#SixtySecondStartup with Halal Fresh

Saima Duhare is the founder of Halal Fresh, the UK’s first halal non subscription meal kit service predominantly catering for the Muslim community.

  1. What does your company do?

Halal Fresh is a meal kit service providing freshly preportioned ingredients, with an easy to follow recipe card to cook great tasting meals. Making dinner times stress free and enabling our customers to be adventurous in the kitchen, as well as supporting their healthy lifestyles.  

  1. Why did you set up this company? 

 My vision was to bring back the joy of cooking by offering every Muslim household the opportunity to cook homemade fresh meals from around the world, making dinner tables exciting to sit at.  read more

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Surging investor interest in agriculture, fintech and medical startups, finds AIN annual report

Angel Investment Network (AIN) has revealed its latest ‘State of the Angel Investment Nation’ findings. It is based on the data of more than 125,000 UK registered businesses looking for funding and 35,000 UK investors over the course of 2020.

Technology remained the top category of interest for angel investors looking to back businesses in 2020. Meanwhile, finance closed the gap, climbing five places to become the second most popular category for searches. In the year of the pandemic, medical & science climbed two places with a surge in investors backing entrepreneurs focused on improving health outcomes. We also witnessed a huge growth in interest in agriculture which saw a rise of 63% in searches and climbed seven places to become the eighth most searched term. read more

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Sector Focus: EdTech market

“COVID has pulled the transition to digital learning forward by at least 5 years.” These were the words of David Sherwood, CEO and co-founder of EdTech startup BibliU, commenting on the remarkable development of the EdTech market. In our recent look at the data from the platform, it was revealed to be one of the fastest growing sectors for investor interest. Up 56% since the start of the pandemic. AIN’s Sam Louis takes a closer look at the EdTech sector and why it is getting top marks from investors. read more

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Behind The Raise with Pharma Sentinel

We first met Rav Roberts, CEO of Pharma Sentinel, at one of the virtual events that we hosted. He recently successfully closed his investment round, and we are pleased to hear the learnings he has to share:

Tell us about Pharma Sentinel: 

Pharmasentinel.com is a UK Consumer & Business healthtech helping each person to lead a safer life, by leveraging AI to provide trusted, timely & personalised medicines and medical conditions news, alerts and medicines data intelligence.

 PharmaSentinel launched its consumer app ‘medsii’ (Medicines information for Me) in October 2020 on the App Store & Playstore and already has over 15,000 app downloads in 150 countries.  read more

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Predictions for impact investing in 2021

AIN’s Head of Impact and CEO of SeedTribe, Olivia Sibony peers into her crystal ball for 2021 to see what it has in store for the impact investment space.

With the huge focus on the pandemic over the past year – many might have thought impact investing was on the back burner. Luckily this didn’t prove to be the case. In the teeth of the first lockdown on the Angel Investment Network platform we saw renewables become the 11th most popular keyword for searches, a rise of 34 places compared to 2018. We also saw terms like Greentech rocket up the rankings for investors looking to invest. So looking ahead, what can we expect? Here are three predictions. read more

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Sixty Second Startups – FastWater Dispenser

We caught up with Wayne Edward Clarke, Founder of Fast Water Dispensers, who explains how he is revolutionising water dispensers in the Philippines.

What does your company do?

We manufacture a revolutionary new kind of water dispenser for refillable blue 5 gallon water bottles.

Fast Water Dispensers Product Demo

Why did you set up this company?


I come from Calgary, Canada, where the tap water is top quality drinking water. When I moved to the Philippines I wasn’t used to using refillable water bottles for drinking water, as everyone does here. The long amount of time it took to draw a coffeepot full of water from a standard water dispenser to make coffee every morning became more frustrating until it was intolerable. read more

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Digesting 2020

In many ways there were two sides to 2020. On the one-side, there has been a monumental personal loss to so many families, we’ve all been taking the strain mentally due to our daily lives being uprooted, even if we have yet to admit it to ourselves, and many good businesses have been torn apart by COVID. 

But though searching for positives might seem futile, there have been some, and they are noteworthy.

Change = business opportunity

When people have a problem that needs solving, that is often when there is an opportunity for a new business to emerge.  read more

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#Behindtheraise with aisle 3

We spoke to aisle 3 co-founder and CEO Thomas J. Vosper about his business revolutionising the online shopping experience. He talks to us about bouncing back from redundancy, what he learnt from pitching to investors and his passion for ensuring we have #nomoretabs.

Tell us about aisle 3?
Like most people I find it super easy to find a car insurance provider, book a hotel in seconds or find availability on a flight based on what matters to me. So why is it so hard to find out all of my buying options for a set of wireless headphones? I am not alone in having to open endless tabs across multiple retailers and marketplaces when I shop online. read more

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Sector focus: Medtech market

This is the first of our new series focusing on sectors gaining interest and investment from angel investors. You can see my review here to get more details. This month we take a look at the rapidly growing medtech market. This is a sector that has been thrust into the spotlight this year due to COVID and a worldwide focus on healthcare. More startups than ever are winning investment and developing solutions to mankind’s most serious problems. In fact it has seen the fastest growth in keyword searches from our investor database. AIN’s Ed Stephens takes a deeper look. read more

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From redundancy to start up success: aisle 3 raises £200,000 with support from AIN

The founders of ecommerce startup aisle 3 have bounced back after being made redundant at the start of the pandemic to successfully raise £200,000 for their new ecommerce venture, supported by Angel Investment Network.

aisle 3 is a new marketplace providing choice and control for shoppers across the globe, who are able to select from 600 retailers on the platform. By deploying Machine Learning and AI algorithms, they aggregate retailer offers and rich product information so shoppers are presented with all of their buying options on a single screen. It took the business three months to raise the funds after two thirds of the founding team were made redundant at the start of the first lockdown and created the new business.  read more

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Agile Funding can help you raise fast

We are delighted to welcome back Adam Blair, CCO at SeedLegals, for his second guest blog as part of our legal mini-series for start ups:

When funding goes Agile

In our first article we discussed some of the different fundraising methods available to you as a founder, and the impact and benefits of the SEIS / EIS schemes. See How to close your funding round before the end of 2020 if you missed it or need a reminder…

This month we delve deeper into the world of agile fundraising and share some practical advice that can help you raise money for your business before the end of the year. read more

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Silicon Roundabout’s Mustafa Shreet on connecting startups with tech talent

In the latest Startup Microdose podcast AIN’s Global Head of Brokerage Edward Stephens chats to Silicon Roundabout’s Head of Community Mustafa Shreet. Silicon Roundabout is the leading UK community connecting startups with tech talent.

The Silicon Roundabout team are developers themselves and have attracted some of the UK’s best technologists to build their community. They have already helped the likes of Monzo and Treatwell find new employees.

Shreet discusses Silicon Roundabout’s journey over the past ten years. What started as a tech community meet up for developers to discuss opportunities, has grown to now have a community of 15,000 people. As well as matching startups with the right talent to help them survive and thrive, they host hackathons, Tech Talks and a variety of different events.  read more

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#Behindtheraise with Occuity

We spoke to Occuity founder and CEO Dan Daly about his revolutionary new device diagnosing chronic health conditions via a patient’s eye, building a winning team and top tips in securing funding from angel investors.

Tell us about Occuity?

Currently, the diagnosis and monitoring of many chronic health conditions is inadequate, leading to people suffering when they don’t need to or even shortening their life expectancy. 

Occuity’s mission is to improve this damaging situation through the development of cutting edge technology and production of a range of devices that will enable the non-invasive measurement of these conditions. Our devices simply shine light into the eye and detect changes and markers that indicate the person’s health. The first of the many  devices in our development pipeline which will utilise our proprietary technology, is a hand held optical non-contacting pachymeter. read more

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Angel Investment Network reports impressive annual growth

Angel Investment Network (AIN), has announced impressive annual growth, with annual revenues up 5% year on year and the last quarter seeing revenues increasing by 14%.

We now have more than 1.4 million users in total on the platform. In the past twelve months we’ve overseen a record 192,000 new registrations from entrepreneurs. The figure has almost tripled in the past five years with new entrepreneurial hotspots developing across the globe. Encouragingly for the businesses on the platform there is also more investor activity than ever with a record number of connections made despite the unfortunate circumstances this year. read more

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What’s in-store for Google’s finest at the Xoogler Demo Day?

Jenny Collins brings her passion & experience for bringing together smart, impactful R&D teams, across Google – to optimize the European start-up eco-system, and in particular connect Xoogler (“ex-Googler”) entrepreneurs with angel & capital investment.

So what can we expect from the Xoogler Demo Day?

This is the annual opportunity for ex-Googlers who have founded their own start-up to connect with investors.

This year, we have 170+ investors lined up and we are selecting 15 of the most credible start-ups from around three times that many applications. We’ll help each of them to create a succinct & delicious elevator pitch, of 2 slides in 2 mins & 2 Q&As, to attract further discussion in the social element of the day. read more

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Founder Market Fit & what it means for early stage planning

In his second guest post for Angel Investment Network, Dan Simmons, CEO of Propelia, explains ‘How understanding the shift from Product Market Fit to Founder Market Fit in the pre-seed space can now help influence your early stage thinking and planning’:

Understanding The Shift 

There is a recognisable shift starting to happen in the early stage space. A shift that is important to be aware of and understand whether you are a founder or investor. A shift away from Product Market Fit and towards Founder Market Fit around and for pre-seed investment. This shift essentially means the way certain angel investors are starting to evaluate early stage founders is beginning to change. Change away from the traditional lenses that model and evaluate Product Market Fit towards a new phase where different tools, frameworks and assessment criteria are at play. read more

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Home a Future Tech Superstar

At Angel Investment Network we are continually forming partnerships so that we can help start up founders with fundraising and key issues they encounter.

One of the challenges that we see time and time again is the ability to recruit the right tech talent.

And that’s why we are excited to collaborate with Silicon Roundabout and the UK Government to train junior tech and startup enthusiasts between the age of 18-24 seeking to start a career in tech start ups.

As part of the programme, entry-level candidates, will be available to startups for 6 Month placements fully paid for by the UK Government. read more

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7 software due diligence considerations

By Roger Planes, CEO Silicon Rhino

Investing in tech startups can be daunting, especially if you don’t have a tech background. Investing in new ideas, market opportunities and teams can be exciting, and should remain the most important deciding factors when considering an investment. Here are a few points that you can view more in this article that focuses on from a software due diligence perspective.

Documentation

Documentation is hardly at the top of the priority list of many early stage companies. While the tech team may know all the ins and outs of the project by memory, it will be much harder to onboard new developers or take over the tech if the need arises.  Projects and quirks in the systems should be well documented. read more

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How to close your funding round before the end of 2020

We’re very excited to announce the first edition in our series of guest articles from our partners SeedLegals. SeedLegals automates the legals to help companies close funding rounds faster, and hire, manage and allocate equity to their team.

CCO Adam Blair explains legal considerations to help you close your fundraise before 2020 is out:

And just like that, it’s almost the end of 2020! We hope you’ve had a successful year up until this point, considering the year it’s been…

At SeedLegals, many founders we speak to are now thinking about how to scale their business in 2021, and beyond. And what’s the best way to scale? Securing funds so your business can grow.  read more

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Digital Addressing startup OKHi raises £1.4M with support from AIN

OkHi, a Kenyan/UK startup addressing system for emerging markets, has raised more than £1.4M, supported by Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform. 

Headquartered in Nairobi and registered in London, OkHi is solving a problem that affects 4 billion people and costs businesses billions every year. The company was co-founded in 2014 by Timbo Drayson, who was at Google for 7 years, where he led the launch of Google Maps across emerging markets and built Chromecast. OkHi’s pioneering technology enables any business to collect an accurate address from their customer, verify it and navigate to it without getting lost. Its primary focus is to solve address verification for financial services, an endemic problem that holds back financial inclusion across emerging markets.   read more

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