Category: Investment

Generative AI: Revolutionising industries and investment opportunities

Generative AI, once a niche topic, has rapidly become a global conversation, even being used in a slanging match between rivals in the US Presidential Election. Its promise is to revolutionise industries and reshape the way we interact with technology.

In our latest Sector Focus article, Christian Teichmann, CEO of Burda Principal Investments (BPI), provides insights into what Generative AI means, the reasons behind its surge in interest, the challenges it faces, and the enticing investor opportunity. read more

Who owns what?

In this guest blog, Carine Schneider, President of Astrella, providers of leading cap table management software, gives a 101 on understanding your cap table, and some of the key risks to avoid when it comes to share ownership.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PRIVATE COMPANY OWNERSHIP 

So, you’ve got a game-changing idea that’s going to disrupt your industry and you are ready to raise funding and change the world. Congratulations! You’re ready to move fast and break things, to turn it up to eleven, to do what most won’t, to live like most can’t. You’re ready to build your very own rocket ship read more

An Introduction to Litigation Funding

Out investment series continues with an exploration of litigation funding, with a guest post from Sophie Liu at Axia Funding:

AxiaFunder is an online litigation funding platform that connects investors with pre-vetted commercial litigation opportunities that we believe have the potential to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. We are specifically targeting cases on the lower end of the legal market which, in our view, has been underserved by existing funders.  read more

An Investor’s Guide to Key Startup Metrics

Angel investors generally invest early in a startup’s life, meaning that if they identify successful investments, there is potential for huge returns. One of the key steps for angels to assess investment opportunities is looking at metrics and benchmarking against other similar companies. 

To be clear, every sector, and indeed every startup, will have different relevant metrics, but these should be of use as a starting point:

Churn rate 

A company’s churn rate is the percentage of customers that cancel in a given period. It’s of particular importance, in that acquiring new customers is typically considerably more expensive than acquiring new customers.  read more

Acing Due Diligence: Selecting Startups Like a Pro

Antonis Argyros is the CEO of Vesquad, in this guest post he shares advice about getting Due Diligence right – from setting up processes and using relevant tools, to getting to know the founders. Vesquad support investors by enabling them to provide hands-on support to their portfolio companies through an integrated approach.

As an angel investor, handpicking promising startups that actually do have the potential to succeed is one of the most challenging tasks you’ll have to undertake. Europe in 2021 had one of the best – if not the best- years in terms of startups’ revenue, which possibly exceeded $100 billion in total venture capital investment, according to a report created by Atomico for the investment firm Cambridge Associates. But how can you ensure that you’ll secure a piece of that revenue? read more

How to become an Angel Investor

2021 saw a record number of investors join Angel Investment Network. We expect to see the trend continue into 2022, with both established investors and new investors joining the platform. 

If you are thinking about taking the plunge for the first time and getting involved in backing some of the great businesses of tomorrow, here’s our guide for getting started:

What is an Angel Investor?

An angel investor is an individual who backs one of a startup’s first rounds of funding, investing their own money, rather than a venture capitalist (VC) that invests pooled funds at a later stage. read more

Looking Back & Looking Forwards

Looking Back

When we reflected on the year at the end of 2020, a few things sprung out: the sheer chaos inflicted by the Coronavirus, or COVID, as we now call it. It caused all kinds of new problems – with new startups emerging to solve these problems.

Redundancy and furlough led to the talent pool increasing and the quality of start up teams increased, a key predictor of startup success.  Productivity jumped as people found new ways to save time, skipping their daily commute and switching meetings to shorter Zoom calls.  read more

StartUpBuzz

In the run up to the festive period, the AIN team highlights some of the companies that they are most excited about. With two companies shaking up the property market, a chocolate brand targeting the very top of the market, and a company that is revolutionising 3D printing.

Virtual View App 

During the pandemic, viewing properties has been difficult, at times impossible, but one of the lasting effects of it is more and people screening potential properties with virtual tours. 

Virtual View’s ‘Vieweet’ app helps amateur photographers create a 360 view, or virtual tour on an app. It’s useful for viewing potential property to buy or let, but other use cases span insurance, interior design and surveying.  read more

#SixtySecondStartUp with Society

Up next for #SixtySecondStartUp we have Matthew Billington, Co-founder of Society. Matthew noticed that student usage of Facebook was falling off a cliff and set up a startup to help student societies manage their members with their own branded apps.

What does Society do?

Society is your own branded community app in an instant. With over 1,700 clubs with group chats in over 217 Universities in the UK and worldwide, Society is now the fastest growing app at University for clubs and societies.

App features include push notifications direct to all your members for instant alerts and updates for events and announcements. It has your club’s calendar of events, an instant searchable network, personal profiles, direct messaging, group chats, free e-tickets and much, much more. And, it’s completely free for students.  read more

#SixtySecondStartUp with IBS Coach

Liamhl Asmall shares the story of IBS Coach, a digital dietary treatment for the 800 million people affected by IBS.

  1. What does your company do?

We help the 1 in 7 people who suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to get instant and effective digital treatment from the phone in their pocket. It may come as a surprise, but IBS is one of the most common digestive conditions on the planet. It’s not life threatening and is still taboo (which is most likely why it’s been so overlooked for so many years), but it severely impacts relationships, work, travel, and ultimately, quality of life.

In one study patients with IBS were willing to give up 15.1 years of their remaining lives to achieve perfect health. People are desperately seeking a cure. read more

AIV Capital completes investment into meat alternatives business Eat Just Inc.

AIV Capital has announced investment into alternative food business, Eat Just Inc. Eat Just Inc develops and markets plant-based alternatives to conventionally-produced egg products. Founded in 2011 by Josh Tetrick, the San Francisco based business is reducing dependence on chickens and battery farms for egg production by creating a realistic and viable alternative from mung beans.

Eat Just Inc. has raised over $500Mn to date and will use its latest round of funding to continue to improve the unit economics of the business and to focus on international expansion outside of the US. It was announced recently that the key ingredient in its plant-based JUST Egg products received approval from the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) expert panel on nutrition. This opens a pathway for the initial launch of JUST Egg to occur in Europe in mid-2022. Its high profile produce was also on the menu at Barack Obama’s recent 60th birthday. read more

BehindTheRaise with Paperclip

Rich Wooley is the CEO and founder of Paperclip, a challenger marketplace taking on eBay. Rich shares lessons from his fundraising in #BehindTheRaise: What’s the biggest thing he thinks investors look for? What would he do differently if he did it all again? And well, does AIN really work?

Tell us about what got you into start ups:

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset – my first business was at school selling Big Red chewing gum that I imported from the US, it certainly made me more money than my paper round!

At university, my housemate, Alan, (later, co-founder) and I made good money importing clothes from the US and selling them on eBay, and we saw an opportunity there for a challenger marketplace to take on eBay’s monopoly. We shelved the idea at the time, and both went into our respective management consulting careers – but eventually I thought that if I didn’t do something entrepreneurial soon, I might never, so I took a career break and started attending startup events in London like AngelHack and London Startup Weekend. I pitched Paperclip, we came second place, and we got to work. read more

#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. read more

#SixtySecondStartUp with Cancha

For this edition of #SixtySecondStartUp we have Jack Oswald, founder of Cancha, he shares how his experience as a professional tennis player led him to set up Cancha – unique tennis bags designed from the ground up:

  1. What does your company do?

Cancha is a customizable sports and travel bag brand. Our bags feature a unique modular design, which allows different accessories to be mounted and detached from each other in a matter of seconds, allowing users to tailor their bag to their favourite activities and daily routine

Cancha Bags are also made from an abrasion-resistant, high-tenacity nylon, and incorporate the latest advancements in textile manufacturing processes, such as laser-cut fabrics, heat-bonded zips and RF Welded construction. Cancha launched during the pandemic of 2020, and has since seen a strong uptake among sporting and outdoor enthusiasts looking for an innovative and durable way to travel with their gear.
read more

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. read more

Majority of US startups very optimistic about the next 12 months

A majority of US startups (52%) are now ‘very optimistic’ about the next 12 months, despite 62% seeing business growth negatively impacted by the pandemic. This was a key finding of a new study of US startup sentiment 18 months after the start of the pandemic, by Angel Investment Network (AIN). The study of 1,205 US based startups found 76% expressed optimism overall with 19% quite optimistic and 52% very optimistic, versus just 24% who were pessimistic. It followed on from a similar survey we conducted of UK startup sentiment last month. read more

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. read more

#StartUpBuzz


Each month our team selects some of the companies raising on Angel Investment Network that really stand out, as part of our #StartUpBuzz feature.

This month’s picks includes: Smart Container Co – real time tracking for beer kegs, Bx Technologies, a platform facilitating carbon offsetting by connecting corporates with farms, and ARQ, an investment platform for personalised wealth management using AI.

Smart Container Co

Enabling Transparency and a net-zero draught beer supply chain.

Smart Container Co turns traditional kegs into ‘smart’ containers, so that breweries, distributors and pubs can monitor the state of the beer inside, by combining a small waterproof IOT device connected to each keg (a KEGTRACKER), with their BEVEREDGE software. read more

#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. read more