SME Safari London: Show me the money!
This month’s SME Safari was slightly different to the rest. As a reminder, these are monthly events where a group of civil servants who are SME policy makers or product owners travel to meet entrepreneurs in their real-life trading setting. This month’s SME Safari was to a Barclays Demo Day to observe founders pitching for investment. Before the highlights, an introduction to a Demo Day.
Barclays launched Demo Directory from its Eagle Labs division. The Directory is described as ‘a network that aims to connect businesses, investors and corporates. It’s a place for ambitious founders to showcase their businesses and raise capital, and for investors and corporates to find new opportunities.’
The Directory comes to life in the real world through Demo Days. Back to the one we visited to share key take-aways:
Gaps in multiple markets
On the day, there were three stages operating covering; consumer, sports, and creative sectors. I watched 12 x 5 minute consumer pitches. Showing that enterprise is alive and well, founders had spotted gaps in the market from furniture to plant care, performance gummies to bottom wipes – you can see the list of companies that pitched on my stage below. Of the 12 pitches, I counted only two with a sole founder, with the rest being co-founded by friends, previous work colleagues and, in one case, a husband and wife team. Those with co-founders were clear to show who does what in the business across sales, production, ops and marketing.
Look at that adviser table
I was blown away by the quality of advisers that made up the support teams of those pitching. There were former C suite execs from huge companies including Diageo, Sainsbury’s, Black & Decker, and Google Cloud cited who not only bring expertise to early stage founders but deliver credibility when pitching. I imagine most of these advisers are in no or low paid positions but respect to them all for supporting a new generation of entrepreneurs by offering their knowledge and potentially contacts.
Years in the making
Many of the founders had operated for years in the sector in which they were starting a business and/or had spent considerable time on R&D including Dominic Cotton 🚲 who has patented a new foldable helmet and @Ben_Beavers who worked on a solution for owners to keep house plants alive. It was good to see all of them in a good revenue position and making strong sales into physical retail in the UK (proof that our big retailers are still looking for new brands and innovation), and that the investment being sought was to be spent on scaling, with a big part of that expansion being targeted overseas – showing you can be a young business and still go global.
The role of SEIS and EIS
A repeated message from the investor community is to retain tax relief schemes SEIS and EIS and I heard it loud and clear on the day from seasoned investor, Stephen Page, who hosted the stage. Stephen’s company, SFC Capital, had invested in 6 of the 12 businesses pitching on the consumer stage and has backed a whopping 650 companies to date. A major enabler of this are the schemes in place. Find out about them here and consider registering for your own firm.
And finally on finance
It was a big week for SME funding provision as government announced a significant expansion in the Growth Guarantee Scheme, opening up £billions more in funding directed at small and growing businesses.
When the Minister for Small Business was asked his proudest moment since being in role, and in the year since the launch of the Small Business Plan, this finance expansion was it. You can see the Minister share that and what’s on his list for the next 12 months in our ‘Get the Money Moving’ webinar here.
Thank you to the team at Barclays Juliet Gouldman Benjamin Storey and Mark Walker for allowing us to spend a Safari with you and best wishes for continued success to all those amazing pitching founders.
Emma
Pitching companies