Category: Latest News

Today is International Women’s Day!

There are some incredible events being run across the world today, we will be joining and learning from some of them this morning. You can view some of the events HERE.

We work with incredible women on a daily basis, and celebrate women founders. Today we are in Leeds for our latest pitch event, where two of this afternoon’s pitching businesses are women run (and they’re fantastic!).

We can’t wait for the investors to review their opportunities, and are looking forward to supporting them through their funding journey. For now, it’s time to join some of these fantastic events!

#IWD2023 #EmbraceEquity

We had a great time attending yesterday afternoon’s Northern Angel Summit in Leeds.

Our Founder Martin Avison was on the ‘ ‘Why is now the time for angel investing?’ panel hosted by Jordan Dargue from NorthInvest, alongside Paul Munn from Par Equity, Roderick Beer MD of the UK Business Angels Association, Gordon Bateman the Founder of Investor Ladder, and David Pearce, angel investor.

Yesterday afternoon was full of fantastic speakers and the event is one of three events for the North.

It was great to see a spotlight on Northern based opportunities and investments.

The British Business Bank’s ninth annual Small Business Finance Market 2022/23 report is out today and highlights a rise in the number of equity deals in the Yorkshire and Humber regions for smaller businesses.

In these regions there were 67 announced equity investments into smaller businesses in the first three quarters of 2022. This is a 3% increase compared to the equivalent period of 2021.

The investment value of these deals also increased by 96% to £214m, the highest increase of all UK regions and nations.

You can read the full report HERE.

On the morning of the 23rd we are running our Supporting High Growth in the North East event where we are inviting founders to come hear from our fantastic speakers:

– RTC North, High Growth Support Iain Edwards

– Ryecroft Glenton, R&D Tax Credits and SEIS/EIS simon whiteside

– Ward Hadaway, the main legal considerations James Nightingale

– Barclays Eagle Labs and the High Growth Team Sally Curtis, David Summerbell

You can register for this event HERE

In the afternoon we will be running our usual online pitch event, where we have 4 brilliant businesses set to pitch.

Roll on next week! We’re excited to get these events underway.

A busy day in Leeds!

This morning we ran an in-person due diligence session where some of our local angels sat down with a business to go through the investment opportunity. A lot of our investors prefer to meet face to face with the founders that they are looking to invest in. After all, they are investing in the people as much as the business.

After a quick lunch we then welcomed the rest of the Leeds angel group to the afternoon’s pitch event along with four new fantastic businesses. We’re looking forward to supporting them through the next stages of their funding journey.

A big thank you to Schroders Personal Wealth for hosting today’s event.

Good news Friday – another fantastic business funded!

Unfortunately we can’t share the full details of this exciting business as they’re still finalising their round and are not quite ready to shout it from the rooftops.

We can share something from our MD Martin Avison though who worked closely with them on their raise. He said, “We are delighted to have concluded the round. Not only is this a great business with an excellent founder but they have the potential to provide real, substantial benefits to their target audience – literally, life changing”.

It’s an incredibly exciting business, who are making a real difference to a lot of people. We wish them (they know who they are!) every success in their growth journey.

There’s only a few weeks to go until our ‘Supporting High Growth in the North East’ event. The event will be held in Newcastle and is aimed at all businesses who are (or will be) looking for funding to grow and scale their business. Our speakers include:

– RTC North, High Growth Support
– Ryecroft Glenton, R&D Tax Credits and SEIS/EIS
– Barclays Eagle Labs, Eagle Labs and the High Growth Team
– Ward Hadaway, the main legal considerations

We will be talking about the angel investment process and how to prepare for funding.

You can register for the event HERE.

We hope to see lots of high growth businesses at the event.

With the end of the tax year approaching, we are seeing an increase in investors looking to use up their SEIS/EIS allowances. We are also getting a lot of applications from businesses looking for investment, so it’s been a busy start to the year!

If you fall into one of these categories then we would be delighted to hear from you. We run four pitch events per month, so we are always looking for exciting high growth businesses and investors seeking opportunities.

Are you a North East business? We are running an event next month which will be an in-depth look at angel investment and the connected ecosystem across the North East.

We have some fantastic speakers joining us, who will be discussing:

– RTC North, High Growth Support
– Ryecroft Glenton, R&D Tax Credits and SEIS/EIS
– Barclays Eagle Labs, Eagle Labs and the High Growth Team
– Ward Hadaway, the main legal considerations

We will also be coving angel investment in the region. To register for this event, just CLICK HERE.

We hope to see lots of exciting high growth SME’s there!

A big thank you to everyone who made it down to yesterday’s pitch event in Leeds. Which was our first in-person event of 2023!

Well done to the 4 businesses who have pitched with us this week. We’re delighted to say that all of the founders received investor interest and are now moving to due diligence where the investors will take a deeper dive into their business opportunity.

All in all, a fantastic start to this year’s events!

Happy New Year!

With only a couple of days left until Christmas we wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

We have run 49 events this year and worked with some fantastic founders and their teams on their funding. We have welcomed new investors to our groups, finalised lots of funding rounds, worked with some brilliant partners, and are proud of the continued work we do for the Investing in Women Code. All in all, it’s been another fantastic year!

We’ve been planning our 2023 activities and can’t wait to get started in the New Year. But for now, it’s time to enjoy the festive season and that begins now with cracking open the Christmas biscuits!

Merry Christmas everyone.