Introductions to qualified investors

Most start-ups are launched with the backing of family and friends (or “families and fools” as the cruel joke goes,) but what does an entrepreneur do when he or she has proved the concept of the product with early sales and some good customers, and wishes to capitalise upon the successful launch? Yes, he or she may revisit the early “angel” investors to follow on but normally the expansion capital required to accelerate the business is of a different magnitude to that which might be sourced from the family and friends network.

Lets take an example: You might have raised, say, £250k from your “angels” for your interesting piece of software but now, having achieved sales traction and a market presence, you require between £1m and £2m to build a mature Sales and Marketing operation to exploit the addressable market for your unique product. Without rapid roll-out across verticals, into channels and new geographies competitors might come into the market and overtake your first mover advantage.

So, you’ve established that you require equity funding. You don’t want debt. (Your bank probably wouldn’t understand your business!) You try one or two Venture Capital houses that you’ve heard about, or may have a contact at. They all say “This is an excellent concept, please come back to us when you are (a) profitable and (b) have over £5m of sales. Yes, you are the victim of the Equity Gap!

At Londra we have compiled an extensive database of funders with appetite for investing in precisely this difficult area of expansion capital. These include