FoundersDoor Investor Lounge Wrap-up 🌯
Tags: Investment, Startup, Access To Capital, Diversity In Tech, Foundersdoor

The recently published Diversity Beyond Gender report from Extend Ventures makes for some bleak reading when evaluating the current state of access to capital for black tech entrepreneurs. Some of the stats are damning e.g. in the last 10 years only 38 black entrepreneurs have received VC funding in the UK, the total amount of which only accounts for 0.24% of VC spending in that time period. A lot needs to be done.

This isn’t news to us at YSYS. We have known about this issue from listening to the founders in our community and the various anecdotes they have to share. However, having the numbers to add empirical weight to the stories is a game-changer.

FoundersDoor Investor Lounge was set up in partnership with Innovate UK as a means of facilitating relationship-building between diverse founders and investors in the ecosystem; as well as share practical knowledge to benefit entrepreneurs who are thinking about raising investment. Having had a few days to reflect on the event, we are pleased to say that it was a massive success!

In the first half of the day, we were privileged to have over 80 founders join our two amazing sessions.

Alternative Routes to Investment Panel

Andy Ayim MBE, Shosh Shetty, Esme Verity, Jonny Voon

VC is often seen as the sexy route to investment due to media coverage of the basement office startup that gets millions of investment and becomes a unicorn. The reality is, the vast majority of startups don’t get funded through the VC route. This session was an opportunity to shine a light on some of the different methods of raising including angel investment, crowdfunding, blended capital and innovation grant-funding.

Thank you to Andy Ayim MBE (Angel Investing School), Shosh Shetty (Bagboard), Esme Verity (Atmos and Zebras Unite) and Jonny Voon (Innovate UK) for their amazing contributions to the discussion. If you missed the live version and are kicking yourself about it — below is the link to watch in full. You’re welcome!

Perfecting Your Investment Approach

Our panel talk was swiftly followed by a value-packed presentation and Q&A led by Nana Parry, CEO and Founder of Tectonic London.

Nana does not skimp out or hold back on advice. He went through exactly what he has done in the past to successfully raise £200K in angel investment, including his process for organising potential invester relationships, the myth of the all-important pitch deck and much more.

Again, if you missed it, we got you. Check it out in full below. Nana will also be launching his own series of video classes soon so be on the watch.

Private Office Hours

In the lead up to the day we had over 50 founders apply to take part in the office hours, which gave us the tough job of reviewing, shortlisting and matching successful applicants to our investor partners.

We made a point of ensuring that the right people were in the same room, which meant matching based on investor thesis and startup industry/stage alignment. 25 amazing startups made the final cut, covering all bases from marketplaces, e-commerce and applied AI, to sustainability, B2B SaaS and Fin-tech.

We’ve received some amazing feedback from the founders, who are creating solutions for health-tech, agri-tech and much more. We are extremely hopeful for the future of the participants’ ventures and for the connections formed during the event.

As is always the case for us, once you have taken part in a YSYS initiative you are invited to the family, and we are pleased to welcome onboard a good number of talented entrepreneurs to the community.

Massive thank you to the teams at Atomico, bp Ventures, Forward Partners, Cornerstone Partners and Salesforce Ventures for their participation and the excellent advice they gave to founders.

We are excited and already planning ahead for Part 2!

#CommunityLove