Startup and mid-cap company investment, primarily through Tech City, London
I’ve written many articles on the woes of overvalued startups and why yours isn’t worth £1M. So where is the value in your company? Below are the main areas of value that a startup can influence within their own company. IP, ideally in the form of patents, ideally granted. Patent values increase dramatically when contested […]
Just like prospective employers, investors are interviewing you and assessing everything you say and do. When writing to the investor, check your spelling, punctuation and grammar. Consider using a thesaurus and perhaps seek out a friendly proof reader. When you request a LinkedIn make sure you compose a relevant message that explains why you are […]
I’ve been meeting more and more companies attempting to raise significant sums using Crowdfunding sites. The principle of Crowdfunding is brilliant and has evolved the investment community, enabling anybody to take small positions in exciting startup businesses. This in turn has helped created a vibrant startup ecosphere. However, the crowdfunding platform is a competitive industry […]
For any readers interested in this series of blogs, I thought I would compile a list of terms used along with explanations. I try as much as possible to avoid using jargon, but just in case I have strayed to the dark side: Bootstrap – Enough money and facilities to get started Seed – […]
I’ve given a lot of advice to founders seeking mentoring or investment. These are generally big ticket items such as valuation or product development and have been covered in my open blog for a couple of years now. So I thought it time to give some insight into the small “tells” that allow me to […]
I’ve dedicated a lot of articles to valuation and explained in great detail why your startup isn’t worth £1M. A few months ago I met a startup who crashed the ceiling with a self valuation of £3M. Yesterday, however, we hit the stars with a startup self valuing at £5M. Now this company does have […]
I am in serious talks with the founders of a startup. I’m not very interested in their business model, although I think it’s decent, but we do have aligned interests. They require premises to run their business out of and I need to invest some money into property having recently sold a couple of buildings. […]
I have mentioned NDA’s in a lot of separate articles, so I thought I would outline the purpose and features of a good NDA and in so doing, point out the many mistakes everybody (including large corporations) make in constructing them. A non disclosure agreement (or NDA) is a simple legal contract that permits two […]
So, for many technology based startups with intellectual property, patents are an obvious route to go down. However it is not always the correct route and what you might think of as a good form of protection may actually achieve the opposite. Let me explain why: Patents are filed public documents that describe your intellectual […]
So, I’ve got to that time in any investors life where I have to make a fundamental decision. With ever increasing regularity, I get offered investment opportunities which compete with my existing portfolio. On the occasional times its happened before, I have declined the investment. However as time goes on, this causes my options to […]