites him about Bx, Sam Louis explains:

“We were drawn to Bx Technologies for a number of reasons, the first of which was the boldness of their mission – remove 500m tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year. They’re operating in an exceptionally important and exciting vertical, with the opportunity to make an incredible impact on the planet as well creating massive growth potential.

They’ve tied these lofty aims to a strong underlying business model, with profitability within sight, and they aren’t expecting any altruism to make their business work. They’ve aligned the incentives of all their stakeholders, making it genuinely robust model. All in all, it’s the type of business we love – exciting, impactful and pragmatic.”

Find out more about  BxTechnologies here. 

ARQ 

A wealth management app using AI personalised insights and comparisons. 

 ARQ is an investment platform that creates a personalised wealth management experience using AI and deep science. 

The intelligent tools rank your investments performance using huge quantities of data and gives insights that can be used to improve your portfolio. ARQ are making tools that are only available to the super rich to more mainstream investors. 

– A team with over 100+ years experience in financial services 

– ARQ are offering white label services for wealth managers 

– In house tech team behind leading fintech apps.

Xavier Ballester, Director of Angel Investment Network’s Brokerage Division shares why he is particularly impressed with ARQ.

“What I love about Arq is that I have this very issue: an Excel sheet with my various investments that doesn’t really give much insight after I have made my initial decision to invest. The beauty of this platform is that I can see my net worth and how my money is working for me and I imagine it will be a huge hit with financial advisors too.” 

Find out more about ARQ here.

Keen to discover other startups?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network you can find them through your local network here.

#BehindTheRaise with SidebySide

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.