Category: Fundraising

Our recent global research of startups across the AIN network highlights some of the key challenges facing startups seeking fundraising. But how can they overcome them and win investment in 2025? To succeed, startups must adapt to changing macro-economic conditions, prioritise their own mental well-being, and truly understand the investor’s perspective. Let’s deep dive into the findings.

There are signs of a resurgence in global confidence in the investment landscape as we face 2025. This was a key finding from our global survey of startups in three of our largest territories, the USA, UK and Australia. read more

Australian startups are upbeat about their prospects for the next year, despite a challenging fundraising climate.

According to a survey conducted by Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform, 80% of startups polled in Australia revealed they are optimistic about the next year. 48% are very optimistic and 31% quite optimistic. This compares with just two thirds of UK startups (68%) in a separate survey. 

The survey gauged the outlook for startups in the present climate, with the Australian network being one of AIN’s largest globally. Looking ahead, the survey reveals that securing investment is the biggest challenge for 71% of founders. This was followed by hiring the right talent (35%), product innovation and development (31%) and work/life balance (24%). read more

Today AIN launches the first results from our 2024 Founder survey. In this article we deep dive into the results from our UK survey and what the takeouts are for startups seeking funding in a new climate.

To mark our 20th anniversary we launched a founder survey so we could hear from the founders across the network and take the temperature of startups in 2024. We wanted to gain a deeper understanding about your fundraising challenges, your successes and life as a startup founder. Today we are releasing the first set of findings from our UK founders.  read more

The summer months often signal a slowdown in the startup world, with many investors jetting off on vacation. However, this lull presents a unique opportunity for ambitious founders to get investment ready and position their businesses for a successful autumn fundraising campaign. 

We spoke to AIN’s expert brokerage team, who have collectively raised more than £120 million for startups, to uncover what founders should be doing while investors soak up the sun.

As the old adage goes, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” This couldn’t be truer when it comes to securing investment. While investors may be less accessible during the summer months, it’s crucial to use this time wisely to refine your pitch and strengthen your business proposition. Here is a list of the essential tasks to prioritise in August. read more

A shifting fundraising landscape, evolving investor criteria, and common founder pitfalls were some of the key themes explored during a recent fundraising panel discussion focusing on how to raise investment effectively.

Hosted by our partner, the share scheme and equity management platform, Vestd; the panel discussion featured the contributions from leading experts in the startup investment space. This included Dama Sathianathan, partner at one of Europe’s leading early stage tech for good VC, Bethnal Green Ventures, Xavier Ballester, Director of Brokerage at Angel Investment Network and Ifty Nasir, founder and CEO at Vestd. Here’s a deeper dive into the takeaways. read more

Are you seeking an alternative funding route for your impact-focused business? Then Considered Capital’s Alternative Funding School could be for you. 

In the last of our Inside the Accelerator series we speak with founder Esme Verity, who talks us through the six-week virtual cohort-based programme. Their focus is on providing practical insights and a supportive community, empowering entrepreneurs to navigate the diverse landscape of alternative funding sources. 

With over 97% of previous participants recommending the programme, this accelerator is revolutionizing the way startups approach fundraising, breaking away from the conventional VC mould, and encouraging founders to think outside the box for a funding fit that aligns with their values. Read on. read more

Welcome to the first of our new mini-series ‘Inside the Accelerator’. The series will showcase and delve deep into some of the exciting and diverse accelerator programs leading the way in their respective fields. This is part of our commitment to using our platform as a means of supporting the startup ecosystem beyond funding alone.

We aim to educate founders on navigating the landscape and growing in a more challenging climate. On behalf of our members, we’re looking forward to exploring the benefits and challenges of joining accelerator programs, as well as the impact that accelerators have on the startup ecosystem. read more

In June 2022, MASTER Plant Holdings (“Master Plant” or the “Company”), an emerging force in the European cannabis industry, raised £500,000 in a seed funding round with Angel Investment Network (AIN), the world’s largest online angel investment platform.

Following this investment, Master Plant will aim to licence and redevelop a pharmaceutical distribution facility in Guernsey designed to develop high quality medical cannabis, unique strains and wider products for European distribution. read more

A pioneering Australian payment platform for hospitality called Payo has been named as AIN’s Startup of the Month. The platform was singled out from close to 150,000 startups currently raising on the AIN platform for having ‘a winning formula’ as an investable proposition. The business was given the accolade after a judging process involving AIN’s expert panel, combined with a high number of connections from investors.

Payo is a payments and software solution for small and medium restaurants. It solves the problem in hospitality of venues needing to use 4-6 different payment systems with an all-in-one solution enabling venues to make payments more simply and cheaply. The Payo founders came up with the idea following more than 10,000 conversations with venue owners and operators over the past decade in various roles.  read more

The new year offers everyone a great opportunity to reset and renew. For startups seeking investment this could be the perfect time to evaluate your approach and see if it needs tweaking.

After all, we are in a very different climate in 2023 and investors are being far more careful with the deployment of their capital. To boost your chances of a successful raise, ensure your strategy is tailored for now, not last year.

So what key resolutions should startups focus on in 2023? 

1) Revisit your elevator pitch

The life of any startup is varied, stressful and relentless, wearing so many hats and juggling so many balls. All the while, trying not to let any drop or run out of cash. However in this maelstrom of activity it remains crucial to not lose sight of the eureka moment that led you to quit the day job and come up with the idea in the first place. The start of the new year offers a great chance to refresh your core pitch for investment as clearly and articulately as you can.  read more

With a downgrade in some valuations and a more challenging economic outlook, angel investors are increasingly rigorous with the startups they are backing. 

This means that after a few years of future-gazing and hype alone driving some investment rounds, genuine traction is squarely back in the back in the conversation. Early stage startups especially need to be able to demonstrate their potential investability with tangible proof points of momentum.

The Oxford languages dictionary definition of ‘traction’ is ‘the extent to which an idea, product, etc. gains popularity or acceptance’. Investors will be looking for the metrics or KPIs that best demonstrate these are being achieved. read more

The SEIS & EIS venture capital schemes are two of the four schemes managed by HMRC that enable UK early stage businesses that are potentially high risk to raise money from angel investors, crowdfunding platforms and venture capital trusts.

They offer investors attractive capital gains tax breaks that significantly hedge the risk of their investments. For any business looking to raise pre-seed to series A funding in the UK, offering SEIS & EIS relief to investors is almost a prerequisite for a successful raise. However, it is not always straightforward to navigate. read more

A strong quality that marks out successful startup founders is a ‘fail fast mentality’. Integral to the fail fast philosophy is cutting losses when testing reveals something isn’t working and trying something else.

However in fundraising this can be a very costly process, with raising investment being carried out in parallel with running a nascent business. Making mistakes with potential investors or going down rabbit holes with time wasters can take you further away from your other job of building a game-changing startup. That’s why we wanted to bring to bear some of the accumulated wisdom of startups who have successfully raised via AIN over the past two years. read more

Funding will help accelerate global borderless education support in higher education

Fast growing EdTech startup Vygo has raised £1.5m in a pre-seed funding round supported by Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform. Vygo is a Saas platform reinventing the conventionalsocial support ecosystem in higher education.

Offering personalised support services beyond the physical campus, the business already works with a third of Australian Universities and is rapidly growing in the UK. The raise will help it expand in the UK and Europe and fuel its ambition to build borderless social education for every student. read more

Whilst we’ve seen some huge successes in terms of fundraising in the last year, it’s important to remember the companies that have been successful, not only have worked very hard and persisted to get there, they often have clever hacks and systems to help. 

As many of you are thinking about new year’s resolutions from a personal perspective, here are some recommendations for hacks, tips and processes that could improve your fundraising in 2022.  

Look after yourself to look after your startup   read more

The worldwide startup ecosystem is well established and growing strongly in many different territories. The success of Angel Investment Network in creating more connections between founders and investors globally is testament to that. However, while investment in startups has rebounded strongly after the worst of the pandemic, we can also follow this with an increase in funding for diverse startup founders. Why does this matter? Well, it’s not just about having better representation for the sake of it, important though this is, it actually also makes better sense commercially.

In the UK while just 5% of founding teams have two female founders, research has also shown that only 1% of venture-funded startups have black founders. It’s a similar picture in the USA, where according to Crunchbase, black startup entrepreneurs still received only a tiny fraction — 1.2 percent — of the $147 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. startups through the first half of the year.  To disrupt this, here are four reasons why we need to boost investment into more diverse founders. read more