behindtheraise Archives

BehindTheRaise with Pantee

Tell us about what got you into startups:

A few years ago when myself (Katie) and my sister (Amanda) learned about the sheer amount of waste produced by the fashion industry, we knew we had to do something about it. So, we came up with the idea to launch Pantee – the world’s first underwear brand made from deadstock t-shirts.

Raised remotely during the pandemic, we began bringing Pantee to life in late 2019 and after a year of research and product development we launched pre-orders on the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, in November 2020.

Katie and Amanda McCourt, Co-founders, Pantee

Why did you decide to raise investment?

From day one, we have been on a mission to disrupt the fashion industry and build a brand that pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved with deadstock fabrics and by upcycling. We planned to raise the investment from the beginning, first with a crowdfunding round on Kickstarter and now with an SEIS raise with Angel Investors. We wanted to do this to give us the resources to further amplify our mission and set us up to create a greater impact in the future.

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

I think everyone would say this, but don’t be disheartened by the rejection. As first time founders, we found the process of raising very difficult and we rode extreme highs and lows from start to finish. You’ll hear so many no’s, but it isn’t necessarily a reflection on your business or your idea – you just might not have been speaking to the right person.

What attracted investors to your company?

We were able to prove a strong amount of early traction that Pantee had received within the first few months since launching our D2C eCommerce store.

Within a short time of launching, we had grown an engaged community of over 10,000+ women, were racking up 5* reviews on Trustpilot and had been featured by the likes of Vogue, Stylist Magazine, Drapers, The Observer and named a ‘Top Sustainable Underwear Brand’ by The Independent.

During the raise period, Pantee also received recognition from major global tech companies having been featured on Shopify’s ECommerce Masters Podcast and awarded Klarna’s Small Business Support Package.

This really helped us to prove to investors that the brand was not only resonating with early customers that loved the product, but that it was innovative and newsworthy – building their confidence in our brand awareness capabilities.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Don’t underestimate how long you need and celebrate every win, no matter how small.

Raising investment can be a long process. It’s never too early to start building relationships with investors to instill confidence in both you and your idea. Get them excited about your business and take them on the journey with you, the more involved you get people early on the more likely they will invest, in my opinion.

It’s really easy to get bogged down by the no’s which you will get a lot of, in most cases more than the yes’. Don’t let it slow you down – we were given some great advice by a fellow startup founder who advised us to ‘learn to enjoy the rejection’ – once you stop taking it personally it allows you to learn from it – in a productive sense!

Why did you choose to use the Angel Investment Network?

We signed up to the Angel Investment Network halfway through our raise to expand our search away from our own network and connect with new investors from different backgrounds. It was a great decision as it led us to connecting with one of our biggest investors that was instrumental to helping us close the round.

What has the funding enabled?

We have just closed our SEIS raise and have already begun putting in place our strategies to further amplify brand awareness, build a core team, expand upon our lean product range and certify our sustainability efforts with accreditations.

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 Euclideon Holographics

Derek Van Tonder shares the story of Euclideon Holographics and the key learnings from taking it through multiple rounds of funding, including the importance of benchmarking your company for investors and building meaningful relationships:

Tell us about what got you into start ups:

Euclideon Holographics was founded because we tried out traditional Virtual Reality helmets and we really didn’t like them – we hated the cord, the screens in front of our eyes were awful because we couldn’t see anything, and most importantly, they gave us motion sickness. So we decided to solve that problem by removing the screens in front of your eyes and moving them onto the walls around you to solve all these problems with VR, and Euclideon Holographics was born.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

Our products have been very successful and many customers even purchased them before they were properly finished (in beta) – we are using this success to prove to investors that their funds can make a good profit when we use investment money to set up warehouses and showrooms around the world. 95% of our customers have seen our holograms in person before committing to purchase, so it makes sense to put showrooms closer to our customers, and that requires investment capital. We are also using fundraising as a way to network with new partners. Many of our investors end up working with us in the business, for example by becoming a representative for our products in a far-flung region of the world that we normally would not easily be able to access. Since they are shareholders, they are passionate about our company and it works very well.

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

Be careful of scammers, using a service like Angel Investment Network greatly reduces the number of shady people you will have to deal with. Make sure that you understand your market very very well – investors don’t just want to know how much you could sell if only 1% of the market bought your products – they need better and more realistic estimates than that. Ideally, you should have proved that people want to buy your product/service before raising investment. Investors may love everything about your company and technology but could be scared away by the risk factor – you have to be absolutely transparent about risk with investors. If you have debts, disclose those. If you are at all cagey about disclosing financials, many investors will see this as a big red flag. The gold standard is to have an independent, 3rd party accountant sign off on a copy of your balance sheets before you raise capital. Every serious investor will ask for this, and rightly so. Investors also like you to be very clear about what’s in it for them – you should not give “pie in the sky” and overly optimistic projections and forecasts. Instead, try to find companies similar in size and scope to your own and use them as a benchmark for comparison purposes. For example, we use the company Tritium, they are literally in the same street as our HQ, with a similar number of employees, and they are also an Aussie technology manufacturer with their own factory. Because they are very similar we can show them to investors and talk about their great success story.

What attracted investors to your company?

Shareholders of Euclideon Holographics are interested in a long-term pre-IPO Intellectual Property play, they are investing with us because we have a lot of unique IP and patents, we have proven that customers want to buy our products, and we are offering new Hologram products not seen before that solve a lot of the problems with Virtual Reality. And we also support popular 3D simulation engines like Unreal and Unity. Manufacturing our products in Australia is also seen as a big advantage to our customers, particularly with regards to our military clients, Australia is seen as a “safe” and friendly country by military buyers. Australia is viewed favourably as a hi-tech and very stable Western democracy so that also helps us.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

At first, only emailing investors and not touching base with them in other ways. You should reach out to them on LinkedIn, send text messages, phone them, everything possible – otherwise you will never know whether your important email got stuck in their spam/junk filter. The absolute gold standard is to have a Zoom call with every investor. Investors like to invest in people. You need to meet them somehow, ideally in person if you can.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

AIN has consistently delivered quality investors to us over the years as we have expanded our operations. We now have an excellent shareholder list and many of our shareholders are actively involved in helping us distribute our products and find new opportunities and clients all over the world.

What has the funding enabled?

We use our funding for expansion and to fund R&D on new products. For example, our first foray onto AIN netted us $700,000 (AUD) of investment, which we subsequently used to refine and commercialise our Hologram Table product, which is now our 2nd most popular bestseller.

Keen to hear more?

Listen to Derek in the extra video for #BehindTheRaise:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Behind the Raise with eleXsys Energy

Richard Romanowski is co-founder and Executive Director of eleXsys Energy. eleXsys has developed a unique, international award-winning, enabling technology that will drive the transition of global energy grids to a clean energy future.

Tell us about eleXsys and how you came up with the idea?
My co-founder, Dr. Bevan Holcombe, was a senior engineer at an Australian distribution utility with 30 years’ experience and was working on how to decarbonise the local suburban grid. I was a cleantech angel investor, looking for fabulous ideas.

The biggest issue to local decarbonisation is that the grid was designed as a one way grid. Bevan was trying to find a way to solve this problem, that is, the very limited grid hosting capacity of renewables due to the one-way grid design. He could not find a solution anywhere so in 2012 we decided to team up and started a company now called eleXsys Energy to solve this problem.

eleXsys in simple terms turns the one-way grid into a two-way grid in a cost effective manner enabling a huge increase in local renewables that the grid can host or accommodate in each suburb.

When we started eleXsys, Bevan and I had a vision that discovering a way to turn the one way grid into a two-way grid would be our contribution to saving the Great Barrier Reef by speeding up global distribution grid decarbonisation.

Over the last 9 years eleXsys developed a unique, international award-winning, enabling technology that will drive the transition of global energy grids to a clean energy future.

Why did you decide to raise investment?
The co-founders, Bevan and Richard, are the initial high net worth investors. We invested over $7.5 M USD of our own money. Then some friends and close associates also invested almost another $4.0 M USD. We had developed an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) and a few field demonstrations and planned a slow organic and affordable commercialisation, starting in Australia. Then slowly going global as we knew Australia was a few years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of grid hosting capacity problems due to so much rooftop solar we have Down Under.

Then we won the World Energy Council (WEC) global start up award in 2019. When we won the award, the WEC Secretary General at the time (Christoph Frei), challenged us as follows, he said:

“This technology is game changing; you need to think 100 time bigger” …. that is, we need you to help speed up global decarbonisation and fast!

Since 2019 that is what we set out to do, and in that vein, we needed much more investment to speed up commercialisation and go global faster.

What is your top tip for anyone raising investment for the first time?
It’s never easy, the 1^st time or the 10^th time. Be prepared to spend a large amount of time raising funds and listen and learn from every pitch. If they say no, ask why. Always be raising and expect to pitch to 50 or more before you hit any jackpot.

What attracted investors to your company?
The IKEA flagship project in Australia which helped investors realise how eleXsys can radically speed up global decarbonisation in the local suburbs. The IKEA project represents a microgrid at up to 10 times bigger than what current Smart Invert technology and grid constraints would allow. So up to 10 x greater energy savings for the tenant, up to 10 x more rooftop rent for the landlord, plus up to a 10 x larger $ project for the asset owner (e.g. solar and battery power plant) to earn a secure, uncurtailed ROI over 20 years.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Not listening at first to potential investors.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?
A very supportive, understanding, and innovative group with a focus on ESG (Environmental – Social – Governance) investing. We are now raising our Pre IPO round.

What has the funding enabled?
The main focus was fine tuning our global expansion plans through our planned licensing model. Licensing allows us to scale global quickly as opposed to originating, developing, and building microgrid projects ourselves, which would be a very slow and cumbersome process.

Through licensing our vision is that eleXsys becomes the “Intel Inside” of the global local renewables supply chain. That is, almost everyone is using eleXsys in their local suburban renewables projects to speed up global decarbonisation.

Did you know that filling every roof with solar could generate > 120% of Australia’s total electrical needs? Same should apply across the global sunbelt ≈ 75% of world’s population.

Cannot be done – local distribution grids will not integrate this much distributed energy due to grid physics limitations (curtailment) due to one-way grid design

Grid curtailment of DER (Distributed Energy Resources) begins to occur when the utility hits ≈ 15% of customers with DER, making projects non bankable .eleXsys cost effectively solves this fundamental problem one-way grid problem.

So far, we have one Master Licensee MOU signed and are negotiating with four more. Plus, established a few Alliance Partners licensees within Australia to be the sales channel and EPC of projects. Some of the Alliance Partners are global multinational using Australia as a test bed eleXsys licensee, with the intention to then become a global licensee.

Plus the funds are being used to enhance our manducating capability along with recruiting more staff to support the faster growth.

#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.

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.

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.

Behind the Raise with Wealthyhood

Alex Christodoulakis is co-founder of Wealthyhood, the app ‘to turn you into your own wealth manager’.

Alex shares his story about Wealthyhood, how he raised investment, and his advice for entrepreneurs:

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

A few years ago, together with Kostas, co-founder of Wealthyhood, we wondered how we could invest our money on a monthly basis. We were busy professionals at the time and couldn’t devote much time to research or execute any sophisticated investment strategies, and of course not in the position to actively trade the markets.

So, we spent time trying to identify what was out there to solve this problem. However, we soon realised we weren’t alone in that. The problem was everywhere around us. There was a typical question among our friends, family and colleagues: “How can I invest my money? I don’t have the time or the knowledge to trade…”.

But how will they do that?

Trading apps are usually too complex for beginner investors. They offer no guidance on how to get started or tools to create a long-term portfolio. They incentivise you to actively trade, by constantly notifying you for random price movements. Everyday investors get caught up on their emotions and end up gambling instead of investing. This was not the experience we were looking for.

So, we decided to build Wealthyhood to bridge the gap. Instead of just giving friendly advice to our friends, we decided to build a product that would guide long-term investors to build their wealth over time, by intelligently investing their money the way they want, with fewer fees.

It’s not only how our interactive guidance helps users to invest the right way, but also how we help them develop the right wealth-building mindset. You don’t have to be a millionaire nor an expert to have a successful and pleasant investing journey.

And this is how Wealthyhood was founded to become the first DIY wealth-building app for long-term investors.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

Unfortunately, Fintech is a very capital-intensive industry, even before you decide to spend aggressively on growth and marketing.

The initial costs have to do with securing regulatory approval and FCA compliance, even before you get started. And this is why we initially decided to raise some external money, alongside covering some operational costs and our plans to grow the team.

Apart from that, raising money from angel investors is a great way to validate your value proposition and showcase their belief in the vision of the company and the ability of the team to execute!

A successful angel raise doesn’t just get you money, but also access to the network and connections of your investors, so it’s a two-way process. The right investors can significantly accelerate our progress.

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

It’s always easier to approach angel investors, than early-stage VC funds. Start from your own network, pitch them your company and vision and then expand to your second degree connections, angel networks and of course the Angel Investment Network.

If you can’t persuade angel investors to invest in your company, then you should reconsider your pitch.

Always have a story to share; why you’re building this product, what’s the problem and why you’re the perfect team to succeed!

Any signs of initial traction are a great validation that you’re heading to the right direction.

What attracted investors to your company?

I think it was a combination of different things. Probably the most important is the problem we solve. Our angel investors immediately acknowledged the gap between trading apps and robo advisors and the need for a DIY wealth building app for long-term investors.

Our vision to create the wealth-building app not for the top-1%, but for the 99% fully resonated with them.

At the same time, our investors had faith in the team behind Wealthyhood and us as co-founders. The first angel investors were people from our close network with strong belief in our capabilities as a team. Then, friends of friends and finally professional angel investors, who got to know us better and believe in our determination and skills to execute.

Apart from that, we had already built some momentum, showcasing that we were heading in the right direction. We had more than 3,000 users signed up to our waiting list, over 10,000 followers in our LinkedIn and Instagram pages and had developed a community of 50 Wealthyhood Ambassadors across Europe.

Last, but not least, a few months ago we won 1st place on FinQuest Accelerator and are currently participating in the VISA Innovators Program, which for angel investors shows strong progress.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

My biggest fundraising mistake was that we began by approaching early-stage VC funds, instead of angel investors.

This was wrong; it cost us time and money, but we soon realised it and switched our focus to angels, who were a much better fit for our stage and needs!

However, it helped us challenge our value proposition, improve our deck and positioning and make it more robust.

Why did you choose to use the Angel Investment Network?

Angel Investment Network was an amazing way to connect with the right investors for our company. It’s very time-efficient for founders and probably the best portal to share your story from a fundraising perspective.

It was first suggested by our advisors and we soon realised they were right to insist.

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

To build the investing experience we envision and make it publicly available through a web platform, iOS and Android apps. We’ve already launched a beta version of the product and are onboarding the first users from our waiting list.

Over the coming months we want to onboard the whole waiting list and give instant access to new users in the UK and EU!

Keen to hear more?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising fundraising yourself, you can find your local network here.

Behind The Raise with Ziglu

Up next, Ziglu, a digital platform bridging the gap between cash and crypto; Yang Li, Chief Growth Office, shares his story behind the company’s £6.1 million seed round:

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

Ziglu was born out of the realisation that both traditional and challenger banks were preventing their customers from having access to cryptocurrencies. With the rise of cryptocurrencies we could be seeing the biggest ever transfer of funds into a new asset class, and decentralised finance (DeFi) is providing unprecedented opportunities to grow wealth.

Yet the majority of consumers are unaware of the opportunities of cryptocurrencies and DeFi, or are confused by them, or have no affordable way to participate in them. To solve this problem, Ziglu has been designed and built to combine modern challenger banking features for everyday spending with safe, simple, affordable and insured access to cryptocurrencies.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

We saw some remarkable early customer engagement and wanted to accelerate our customer acquisition, particularly to coincide with the amazing bull run we’ve been seeing in the crypto market. Giving ownership to customers also gives them a chance to benefit in our growth and success too and that’s at the heart of what we stand for.

Furthermore, our product and tech team had built an innovative but aggressive roadmap of features that they wanted to deliver. Fundraising has meant we can now deliver new features and improve customer experiences pretty much as fast as we can think of them.

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

Don’t overly focus on how your product compares to competitors. Be clear about how your product truly delights customers. No startup has failed due to competition alone.

What attracted investors to your company?

Ziglu has an experienced team with a proven track record of building amazing startups like Starling, Monzo, Wirex, Meituan, and a product that provides a significantly better crypto-investing experience for beginners and aficionados alike. This combination of a proven track record and a visionary product and proposition has proven to be very attractive to investors.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Worrying too much about the aesthetics of the pitch deck.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

Angel Investment Network stood out to us because of its superb track record of assisting innovative startups to find strategic investors: investors that provide us with first hand advice about disrupting huge industries, broaden our network of partners and add significant value beyond cash.

What has the funding enabled?

The funding has allowed us to significantly ramp up our marketing, build new features faster and accelerate our plans for international expansion. The team is currently very focused on Ziglu’s international expansion, with our first overseas launch slated for the second half of 2021.

Keen to hear more?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising fundraising yourself, you can find your local network here.

BEHIND THE RAISE WITH PSYT

In our latest Behind The Raise we caught up with Nick Begley, founder of Psychological Technologies (PSYT) on disrupting the self-help market, peoples’ willingness to invest in their wellbeing and the time and attention needed to execute a successful fundraise.

Tell us about PSYT?

We all want to improve and we usually turn to books, audiobooks and videos. But how much do they actually help us change?

If we’re honest, not much. That’s because passively digesting information isn’t enough. Reading about how to ride a bike isn’t going to magically allow you to ride a bike, and the same is just as true when it comes to self development. It needs to be put into practice.

So that’s what we do – take proven content, with proven demand, and deliver it in a more effective format, helping people put advice into practice, to create real change. Like Masterclass, we work with authors to leverage their established brands and fanbases.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

To build on the success of our MVP. Our MVP was based on one book and the funding will allow us to build a multi-book platform which will have multiple courses in one place.

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

It takes a great deal of time and attention, so start early. Make sure you have enough runway and try not to be involved in any other big projects at the same time. The process is time consuming, not just the pitching, but the follow up emails and calls as well.

What attracted investors to your company?

I think there were 3 things; the previous experience of the team, the results of the MVP and market timing. I was previously the Head of Research at Headspace, and my cofounder ran the world’s largest research study into day to day happiness out of the LSE.

Our MVP product, The Anxiety Solution gave great proof points, through user reviews, metrics and Apple App Store endorsement and we had signed a number of fantastic NYT bestselling authors.

The popularisation of meditation, mental health destigmatisation, and the willingness of millenials and Gen Z to invest in their wellbeing, has led to the market exploding in recent years, giving rise to many 9 and 10 figure company valuations in the space. Although the market is growing rapidly there is still a big gap between learning what to do and actually applying the advice to your life, which is the gap we fill.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Trying to run the company at the same time as fundraise. It’s a huge job for one person and takes all your time, don’t think you can be as productive on other things at the same time.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

AIN was recommended by a friend and they have a huge network. Ed was helpful, proactive and professional and their terms are reasonable.

Behind The Raise with LifeSaver

In our latest edition of #BehindTheRaise, we caught up with LifeSaver Co-Founder, Archie Wilkinson, about setting up a B-Corp, the importance of a great team and why getting your documents in order is so important.

Tell us about Lifesaver:

We sell & return power banks to charge your phone. With more smartphones than toilets in the world, we are focused on providing power on the go in a sustainable way.

The power bank market is estimated to be worth $27bn by 2024 and we want to change this industry to be cleaner, circular & greener. We are the 199th certified UK B-corp, with a hire & return model across events and venues reducing battery waste as we recharge and reuse.

We fill all our power banks with renewable energy saving 13 grams of CO2 per charge & recycle our batteries to areas with no electricity by making off-grid solar lights with Liter of Light.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

To scale.

We had proven a number of unknowns and required investment to accelerate our growth. We are an ambitious company with big goals to change an industry to be more sustainable, raising investment helps us to develop our product, hire the best people thus driving further sales.

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

Keep at it. Listen & adapt as you go. You will have multiple pitch decks and always try to get feedback from investors that say no, and evolve. It is also important to have good documents (i.e. articles of association, shareholders agreement, term sheet etc.) SeedLegals is a brilliant and cost effective platform to streamline super slick documents and integrate your cap table. They also offer completely free support & advice on top of this.

What attracted investors to your company?

Team, vision and a real problem that needs solving in a better way. Ultimately they are buying into the team & vision of the future. They say investors will invest in a great team with an ok idea over a great idea with an ok team, it is important to have people around you that make you feel like the weakest link! If you don’t have people you are learning from then you don’t have the best team. Don’t rest until you do.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Possibly not having watertight company documents to start with, this delayed investment. SeedLegals helped us out on this and now we have very good documents with articles that align to our B-Corp status.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

Angel Investment Network is a great way to reach multiple angels in an automated and simple way to engage and inform investors. The network will open you to more investors and thus help in improving your business.

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.

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.

Medsii provides information on side effects, drug safety alerts & recalls, and clinical trial opportunities for participation, in an engaging, patient-centric Twitter-style interface.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

2 reasons:

1) To accelerate our launch into the USA, our key market.

2) To accelerate the launch of our Business SaaS data product.

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

Persist.

It took us months of pitching to get our first investor, then bit by bit, the floodgates opened.

Secondly, use Twitter to link with very experienced USA VCs, e.g. Brad Feld, Jason Calacanis, Elizabeth Yin, who will give you tons of *free* advice AND *free* training on pitching, negotiating with VCs etc.).

What attracted investors to your company?

1) Very experienced founding team (we all met in Business School 16 years ago).

2) Healthtech very topical, even before Covid-19, with more people living longer & taking personal responsibility to manage their health to live quality lifestyles.

3) Great business model, with globally scalable consumer & business products.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Initially not being succinct during pitches. (Second mistake was not using an ethernet cable to pitch).

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

I got a couple of tips from friends, then tried it and, (to my surprise), angel investors started to contact me and actually invest!

#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.

What is your background?

I have always been interested optics and lasers. I started out as a physicist, specialising in micro-optics (very, very small lenses) and measurements using light. It was fascinating how you could see down to the micron level with the right system. However, as I progressed, I moved away from doing the science and became more involved in the commercial side and actually applying these technologies to the real world. It was therefore an obvious next step to combine the two and form a company that utilised the powerful potential of optical measurements.

How did the idea for the device come about?

It started by thinking about what measurements you can do with light. Then a desire to make measurements that were worthwhile, and would make a difference. This led to the interest in healthcare. Building on this, I started to think about situations where people are required to make many, regular measurements. Diabetes is the obvious example. Clearly doing this in a way that is pain free and non-invasive would be a major advantage.

How did you recruit the team?

We have a great team with a huge amount of medical and engineering knowledge, experience and brain power. Having worked in this sector for a number of years, many of the team have worked together in the past. Most of our newer team members have come via personal contacts and recommendations, whilst some have even joined us after hearing about our plans through our website. We’re still growing and it’s exciting to see the team develop, but as our growth increases, it’s important we utilise the right channels to make sure we’re able to recruit the best talent, whether this is directly or through specialists agencies.

How have you overcome challenges during COVID?
We were relatively fortunate that when COVID hit, we were a still a nimble start up and a lot of the engineering was still at the “developed in a garage” stage. This meant we were able to (literally) go back into the garage during lockdown and continue the development unabated.

We are also in the fortuitous position that as our measurements are non-contacting, they are much safer than the existing devices we are seeking to replace, as these devices must physically contact the patient or draw their blood. There is definitely a mood in the healthcare sector that the more you can do remotely, the better. The risk of spreading infections, causing accidental harm or pain is completely removed by our non-contacting devices, which is great news for both the patient and the clinician.

Why did you decide to raise investment?
Due to the length of time it takes to run clinical trials and obtain regulatory approval, medical devices are very expensive to develop and of course you can’t sell them to generate revenues until you’ve successfully completed the regulatory process.

It was therefore necessary for us to raise funds and we will undertake further funding rounds before we get to market.

What are your top tips for anyone raising investment for the first time?
Firstly, don’t push the valuation too high initially. Leave some headroom for future rounds so that those coming in later have a reason to invest.

Secondly, look for investors who bring more than just cash. It can be contacts, market experience or whatever, but once they are championing your company, it adds significant value.

What attracted investors to your company?
It was definitely a combination of factors. A large part of the attraction is the upside potential of Occuity. We have a proprietary technology, protected by nine patents, and an expert team developing products which deliver clear solutions to large and growing markets. The opportunity is tremendous.

Take the glucose monitoring market as an example. This market alone is now worth over $14bn, and that is based on people sticking needles into themselves. It’s widely predicted that the first company with a non-invasive solution will take a large share of that very valuable market.

But the attraction is also the chance to be involved in something that’s doing good and significantly improving the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Timing. It always takes longer than you think to run a fundraising campaign and with COVID and lockdown layered on top, we should in hindsight have started earlier.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

It is the breadth and experience of the network that adds so much value. Most networks are regional and so draw on a limited pool of angels. The AIN is global and as such we were able to raise funds internationally from people who offer distribution support in countries where we would otherwise have no links. In addition, the team are great to work with and we trusted that they could help us succeed, and they did.

#BehindtheRaise with BorrowMyDoggy

We spoke to BorrowMyDoggy founder Rikke Rosenlund about disrupting the dog-sitting market, overcoming challenges during COVID and dos and don’ts in approaching angel investors. You’d be barking mad not to read on.

Tell us about BorrowMyDoggy?
BorrowMyDoggy is an online platform connecting dog owners with borrowers. People sign up, create a profile, write a little bit about themselves or their dog and then they’re able to take a look at the suitable matches in their area. Matches are based on location and availability, and it’s all about getting to know each other really well before sharing the dog. People can check over here if they need the best dog training services.

For owners, it is a way of finding a trusted local dog lover to take care of your dog when you can’t. You can rest assured from the centers of dog boarding near me that they will treat your dog like family. For borrowers it is a chance to have a dog in your life by spending time with one and helping out owners at the same time. Dogs also get more exercise, attention and most importantly, love. It’s a win-win! It could be someone who has just had a baby who might need someone to help take care of their dog. They might be connected with someone who has a five year old but can’t commit to the full time commitment, but has a dog void in their life. Every match is very different. For the best of dog help, you can try these out and get the best ones.

What does it cost?
£12.99 per years for borrowers and £44.99 per year for owners and all the members are verified and covered by insurance. They have 24/7 vet access. No money is exchanged between borrowers and owners, as borrowing is based on the love of dogs rather than for a profit. To research and also to know more read this blog to get a better view about them.

How have you overcome challenges during COVID?
Of course it has been challenging. We put a notification at the start of the crisis to say don’t meet someone else from another household, although there were some exceptional circumstances. What has been truly heartwarming is seeing the community come together. During COVID we’ve seen different members of our community perform selfless acts, for example delivering medication to other members who were self isolating.

Overall the interest in dogs has surged during COVID and many more people are looking at owning them. However it is important that people understand the cost and time commitment of having a dog. 97% of dog owners underestimate the cost, which is £21-£33,000 over its lifetime. A lot more people have got dogs during lockdown but a lot of people are going back to the office. There is also separation anxiety to consider.

Why did you decide to raise investment?
We wanted to grow our platform further, both acquiring new members and also optimize the product and make the platform better. The extra investment means more staff and technical work on the platform and customer acquisition.

What are your top tips for anyone raising investment for the first time?
Firstly understand it is a process that can take time and not something you can do over night. Make sure you understand investors. This means do your due diligence on interested parties. Also have someone review the investor deck so you can get feedback on the material. Finally check a crowdfunding platform if you want an idea of top investor questions. I would also look at the top questions you would expect and have answers ready for them.

What attracted investors to your company?
The dog sitting market is worth over £1 billion. This is something we are trying to disrupt and we really are the first of the kind. It is also helped that many investors are dog lovers. They could ‘get it’ instinctively and understand it would be great to have something looking after their dog. The other key thing that appealed was the product. We are a large community, we have some really strong numbers. A lot of our investors had heard about the platform.

What has been good for acquisition?
Online acquisition, PR and world of mouth has been great. We also have an engaged community who are happy to recommend us.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Historically realising how long it can take to raise funding. You need to be prepared that it may be longer, especially when it is the first time. For example with angel groups, they don’t necessarily meet that often. Even with a crowdfunding platform there is a lot of work to get a pitch ready and then the closing off of the investment round.

Any other advice?
Understand who has the capacity to follow on relatively easily if the company requires more money. Checking out the record of the investor is a good way of doing this. How do they add value to the company? Do they have a network they can introduce you to? Also, do you have good chemistry with the investor? It’s like getting married, because it’s hard to get divorced!

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?
A friend raised funding for the network and thought it was really easy to use. I found it straightforward to see what was required to get a pitch live and the team is very nice.

#BehindtheRaise with WeCoffee

We spoke to Ben Carew, Co-Founder at We Coffee, about how to complete a successful fundraise, and also equally important, what not to do.

WeCoffee aims to provide flexible and affordable workspace for post Covid working, along with curated events.

Tell us about WeCoffee:

WeCoffee was created to make working from anywhere something anyone could enjoy.

By curating a distributed network of free and unique workspaces and a community you can cowork with online and in real life, we believe we are well on the way to achieving this.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

We decided to raise investment so that we could bring our unique and exciting model for coworking to the whole world. Something that mine and my business partner’s lifetime savings wouldn’t quite allow, at least at the speed with which we want to do it.

People often ask why the speed and scale matters and for us we see a window of opportunity, while the world’s ways of working are changing, to allow a better social norm.

We believe for too long the standards have been set by employers with outdated policies, or more recently landlords hijacking the term coworking only to supply fixed office space as a service.

We want to make sure that the future of work will give power and choice back to the worker, ensuring a happier and more productive worklife.

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

I’m going to be cheeky here and give a few:

Angel investors are people not ATMs, understand them and make them feel confident and safe with you by treating them how you would like to be
Be firm on your timeline, if you don’t have one set one
Don’t be shy to check they actually want to invest, not just introduce you
Treat it as near to a full time job as you can. Maybe 50% off the time, as yes you need to run a business.
As soon as you have a yes, add them to the term sheet. Its less scary to follow someone else
If VCs keep being really nice but don’t invest your probably too early. Save yourself the time and build more traction and try and do an Angel round or friends and family
Be flexible in what your raising, if you get half can you make a business or the next step? If double what would you do?
Don’t be scared to say no. We met one total **** who was incredibly aggressive, wanted to force a board member who was an ex-founder removed from the company by their shareholders for negligence, thought WeWork’s IPO would go through and that only 8 banks failed in the 2008 crisis. We were very happy to not molly his coddle
Lastly join WeCoffee as there are lots of us on or who have been on this journey. We are more than happy to help one another avod the ****, find the right investors and generally navigate the startup world.

What attracted investors to your company?

You would probably have to ask them, but I think a big part of it was the total and utter passion that is born out of us as a team. We clearly know and love what we do, so if you believe in the idea that we won’t all work in an office 5 days a week, there is no better horse to back.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

It took me some time to realise that I needed to run it like any other business activity, as a structured process. I spent months pitching at intermittent events and meetings waiting for my angel to land in lap not realising what I was doing was practising.

I was at the wrong events, with no real investors; and worse meetings with the wrong people who were more interested in introductions than investing.

Once I sat down, opened the round in SeedLegals, got all my deliverables in place, built a sales funnel and set a firm date to close the round then I was well on the way.

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

I used AIN as it came across to meet my target investors (angels), as it had a wealth of investors that I could filter for by sector. Insanely helpful!

If it wasn’t for you Angel Investment Network we wouldn’t have raised as much as we did.

Keen to hear more?

Try out one of WeCoffee’s online networking events to meet ‘creatives, marketing gurus, product creators, free thinkers, entrepreneurs, tech geeks, doers and dreamers’.

Sign up here for a 100% discount, i.e free entry.

Behind the Raise with flypop

Nino Judge, CEO of Flypop shares his advice for entrepreneurs about how he used Angel Investment Network to get his airline off the ground.

Tell us about flypop: The ‘pop’osition

flypop is a new British low-cost airline providing non-stop direct flights between the UK (London Stansted) and second cities of South Asia, starting with India, targeting the South Asian market in the UK, Europe and North America and their visiting friends & relatives (VFR).

flypop is also committed to protecting the planet by being the first and only fully carbon neutral airline in the world by carbon offsetting each passenger that travels with us.

flypop: It’s just good business.

Why did you decide to raise investment?

We needed a small amount of working capital for 2019 to help raise the larger amount for our Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Air Operator Certificate (AOC). Aviation is a highly regulated industry, and as such our first step is to apply to the CAA for our AOC. In order to do so, a minimum amount of capitalisation is required, which in our case was £6m in equity capital.

How did your first external raise come about?

We, the directors, bootstrapped initially to purchase data, finish the business plan and design the website. However, it became evident we needed to achieve even more KPIs before the main equity raise of £6m.

We decided to raise another £80,000 to get us through Financial Year 2019/2020 and put a larger management team in place, get premises for the management team to meet regularly, develop a promo video for investors to understand our unique low-cost product and lastly have a reservation site showing this product is ready to generate revenue!

What attracted investors to your company?

Our USP of focusing on low-cost non-stop travel for the Indian & South Asian VFR market resonated with the millions of future passengers who would use our service.

Our competitive advantage is offering the lowest fares flying non-stop to the second cites of India (& South Asia) avoiding the potentially infected hubs and getting our passengers “home” to where they want to go in the shortest possible time.

We focus on the resilient VFR market segment that always needs to fly home. This segment has always recovered first from any recession returning to high load factors.

For the first time since 9/11 it was an advantage to start operations as a new airline rather than be a debt laden legacy airline.

My biggest fundraising mistake was…

Not raising enough as building a company always takes longer and costs more. We ended up incurring unexpected costs including paying consultants to perfect the business plan. Good people cost money. Third party validation reports, marketing campaigns & events to raise funds, Legal & IT costs.

It always takes longer as the holiday seasons get in the way. With Easter, Summer, Ramadan, Christmas and New Year, nearly 4 months out of 12 are go slow or closed months. Let’s not forget our unexpected Covid -19 virus!

Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?

We wanted to work with a partner that had great global investor reach, reasonable costs with a professional and friendly support team. With AIN we received 30 enquiries within 14 days, and we closed within the month and could have raised 5 times as much.

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.