In September we will be hosting our next in-person event in Newcastle and are already working with some of the founders who will be pitching at the event.
We have four businesses pitch at each of our events, and they’re all in different sectors and at different stages of their growth journeys. This makes our events extremely varied and means that our members are exposed to a wider variety of investment opportunities.
If you would like to attend one of our upcoming events (in-person or online), then register your interest HERE.
A big thank you to our partners in Newcastle for their continued support, we’re looking forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks.
The UK Business Angels Association has released their latest report called The Climate for Angel Investing.
The report covers:
– The Angel Demographics
– Angel Investment Activity
– Supporting Founders
– The Usage of EIS & SEIS
– The Importance of EIS & SEIS
– The Impact of the Withdrawal of EIS
– The Outlook for Angel Investment in the Year Ahead
– About the UKBAA
When a business leaves the room following their pitch we have a roundtable discussion amongst the investors. Following one of yesterday’s pitching businesses one of our investors said “Wow!”.
We had four fantastic businesses pitching yesterday at our Manchester in-person event and the feedback from the investors was great. The comments included:
“That was the best pitch I have seen in a long, long time”
“This could be game changing”
“The possibility is amazing and very promising”
Thank you to our partners for supporting the event, we’re looking forward to the next event and working with the next group of fantastic founders.
We’re over in Newcastle for this afternoon’s in-person pitch event at Ward Hadaway’s offices on the quayside.
Good luck to the businesses pitching! They all pitched with us at yesterday’s online pitch event and all received investor interest, which is fantastic. We’re looking forward to seeing them pitch in person this afternoon and hopefully getting even more investor interest from our local angels in Newcastle.
We are delighted to share the news that we have funded a much needed business that can make a real difference to food sustainability. It was also a pleasure to be able to introduce an investor that is now taking on an active role within the business.
Soil Ecology are a mission driven company. They exist because they saw a viable solution to climate change and a means to make all food organic and affordable to all families.
They are a manufacturer of a mix of naturally occurring diverse soil microbes which when correctly applied to the soil and to the crop have the potential to completely replace synthetic fertilisers and crop protection chemicals.
Daniel Tyrkiel, Director said, “As a first-time founder, I’ve found Martin Avison’s support invaluable. The investors we have been introduced to have the vision to take us to the next stage of our development. The team at angelgroups is well organised and professional. We could not have done it without their support!”
We wish the team at Soil Ecology every success!
We are delighted to have funded yet another female founder!
TUBR are focused on innovating machine learning technology to make predictions with sparse data sets. Their customers use their Machine Learning as a Service prediction dataset to manage their assets, reduce waste and improve customer experience.
Dash Tabor, Co-Founder/CEO said, “angelgroups is fantastic. I’ve pitched to a number of Angel syndicates and I wish they all operated the way Martin Avison operates this group. The investors are smart, passionate, intelligent and above all want to bring valuable skills to the companies they invest in. The investment that goes into ensuring me, as a Founder, gets funding starts from day 1. The team works with you to get the pitch to a perfect point to meet the audience expectations and then after the pitch they drive engagement with the investors to keep them excited and engage all the way through DD and close. I can not speak highly enough about angelgroups! I’m pleased to be taking away the investment we needed along with a great support team for the business.”
This is a huge market and TUBR have huge potential. We wish Dash and her team every success.
The Investing in Women Code Annual Report 2022 has just been released and we were really pleased to see some of the findings, which included:
– ‘In 2021, 34% of venture capital deals made by code signatories were in companies with at least one female founder, compared to an industry average of 24%’
– ‘In 2021, the average amount of Angel (early-stage) investment being sought by all-female teams (£791k) was very similar to all-male teams (£823k). This is a significant and encouraging change from 2020, when all-female teams requested less than 50% of the amounts requested by male-only teams’
We are proud to be one of the code signatories, and are delighted to support the research for Investing in Women.
Our founder Martin Avison was a guest recently at one of Startup 2 Standup’s events and he spoke about some of the challenges founders face when looking for investment.
He covered the following topics:
What an angel investor is looking for
Passive Vs Active investment
Valuation
The Pitch
Thank you for having us Startup 2 Standup, there were some great questions at the end of the session from some of your founders.
It has been a real pleasure to work with the team at Mayku on what truly is a global proposition.
Mayku is on a mission to make manufacturing local, simple, and accessible to all. Their ecosystem of machines, materials and software enables Creators to start a production line in minutes, at a fraction of the cost of outsourcing. This speeds up their product development, reduces their risk, and enables them to launch faster – scaling production in line with demand.
Mayku makes product creation accessible, fast, and affordable for the rapidly expanding £70Bn Creator market.
Alex Smilansky, Co-Founder & CEO said, “Working with Martin Avison and the team at angelgroups has been smooth from the start. It’s one of the most well-structured angel networks out there with a solid and engaged investor base. Now that we have secured the funding we need we are one step closer to delivering on our mission to make manufacturing local, simple, and accessible to all. Our growing customer base of over 12,000 is just the start!”
We are convinced that this is one to watch for the future and wish them every success.
We recently received some feedback from a business following their conversation with our founder Martin Avison last year. She kindly shared her experience:
“I met Martin about a year ago when pitching for investment at a different group’s event. Following the event Martin made contact and we met and had a great meeting where he gave me some really clear advice following my pitch.
His words stay with me now about how I had an investable business but that the foundations needed work. I was forming the business to franchise and Martin said to me that I needed to be logical about the speed of growth I had planned, as if I grew my franchisees too rapidly and one had a problem, they would all have a problem. Along with several other key points I sat and reflected our conversation.
Over the following weeks I must have done 15 different financial plans at different growth rates, but Martin’s advice stood out in my mind and I then realised that all options hadn’t been covered. I worked on an in-house model with employees for the business and not only was it easier to manage its growth rate and profit were much higher.
I realised that my passion and ambition was right but I needed to make some serious changes in the foundations and reviewed all angles of the business. I brought in a team, outsourced the key elements for growth and rather than looking at the model as possibly outcomes, I worked with the team to create all with strategy and fact.
Martin’s suggestions made some very key changes in my investment plan and now I am in a position of being investment ready with the right foundations, team and strategy for growth.”
We are delighted to say that this founder will be pitching with us at our upcoming events and we are really looking forward to supporting her and her team through the funding journey.
We were in Newcastle yesterday for our latest in-person pitch event.
We had some fantastic businesses pitching again following their pitch at our online event this week (where all businesses received investor interest). We were delighted to see that all businesses received interest again, which was great to see and well deserved.
We are looking forward to supporting them through the next stages, which will be the due diligence phase of their funding journeys.
Good luck everyone!
A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to have Richard Hargreaves as a speaker at our first in-person event in Manchester. Richard shared his experience as a serial investor and the highs and lows of his personal investments, which was absolutely fascinating.
Richard wrote a book called Business Angel Investing, which is an superb read for all investors and anyone who is interested in the angel investment landscape. We highly recommend it!
