Behind The Raise with acQyr eXchange founder Jim Mulford

For our latest Behind The Raise interview we speak to Jim Mulford, founder of rewards redemption platform for gamers, acQyr eXchange. The serial entrepreneur talk to AIN about his mission to effectively monetise the hugely growing gaming market with relevant rewards and offers, learn about how to get ahead of your competitors. As someone who has led several exits he also offers his top tips for raising investment and reveals the pitfalls to avoid.

Tell us about The acQyr eXchange and how you came up with the idea?

Our mission and QX Offering have a strong foundation of research, development, pilots, partnerships, and IP for the real-time issuance and redemption of digital reward value in markets that effectively apply loyalty rewards to attract, engage, and retain the customers of businesses within each market. read more

Behind The Raise with WAU Bikes co-founders Linas Pozerskis and Crystal Drury

For our latest Behind The Raise interview we speak to Linas Pozerskis and Crystal Drury the co-founder of smart-EV and energy storage startup WAU (We Are Universal). They talk to AIN about their mission to transform the electric bike market, top tips for raising investment and why shortening supply chains has improved the startup’s capacity to innovate.

Tell us about WAU bikes and how you both came up with the idea?

The problem we identified was that there was no 2-wheel EV platform on the planet that would take all large 4-wheel EV perks and raw sex appeal and make it portable. Our solution was to provide a powerful/portable alternative to full size Smart EVs such as Polestar, Tesla, Lucid, etc. read more

How to create a working culture that boosts business resilience and growth

Almost three-quarters of investors wouldn’t back a company with a problematic workplace culture.  And 66 per cent of potential recruits wouldn’t accept a job with a company known for having a bad culture.  In a recent report (May 2022) by software developer, Culture Shift, these startling statistics reveal that attitudes have significantly shifted – people are simply unwilling to put up with negative or toxic cultures.

This means that when growing your business creating a positive working culture is higher up the priority list for a founder and organisational leaders of small or large enterprises, than it has ever been.  With a natural expectation from investors for a business to be resilient in challenging economic circumstances and still grow, then this culture has to be carefully created and maintained. read more

Smart-EV startup WAU raises £650,000 powered by Angel Investment Network

Birmingham-based smart-EV and energy storage startup WAU (We Are Universal) has raised £650,000 in a pre-seed funding round with Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform.

WAU, launched in 2018, is a fast-growing smart-EV vehicle platform transforming urban mobility. The product offering includes: WAU Bikes, a smart, long range electric bike with a powerful onboard computer, the 2 wheel version of the smart electric car; and soon unveiling the WAU Powerwall, enabling the bike’s power cells to be linked together to serve as power storage for solar homes and power plants among other uses. Finally WAU vision, its data gathering capability for an autonomous EV future, rolling out to all current and future riders of WAU across the world.  read more

Avoiding pitfalls when claiming under SEIS and EIS Investment Schemes

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

Top fundraising tips: Five reasons why investors back successful startups

What is the magic formula that turns investor interest into action? In the last of our fundraising top tips blog series, we consider ‘the million dollar question’ of why investors back early stage businesses.

We have identified the top reasons based on the accumulated wisdom of startups who have successfully raised via AIN over the past two years, based on dozens of interviews. So exactly what are the top factors that will encourage an investor to become part of your cap table? 

1. The strength of the founding team

This came out as the number one reason startups received backing. After all, at this early stage, often pre-revenue, traction may be  limited. Investors are taking a gamble that any early stage company will go onto a significant exit and ensure a significant return. They need to have faith in the founding team to deliver. The old adage that ‘people buy people’ is proved out here. read more

Behind The Raise with CitizenMe

For our latest Behind The Raise interview we speak to StJohn Deakins, the founder of ‘Zero Data’ leader CitizenMe. He talks to AIN about his mission to improve the internet by enabling people to control their own data, developing your ‘why’ as a startup and his fundraising insights having raised in the UK, USA and Asia.

StJohn Deakins, founder of CitizenMe
Tell us about CitizenMe and how you came up with the idea?

My last startup helped over 100 million people get online with their smartphones. After selling it, I had the ‘beach time’ to dig deep into the economics of the internet. It quickly became clear that data will become the new currency of our digital world. However, because everyday people can’t participate in the value of their own data, there are billions of dollars of value left untapped. This personal value from personal data can mean many things. read more

How to avoid the top fundraising pitfalls

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

Behind The Raise with Ben Hallett, CEO and co-founder Vygo

Ben Hallett is the CEO and co-founder of fast growing EdTech company Vygo, built to ensure no student is left behind. In the latest Behind The Raise interview he talks to AIN about creating equality in education, scaling fast and pivoting, the reasons for rising investor interest in EdTech and how to avoid wasting time when fundraising.

Ben Hallett, CEO and co-founder Vygo

Tell us about Vygo and how you came up with the idea?
While studying at university, myself and my co-founder witnessed too many of our peers struggling, falling through the cracks and ultimately falling short of their potential. With further research we discovered that the problem was global with 30-50% of students dropping out of higher education and most students struggling with severe or debilitating stress. We discovered that one of the core challenges is helping students connect with the support they need when they need it and we couldn’t see anyone else meaningfully solving this. This set us out on a mission to ensure that every learner has equal access to the support they need, when they need it, so that they can reach their full potential. read more

Behind The Raise with Antony Yousefian, co-founder of Bx Technologies

Antony Yousefian is the co-founder of innovative agtech businesses Bx Technologies. In the latest Behind The Raise interview he talks to AIN about transforming farming, his lightbulb moment courtesy of cannabis growers, a near death epiphany, and a clever approach for refining your pitch for investors.

Antony Yousefian, co-founder Bx Technologies

Tell us about Bx Technologies and how you came up with the idea?

Bx Technologies helps farmers switch to climate friendly practices by measuring the climate-impact of produce, and putting that information on food. We do this via our software technology that quantifies farmers’ positive impact on improving their soil. We then sell that as a service. This enables farmers to differentiate their crops from others.

My co-founder Ben Bardsley is a 5th generation farmer and my background is in asset management where I was involved in the initial waves of cleantech. So we really understood the challenges in this space. Both on the ground and the economics behind it.  read more

EdTech startup Vygo raises £1.5m supported by Angel Investment Network

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

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. 

To date, AxiaFunder raised £2,387,843 for 14 commercial cases, of which six have already reached a positive resolution, generating a 12-94% return to our case investors each over a period of 2-15 months (with an average IRR of 48%). The remaining 8 cases are currently ongoing. There are no losses to date. * read more

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.  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

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

Fundraising New Year’s Resolutions for Startups

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

Tips from the Top: Transitioning from founder to leader, how to be the one in five

In the next of our Tips from the Top series, we speak to Ed Lowther who leads The Soke’s Founders Development Programme, a first-of-its-kind course designed to provide vital knowledge, understanding and skills to founders at the helms of fast growth businesses.

When Harvard Business School spoke to its 141 HBS alumni who led start-ups, they asked: “What does someone who aspires to your role need to know?” The research revealed that of all the possible areas to focus on, there are two essential areas that over 80% of the group unanimously agreed on. read more

SixtySecondStartUp with CheckMates

In this week’s edition of #SixtySecondStartUp we catch up with Leah Zabari, founder of CheckMates, an app to connect you with anonymous support during difficult times.

  1. What does your company do?

Checkmates is a mobile app designed to help individuals connect with anonymous support during difficult times.

Checkmates uses algorithms and a dating app “swipe right” style in order to help the individual find profiles they can relate to.

Our focus on imagery and metaphors to describe each user’s story erases the need for potentially triggering language. Therefore putting the user in control of their information and how they would like to receive support. 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