Funding
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This morning in London, the UK’s answer to Startup America launches, titled – guess what? – Startup Britain . That similarity aside, the initiative has been put together by a number of existing UK entrepreneurs and is not being backed by any government money, unlike the Obama initiative. Instead, we have here a ground-up entrepreneur-led initiative which is seeing over 60 leading brands offer services to up-and-coming startups in the UK. This is not specifically about tech startups – but it may well appeal to that sector.
UK entrepreneurs launch Startup Britain discounts with PM’s backing – but not his money
365 Days, $10 Million, 3 Rounds, 2 Companies, All With 5 Magic Slides
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Socialcast founder Tim Young detailing how he raised 3 rounds totaling $10M in VC money in a year’s time with a 5-slide deck. This was originally published at “Knowledge Is Social.” “I have a short five-slide deck to share that provides a solid framework for understanding our business.” Since moving to San Francisco a little over a year ago, I have spent every day helping to build Socialcast and about.me . During this time, I have raised more than $10 million combined over 3 funding rounds for both Socialcast and about.me . Convincing venture capitalists to invest in two startups in less than 365 days was a challenging task, but one that quickly taught me the dos and don’ts of raising money.
A new early stage investment firm is de-cloaking in London today. Three prominent Angel investors on the tech scene in London – Stefan Glaenzer, Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero – have been operating out of their White Bear Yard base in Clerkenwell for just under a year. Rumours circulated that they were looking to raise a real fund to continue their work, and now the news is about to break (ok, now it’s broken). Passion Capital ( @passioncapital ) is a brand new fund aimed squarely at early stage tech startups and has closed its first investment at £37.5 million ($60 million). They anticipate making about 50 investments, where the average investment size is likely to be £150k-£200k at a time. But they say they will go as small as £15k-£50k and also “most certainly higher” than £200k depending on the situation.