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In this episode of Behind the Business City A.M. SME and entrepreneurship journalist Jennifer Sieg unravels why investors and startups alike are calling this free newsletter: "The dating platform for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs."
She speaks with Benjamin Story, the founder of Barclays Demo Directory, the platform making the connection possible, and Anthony Newman, the founder and CEO of Ape2o, a startup that found one of its largest investors using the platform.
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0:00
It's not about finding an investor, it's about finding the right investor
0:08
It's as we put the power in the investor's hands. This was relatively simple. So the core challenges, I think, founders face when it comes to accessing capital, it's not about finding an investor
0:25
It's about finding the right investor. What most founders usually will do is they might identify a few
0:29
investors they think will invest, but what they practically do is then scattergun. They send 20, 30, 40 decks to different investors. It's time inefficient and success rates are very low
0:39
Investors also don't like this. Investors don't like being spammed. We speak to investors to tell us they don't have the time to go through all these applications, but they spend more time saying no to founders and they do managing their own portfolio. It doesn't make a lot of sense
0:51
So we built the Demo Directory platform to try and solve these inefficiencies in the market. So a founder, instead of sending out the
1:00
listing or their investment opportunity to different investors one by one, they can create a
1:05
listing on our platform and simply they can then get access to a scale audience of investors
1:11
They can be seen by more investors and they can probably manually go and attempt to outreach to
1:15
It says we put the power in the investors' hands. So we allow investors to come and log in
1:20
Investors can have search and filter functionality so they can see the sorts of deals that are interest to them So if they only interested in opportunities based in Manchester or if they only interested in opportunities in a certain sector or with a certain type of founder or of a certain check size
1:32
they only see the things that are relevant for them. I think the key point here for the investor is cutting the noise and keeping the signal
1:39
This means positive for the investor is it takes less time for them to identify the things they are
1:43
interested in. Once they're on the platform, they can have a look at the listings provided that come through the searches
1:49
they can go into more detail, find out whether they're EIS registered, S-E-I-S-registered
1:53
find out about the team, about what the success of the business is so far
1:57
They can watch demo videos or even see images of the team or even products
2:02
And the power, again, remains in the investor's hand, enables them to connect with the founders that they like
2:09
So it stops the spamming, which is the big problem. It means that investors can see things that are more relevant to them
2:14
and it means that founders can get in front of the right investor. And it makes it quite easy for them as well
2:19
because it can be a daunting task to find, you know, the right investor, like you say. And I'm aware that it's been in newsletter format, and just about six weeks ago, you launched the full platform version
2:29
So I guess how has that been going? I'm assuming you've seen success with the newsletter
2:34
So, yeah, talk me a little bit about the growth there. We run it as a pilot for about 18 to 20 months, as a newsletter as you've identified
2:43
We had somewhere at 640 founders come through to the platform with no marketing 385 investors signed up So we knew there was a demand from both sides of the market I think there some great statistics about companies actually going on to raise capital
2:57
What we were essentially doing was we were making sure that good companies and good quality investors
3:01
were in the right marketplace together for the right reasons. And we had, through our pilot, it had 49.3% of our founders who demoed in front of an investor
3:09
raised within six months, which is way above what you see in the market. We also saw a great indication or some great statistics around
3:17
Founders from outside of London, outside the Golden Triangle accessing capital. There's a high demand there, but we know that a lot of the capital goes to people based in Oxford, London and Cambridge
3:25
We saw a high application rate from diverse and female founders as well
3:30
And the great statistic actually not only did we see high numbers of applications, but we saw high numbers of investments as well
3:34
So great. So the pilot demonstrated enough that there was demand for this proposition
3:39
So you're right, we invested into, it made it into a platform to be able to manage scale. And yeah, the platform has been launched, as you said, I think six weeks ago
3:47
To date, I think we've got 204 founders live with opportunities as we speak
3:52
Just about 140 investors signed up in this first six-week period. And yeah, we're getting connections happening now
4:01
And the great thing about it is it's entirely free for everyone, free for founders, free for investors
4:05
So we're making sure there's really no barrier of access for whether you're a founder or an investor
4:09
to be involved in this marketplace. We just want to make sure the right founders and the right investors are included It was a great experience working with Dema Directory It was really easy to engage with the platform It was free massively important for pre companies
4:28
that are working on their concept. And ultimately, you put your pitch on there
4:36
you very clear about your sector, your stage and your opportunity, which I'm going to say saves a lot of time
4:43
There's some really complicated onboarding processes out there with some of the online funding platforms
4:50
And this was relatively simple. One of us free and relatively simple. And secondly, we found one of our largest investors through a contact through the platform
4:59
So someone found us, introduced us to someone else and they ended up being an investor. And that all happened really quickly
5:04
So we had a great experience. I mean, I'm sure other people, you know, I'm not going to say it's always going to be easy for everyone
5:10
But if you go with your best foot forward and be really, really clear, about what your business represents
5:16
Why do you exist? What's the reason you exist? What problem are you solving
5:21
And they always say you've got to have a problem with solution. But just be achingly clear about that yourself. Because there's dark times and there's up times
5:27
through this journey. And if you're so clear about why you're doing this in the first place
5:32
the why of your business, you will have the resilience to carry on. And that's the best advice I could give to anyone
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#Venture Capital
#Investing
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#Crowdfunding