Category: Latest News

We are so pleased to have closed the round for Check an Invoice. A truly outstanding management team with the most impressive grasp on the detail that we have ever seen. Combining this with a considered solution for a largely universal problem, we are confident that this company will go on to achieve a significant exit.

The Check an invoice group provides touchless document processing in two verticals – medical transcribing and document processing. Their products offer customers a touchless processing experience. This greatly reduces their operating costs and eliminates many manual processes. They offer their products as a service which results in several advantages of other competing products.

Firdaus Mogul, Co-Founder and CEO commented on the investment, “working with Martin and his team is an experience every Founder should go through . His knowledge for what his investors are looking for help you pitch your company with the right balance of detail and clarity . He is personally involved and genuinely cares for your success. Martin’s group of investors are true professionals, and we have the pleasure of not only raising funds through them but having one of them become a key board member. I have worked with many angel groups, without a doubt , Martin is the best.“.

We wish Check and Invoice the very best in what we are sure will be an exciting future.

We are bringing back a lot more physical events this year! After running only two in person events since the start of the pandemic we are really eager to get investors and founders back in the room together.

We aim to provide a blended solution for our investors moving forward where we will rotate between physical and online events in all of our regions, so we’ll always have accessible pitch events for all our members.

When we ask the founders which events they would prefer to pitch at they are always really keen to get in the room with the investors. After all, there really is nothing like the atmosphere of a live pitch event and the energy in the room.

We will be reintroducing in person events gradually in Q1 of this year, but aiming to be full steam ahead with these as soon as possible.

We are delighted to have worked with Good to Glo in supporting them with active angel involvement and investment. We’re not surprised this generated the interest that it did because combining a real-life problem with a regulatory requirement and a superb founder are great indicators of success.

Good to Glo’s mission is to refine the journey of the beauty consumer by using technology to allow each person to have their beauty records at their fingertips. They have digitised an integral legal process used every day in the industry. Good to Glo will aid its consumer with scientific knowledge around the products they buy giving them a unique personalised skincare experience.

Ruth Sullivan, CEO Good to Glo, commented on the investment, “I found the whole experience incredibly eye opening, and I really valued the investment journey with angelgroups. I was able to gain access to people who have enabled me to drive my business forward, not just in terms of monetary investment but shared skills and experience that is vital to any entrepreneur starting out.”

We very much look forward to seeing the roll out of this solution and the ongoing success of the business and wish Ruth and the team every success.

As part of one of our educational events last year for businesses looking for funding we covered the support an angel investor can provide. This is why angel investment is often referred to as ‘Smart Money’ because you benefit from the investors breadth of knowledge and experience as well as the funding. This gives you the opportunity to learn first hand from individuals who have quite literally ‘been there and done it’ and are now looking to give back and support the next generation of founders.

 

 

Occuity pitched with us earlier this year and we were delighted to support them in their raise. This was a hugely popular investment opportunity amongst our angel network. They were excited by the innovation, product and most importantly the team. We were thrilled to have so many of our members invest in this opportunity.

In Occuity’s end of year review they highlighted their investment round as follows:

“Welcoming a large number of new Angel investors as shareholders – It was great to see that our business, technology and mission (to improve the lives of millions of people across the globe) clearly resonated with investors.”

We wish them every success in 2022 and look forward to following their story as they grow and scale in the years to come.

We’re beginning to wind down for Christmas so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

We’ve had a really great year and have been fortunate enough to support lots of fantastic founders in their funding journeys. We have also welcomed new angels from across the country (and the world!) to our groups and are looking forward to working closely with them and our current investors in 2022.

From everyone here at angelgroups, we wish you all a safe and Happy Christmas.

Online events… we’ve certainly ran a lot of them this year again. We have ran a total of 45 online pitch events, 2 physical pitch events and 4 SME educational events (also online!).

It doesn’t stop there either. We also hold all of our due diligence events online, which has actually turned out to be a fantastic asset for us. Our angel members are based all over the country, and abroad, so online events mean that everyone is able to take part. Even if they can’t, we then have a recording we can share amongst the interested parties so they catch up at a time and date that suits them. We’ve even had members compare these recordings to watching Netflix!

We’re hoping the figure for online vs physical will be closer together at the end of 2022, but either way we are so grateful for being able to continue to do what we enjoy doing most – bringing founders and investors together.

Yesterday we ran our Christmas Pitch Event in Leeds and what a fantastic afternoon it was. We had four businesses pitching, all at very different stages of their growth journeys but all with one commonality – great founders.

We also heard from our guest speak and prolific angel investor who discussed his portfolio strategy and shared his wealth of experience and his ‘enjoy it or don’t do it’ approach.

A big thank you to everyone who made it into Leeds and to our partners in supporting us as always. It truly was a fantastic day.

There’s less than a week to go until our Leeds Christmas Pitch Event!

It’s been 2 years since we have been able to run our end of year event, so we’re absolutely thrilled that this year will see it’s return. We have four fantastic businesses pitching with us as well as a great angel speaker to top off the event.

Roll on next week where we hope to see lots of familiar faces, new faces and the odd mince pie!

 

Funding COMPLETE!

We were delighted to support SMASH in their raise. In truth, it is always a pleasure to work with such a passionate team with such a clear purpose to make positive changes to the way we live our lives. We are confident that the business will be one to watch in the future.

SMASH (Save Money And Stay Healthy) is a business focused on the health and wellness of all young people.

The SMASH app connects restaurant, supermarket and D2C food brands to 13 to 24 year old’s with discounts on healthier food products, allowing young people to discover healthier food choices. Free to those under 25, SMASH also recently launched a paid subscription version for those aged 25+ as it steadily becomes the go-to destination for everyone to discover affordable, healthier food.

Chris Holmes, Founder & CEO at SMASH, commented on the investment, “Martin Avison and the angelgroups team SMASHed the corners off from our pitch document and helped us truly focus on the most important aspects of our story for investors. Routine communication and a managed process added structure to the follow-up and through Martin, we were delighted to meet a number of investors who have already added value to the business as we seek to help the nation, and young people especially, live healthier lives”.

You can download the SMASH app today by searching “SMASH” in a good app store near you, or visiting www.smash-app.co.uk

The countdown to the end of the year is well underway. We still have 6 weeks left until Christmas, at which point the mince pies go to everyone’s head and no-one knows what day it is until at least January 4th.

We’re focusing on these next 6 weeks and trying to achieve as much as possible before ringing the 2022 bells. We still have six pitch events left before the end of the year and we’re confident we can also squeeze in as many due diligence sessions as possible before people break up for the festivities.

Businesses are looking to excel their growth at the start of 2022 and we can’t wait to support them on their journey to securing funding and support.

Pitch Perfect – Getting It Right The First Time! We often say “people do not invest in slide decks, they invest in people”. So, keeping the content minimal forces your audience to listen to you, and not read busy slides.

A big thank you to Barclays Eagle Labs AgriTech for including us in their latest session on pitch preparation alongside Russell Copley from Greenborough Management Limited. We really enjoyed discussing some of the hints and tips of building the perfect pitch.

You can catch up on the session HERE.