Smartlands has received the 'Best Crowdfunding Platform' award from the fintech breakthrough awards, which recognises the top companies and products in the financial services and technology industry today.

In February, digital bank Revolut became the UK's most valuable fintech startup after a funding round saw its value triple to £4.2bn. It has since announced that it’s set to launch in the US very soon, where no doubt it will continue its swift growth trajectory.

In any business, at any time, cash is king and cashflow is much more important than turnover, and in the short term it can often even be more important than profit. If turnover is vanity and profit is sanity, then cash flow should be regarded as stark reality.

The government backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) has been rolled out at unprecedented speed, and the size of the financial packages being made available to support businesses and employees are also unprecedented. But these are also, of course, unprecedented times.

We invest in people that are very similar to us. That in itself it can be a good thing, the problem is that men invest mostly in men! Having spent the last eight years in venture capital investments working with many entrepreneurs during their journey from early stages into growth, I realised that there are differences in the way the women entrepreneurs in my portfolios experienced the fundraising journey.

Not all investors are equal. They each have different expectations and require subtly different information to be able to make a decision. So how do you know what kind of investor is best for your company?

Let’s face it: if your business is growing fast, you’re likely to need capital. There are different ways of financing it (advanced or discounted sales, strategic partnerships, bartering, grants & loans, crowdfunding) with Venture Capital one that arguably poses the greatest risk for both founders and investors.

Fluidly, which is changing the cashflow management game through automated forecasts, is launching a funding service to aid the million-plus small businesses that have fallen into overdraft or that need funds to grow.

Whatever any of us care to call it - funding, finance, getting investors, or any other variation on the theme – obtaining finance remains one of the biggest areas of both concern, and lack of detailed knowledge, for many startups.

Getting accountancy advice and assistance is a natural and important step for all most businesses, especially those starting out. When you hire an accountant, the last thing you anticipate is that they will be negligent. Unfortunately, accountants and other professionals do not always get it right.

Angel investment is one of the best ways early stage startups can raise investment. Therefore the behavioural trends of investors will be closely followed by savvy businesses looking to ensure they have what it takes to raise finance.

As a three-time entrepreneur, I’ve been on the difficult journey of scaling from founder to big-company CEO. In one of my ventures I went from an idea on a whiteboard to a publicly trading entity in eight years, and it isn’t just one big celebration – it is hard to keep up with your company.

You've rehearsed your pitch within an inch of your life. Your slides are well designed, hit all the relevant points and your timing was spot on at three minutes.

When choosing to ‘go it alone’ as entrepreneur, there are numerous financial, operational hurdles in the way. Starting a new business from scratch is not easy, often requiring huge amounts of time and personal investment.

Give yourself a well-deserved clap. You’ve done it! You’ve come up with a revolutionary new idea, quit your day job and launched your own business. But to really get this off the ground, you’re going to need funding.

I've heard thousands of pitches from hopeful CEOs of startups in a vast array of formats. Many investors have strong views on what to include or not include in a pitch deck.

Brexit is dominating the news and has created a lot of uncertainty for all of us in the UK. In this politically neutral article, I’m going to explore how I think Brexit will affect R&D tax credits in the UK. 

The process of raising investment differs for every startup according to numerous factors, including the stage of development of your product, how much money your business requires and the type of investors you target.

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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