Many companies think the only way to grow is through Venture Capital (VC) investment. Most companies who seek VC investment, however, fail to get it.

A survey of 200 startups and scale-ups – commissioned by Envestors in 2019 – has uncovered a number of misconceptions which are ultimately impacting the ability of companies to successfully raise funds using the crowdfunding model. Furthermore, the results show the approach - which hasn’t changed since its genesis in 2011 - is ripe for disruption.

Beauhurst, the provider of data on growing British companies, has released a report mapping out the UK’s ‘herd’ of unicorns. Coined in 2013 by Aileen Lee, Founder of Cowboy Ventures, the term 'unicorn' refers to a young, private company whose valuation has reached £1bn or more.

If your business has investors – then the importance of investor relations cannot be overstated - in Brazil, Egypt and Bulgaria, companies are mandated by law to have an IR function. That’s not the case in the UK – but it doesn’t mean you should ignore it.

In the last two articles in this series I have looked at various aspects of finance and this time I am going to stay with the financial theme but from a very different angle – tax. But tax is a very broad topic and I wanted to focus on one unusual aspect of the UK tax system, and that is R&D (research and development) tax credits, and it is unusual in the fact that this time it is HMRC giving you money rather than taking it.

In this, the second part of looking at the different forms of finance available to a startup, I look specifically at the different types of equity finance and try to summarise the benefits and drawbacks of each. The March edition of the magazine looks at the question of finance in full detail.

Sachin Dutta, Growth Hacker and Founder of Tractionic, shares a growth hacker's perspective on why humans fail and how to succeed at crowdfunding.

So far in the series I have looked at some of the different types of assistance that is available to a startup and also about what benefits working with a Mentor can bring and how you should be trying to maximise those benefits. 

Anyone who has received a PPI call in the past will know only too well the scepticism felt when the person on the other end of the line tells you that you’re entitled to thousands of pounds that you didn’t know about.

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