Podcasts about Seedrs

In this episode of Screw It Just Do It, Jeff Lynn, co-founder of Republic Europe (formerly Seedrs), shares his journey of building one of Europe's leading equity crowdfunding platforms. What started as a university project evolved into a platform that has facilitated over £1.5 billion in investments across 1,500+ businesses. Jeff discusses the challenges of navigating regulatory approval, scaling a startup, and the importance of hiring the right team. He also reflects on his transition from CEO to Executive Chairman and the lessons learned in helping everyday investors back early-stage businesses.Key Topics Covered Include: How to raise investment through equity crowdfundingThe legal & regulatory challenges startups faceWhy market research alone isn't enough to validate an idea

Raising Angel Finance and Venture Capital for Your UK Startup Starting and growing a business often requires substantial funding. For UK entrepreneurs, angel finance and venture capital (VC) are two of the most popular options for scaling a startup. In this episode of the Charles Kelly Money Tips Podcast, we break down these funding sources and share how you can access them. Watch video - https://youtu.be/uUuhpoE2lcg What is Angel Finance?Angel investors are high-net-worth individuals who provide funding for startups, typically in exchange for equity. They often invest at earlier stages than VC firms and may also offer mentorship and business connections. Platforms like Seedrs or Angel Investment Network can connect you with UK-based angel investors. What is Venture Capital?VC firms provide larger amounts of funding to businesses with high growth potential. They look for startups that have already proven some traction and scalability. VCs like Index Ventures and LocalGlobe are popular choices in the UK. How to Attract Angel Investors and VCs: Craft a Winning Business Plan: Clearly outline your market opportunity, growth potential, and financial projections. Build a Strong Network: Attend pitch events, startup accelerators, and industry conferences to meet investors. Show Traction: Highlight existing sales, user growth, or partnerships that prove your concept is working. Prepare for Due Diligence: Be transparent and organized when presenting financials and business operations. While both angel finance and VC can accelerate your growth, they come with trade-offs like equity sharing. Choose the right path for your business goals. For more tips on funding your startup, watch the latest episode on the Charles Kelly Money Tips Podcast on YouTube. How will Labour’s new Renters Rights Bill 2024 affect buy-to-let landlords? The Labour Party’s Renters' Rights Bill 2024 is poised to bring significant changes to the UK’s rental market, impacting both tenants and buy-to-let landlords. Understanding these changes is crucial for landlords to navigate the evolving landscape effectively. Watch video version - https://youtu.be/Wx1HXgVW1bM Section 24 Landlord Tax Hike Interview with Chartered Accountant and property tax specialist who reveals options and solutions to move your properties from your own name into a limited company or LLP whilst mitigating the potential HMRC pitfalls. Email charles@charleskelly.net for a free consultation on how to deal with Section 24. Watch video now: https://youtu.be/aMuGs_ek17s #MortgageRates #FixedRateMortgage #BaseRate #UKHousing #InterestRates #MoneyManagement #CharlesKellyMoneyTips #Podcast #PersonalFinance #HomeLoans #property #buytoletmortgage #landlord #section24 #Inflation #Landlords #PropertyInvestment #RentalIncome #CharlesKellyMoneyTips #UKEconomy #RealEstate #AngelInvestors #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #UKBusiness #Entrepreneurship #RaiseCapital #CharlesKellyMoneyTips #FundingTips #BusinessGrowth

Supporting Artists Whilst Changing The Marketplace In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent speaks with John Sewell, founder of Cosimo, an innovative online marketplace designed to help early-career and emerging artists showcase and sell their work. With over 1,200 artists already on the platform, Cosimo aims to make art more accessible and affordable while supporting artists through e-learning resources and strategic partnerships. Key Discussion Points: Cosimo's Unique Business Model Cosimo is designed to support artists in their early careers, offering free listings for artists with the option of paid subscriptions for enhanced features. Unlike traditional art marketplaces, Cosimo doesn't charge commission fees (which can range from 30% to 50% in the art industry). Instead, the revenue comes from artist subscriptions and corporate sponsorships. Buyers pay for shipping, which includes protection, similar to the Vinted model. Overcoming Fundraising Challenges As a first-time founder, John shares the tough lessons learned from raising funds through the Seedrs crowdfunding platform. It took two years to secure his first funding round, gaining 150+ investors who now form a valuable network. He also highlights the setbacks caused by delays from a micro VC and stresses the importance of contingency planning for future fundraising. Focusing on Marketplace Development While the platform initially concentrated on acquiring artists, the focus has shifted towards attracting buyers and proving market demand. John shares how content creation and social media are key to showcasing the artists' work, and discusses the development of e-learning resources to help artists improve their business skills. This shift is essential as Cosimo aims to create a sustainable and profitable business model before further investment. Technology and the Future John also looks to the future, exploring how technologies like AR/VR and AI can enhance the art-buying experience and create new revenue streams for artists. He envisions a world where AI helps more people tap into their creativity, ultimately expanding the market for Cosimo. John's Personal Growth as a Founder A lifelong learner, John relies on podcasts and mentorship to inspire new ideas and solve business problems. He finds walking while listening to podcasts particularly helpful and leverages AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and Midjourney to streamline various tasks. The support of other startup founders has also been instrumental in his journey. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. For now, continue listening for the full story from John.   Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for. If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin You can get in touch with Kevin here: kevin@biz-smart.co.uk   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available! Drawing on BizSmart's own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up. More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/   John can be found here: https://www.cosimo.art/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnedwardsewell/   Resources: Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@tetragrammaton_now Canva - canva.com ChatGPT - https://openai.com/

Ten of the country's most promising tech entrepreneurs have completed the first Furthr Foundry Accelerator Programme, Ireland's latest Pre-Seed Accelerator. The intensive 12-week programme concluded this week at the Guinness Enterprise Centre (GEC). On the final day, the participating start-ups took part in investor pitches and had one-on-one meetings with leading Irish VCs and Angel Investors. During these meetings, each start-up engaged in detailed discussions about their business plans, received valuable feedback, and sought investor perspectives. The ten high-potential start-ups who completed the Pre-Seed Accelerator Programme will now be seeking to raise a combined pre-seed capital investment of up to €4m. Winner of the 'Most Investable Start-Up' award announced on the Finale Day as voted for by the panel of investors, was Safely, founded by Jack Manning. Safely serves commercial vehicle fleets in the US, UK, and Ireland by offering a driver safety solution that has been estimated to reduce claims by over 50 per cent. In addition to being recognised as the 'Most Investable Start-Up', Safely also received a cash prize of €3k, sponsored by Growing Capital, the leading provider of pre-seed private investment in Ireland. Commenting on the Furthr Foundry Accelerator Programme and what the "Most Investable Start-Up' award recognition means for his company, Jack Manning, founder of Safely, said: "It's great to have won! It's validation that all the hard work to date is worth it. And it really does make me believe that I can grow this business, get the investment I need to really scale it to the level I want to scale it to. So, it's unbelievable validation, great to have won it. But the job's only really starting I suppose." Commenting on the programme and the engagement with the participating start-ups, Gianni Matera, founder of Growing Capital, said: "If the aim of this pre-seed accelerator is to prepare start-ups for their pre-seed round, then I believe it has been successful. Many start-ups are now ready to apply for a PSSF, and some are even poised for an HPSU round." The panel of investors attending the finale event included representatives from some of Ireland's most active Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors, including Sure Valley Ventures, Elkstone Private Partners, Growing Capital, Furthr VC, Delta Partners, Enterprise Ireland, Seedrs, ACT Venture Capital and Furthr Investor Network. Speaking to the Start-Ups on the Finale Day for the Furthr Foundry Accelerator Programme, Martin Murray, CEO at Furthr, said: "Today's final part of the Foundry Accelerator Programme culminating in the finale day, is hopefully only the beginning of our journey in supporting your growth and in realising your ambitions for your respective businesses. Our success will be measured by supporting our clients to become 'investor ready' to take on their first institutional investment and myself, along with our business and investor mentorship teams, look forward to working closely with you to make this happen." Devised by Furthr, the country's leading business innovation centre, in conjunction with the programme's key partners including Growing Capital, Microsoft's Founder Platform and the Guinness Enterprise Centre, the Furthr Foundry Accelerator Programme sets out to support, prepare and deliver 10 investor ready high potential start-ups who will take on pre-seed investment following their successful completion of the programme. Companies participating in the inaugural Furthr Foundry Accelerator programme included a wide range of diverse tech empowered businesses and industry sectors, leveraging some of the fast emerging technologies to enable digital transformation for many businesses, including artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, EdTech and biotech. The ten companies who successfully completed the first Furthr Foundry Accelerator Programme were, Allocator Training Institute, Biovit Technologies, Co-Swipe, Decision Analytics, Sa...

We were blessed to enjoy a great conversation about retrofit and what we should consider our priorities, with the vastly experienced retrofit firebrand Fionn Stevenson.It was a challenging, surprising, and free-wheeling conversation spurred by a call to action she made on LinkedIn some time ago, in which she decried fabric-first approaches and declared: "We need to tackle low hanging fruit first".That post we're referring to:"This is why " fabric first" as a blanket approach to retrofit is not always the best solution. Some properties will do better with cheaper renewable energy heating options without the expensive faff of additional external wall insulation, lack of construction skills and building physics understanding - which is massive in the industry. Just massive. We need to tackle low-hanging fruit first."Now, we don't expect you to agree with everything she has to say, but you're only doing yourself a disservice if you don't listen.Notes from the showFionn on LinkedInThe Know Your Home logbook for homes platform, and its Seedrs capital raising page**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Jeff Kelisky, the chief executive of Seedrs, the crowdfunding platform, tells the story of what it is like to succeed a founder as boss of their own company and how crowdfunding is helping businesses scale-up This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit offtolunch.substack.com

As marketers, we all want to know what truly drives the growth of challenger brands. We all want to see massive user growth, successful campaigns, and ultimately, we want marketing to have an impact. So why are these so hard to achieve? In this fast-paced, ever-evolving world of marketing, the volume of information can be overwhelming at times and obsolete at others. It's a daunting and steep learning curve for marketers who are on a mission to change their categories or their entire industries. In this week's episode, we take a deep dive into how to market like the best brands in the world and truly set yourself apart as a challenger brand. Distilling the knowledge of 65 episodes of Scratch and 100s of conversations we've had with the best CMOs in the world from PepsiCo to P&G, Beavertown to Bloom & Wild, we decode the 10 core principles of how to market like the best challenger brands in the world. You'll hear from the likes of Gary Vee, Linda Boff, Rory Sutherland, and Jim Stengel on topics ranging from customer centricity to frameworks for innovation and the ability to understand and utilize data correctly. In this special episode, we cover all the timeless principles you need to be a high-performing modern marketer. Use this episode as a reference guide and drop in and out for the chapters and feel free to check out the full episodes all linked below. Welcome to Challenger Marketing Decoded! 

The UK Investor Magazine was delighted welcome Eric Kihlstrom, CEO of Centaur Robotics, for a deep-dive into their electric mobility vehicle designed to give people more freedom.Find out more about Centaur Robotics on Seedrs here.6 million people in the UK and 34 million in the US can't walk 400 metres. Centaur's mission is to provide an aesthetically pleasing mobility vehicle with a high level of agility that is able to manoeuvre in areas alternatives can't.The management team includes executives with decades of experience at Ford and leading the UK government's efforts in longevity and helping people in later life.The company has been engaged by Emirates Airlines to help boost bookings by providing a better customer experience for people with mobility impairment. Centaur's aim is for their vehicles to be used on cruise ships, museums, and other public venues.The product has been displayed at the Victoria & Albert Museum, won various design awards, and received three grants from Innovate UK.One of Britain's greatest Paralympic athletes, Tanni Grey-Thompson, is an ambassador and has said Centaur gives her “the freedom to do what you want, when you want.”The current Seedrs campaign will provide the funds to take their product to market and start generating revenue. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK Investor Magazine was delighted to be joined by Tom Bott, Managing Director & Co-Founder at Signature Brew, to delve into the company's current Seedrs crowdfunding round.Signature Brew was founded by a brewer and a musician with a mission, brew beer that makes music better.Signature Brew has established a thriving brewery and music venus business which is set to generate over £5m in revenue in 2023. The company has achieved their success by forging relationships with musicians and music venues to deliver an all-encompassing service to music lovers.Signature Brew is currently crowdfunding on Seedrs and enjoying strong investor interest, surpassing its initial target.Visit Seedrs Crowdfunding Page.Tom discusses the importance of reaching the £10m revenue milestone and how it quickly attracts the interest of global brewers who may be interested in adding Signature Brew to their portfolios. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK Investor Magazine was thrilled to welcome Michael Lindegaard, CFO at Heliac, for an exploration of the future of solar power generation and revolutionary storage systems.Find out more about Heliac on Seedrs here.Heliac believes they are developing what will be a vital part of the net zero energy transition. Their solar foil produces emission-free power that can be stored in their patented Rockstore energy storage system.Rockstore utilises rocks to store heat and is one the most competitively priced methods of energy storage, offering a real alternative to lithium batteries or pumped hydro.We explore Heliac's progress to date, including their first two solar panel installations constructed for energy major E.ON and district heat provider Norfors.Michael explains that their technology operating profitably in Denmark bodes well for the scalability of their systems in other countries with far more daylight hours per year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

According to Seedrs, investors spend an average of 3 minutes and 44 seconds reviewing a pitch deck so clearly, it's crucial to create one that is sufficiently brief yet still conveys your business proposition to your target audience.In this episode, I hear from Venetia Archer, founder & CEO of Ruuby, the UK's leading at-home beauty & wellness service founded in 2015.  After identifying a gap in the London market for an on-demand beauty app, Ruuby has grown to become the fashion set's beloved digital beauty concierge. Venetia shares her advice on what a pitch deck should include, how long it should be and the pitfalls to avoid when putting yours together. Venetia's advice: You must outline the product and the mission of the companyConcentrate on the story & make it make sense But the three vital components must be: the financials: what you want to raise, and on what terms / your team (or the team you hope to acquire when you have the investment) / the market environment and your competitiveness within itYou may need to use an advisor to help you with the financial modellingYou obviously can't expect your modelling to be accurate as there are so many unknowns, it just needs to be plausibleYou can't expect to tailor the pitch deck to each individual.  You could try a three tiered approach - start with a “teaser deck” just showcasing the main highlights.  Then if someone shows interest follow up with more detailed metrics, and finally if someone is seriously interested give them a thorough financial breakdownYou may want to invest in some design help to make it look slickAlways write it yourself, because you know the subject best and it's a good exercise for you; if necessary you can bounce your ideas off a colleagueYou will get more expert at doing this, and it's good to practise on potential investors as much as you canAlways have all materials and information ready to draw uponKnow in advance which investors you want and set out your intentions, making it clear how much time you expect from them and how much time you are prepared to give them in turnGeneral good advice: it's crucial to have a strong, experienced team as early as you canFinally, have the courage of your convictionsFF&M enables you to own your own PR. Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2023 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. Let us know how your start up journey is going or if you have any questions you would like us to discuss in future episodes. FF&M recommends: LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.Google Workspace is brilliant for small businessesBuzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directoryCanva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.For contracts check out Law Depot.MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  LicenceSupport the show

Happy Monday everyone - coming off the back of a week of insurtech madness last week in Vegas we have a great podcast episode to share to continue the insurtech innovation conversation. This week I was joined by ARMD Limited's CEO Devin Chawda.ARMD is reinventing the way tradespeople protect their livelihoods. Addressing an underserved £6.5B UK market opportunity, ARMD offers a unique combination of IoT technology with embedded insurance, designed to increase sales, reduce risk and minimise downtime.We cover a lot of ground in this conversation, here are some of the highlights...

Our expert host, 11:FS CEO David M. Brear, is joined by some great guests to talk about some new data from S&P Global (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/global-venture-capital-investment-activity-slumps-yoy-in-august-77454324) which shows venture capital funding could be on the downturn. According to their research, based on year-on-year funding in August, funding is down 37% and is at its lowest since the Covid pandemic. So in this episode we discuss if this is just a temporary slump or the start of a worrying downward trend. What are the implications on fintechs? And who, despite these numbers, is managing to buck the trend and find investment? This week's guests include: Liza Landsman, CEO at Stash Zeynep Yavuz, Partner at General Catalyst Kirsty Grant, Managing Director at Seedrs Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a bi-weekly podcast dedicated to all things finance, banking, technology, and financial services. Our expert hosts, with real industry experience, are joined by the biggest decision-makers, VCs, and reporters from across financial services including guests from Visa, Nubank, M-Pesa, Techcrunch, Starling, and JP Morgan Chase to discuss the latest news, developments, and trends within the industry. Our weekly news show drops every Monday and tackles the biggest news stories, from acquisitions and launches, to regulatory changes and innovation. Then, every Friday our Insights show dives deeper into the hottest topics shaping the industry like web3 and BNPL. Whether you're already immersed in the world of financial services, or just keen to learn more, this is the #1 podcast for you. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review Follow us on Twitter: @fintechinsiders where you can ask the hosts questions, or email podcasts@11fs.com! Special Guests: Kirsty Grant, Liza Landsman, and Zeynep Yavuz.

Kirsty Grant is Managing Director at Seedrs. Seedrs is Europe's leading online private investing platform that enables individuals to invest in startups, growth companies, and, if eligible, top VC funds, as well as supporting entrepreneurs in all sectors to raise capital from their communities, angels and institutional investors.Since its launch in 2012 as an equity crowdfunding platform, Seedrs has funded over 2,000 deals, with over £2.5 billion invested on the platform to date. With the recent acquisition of Seedrs by Republic, it is now part of the largest private investing platform in the world, with more than 2.5 million members globally that have invested in over 2,400 deals. The combined strength of Seedrs and Republic gives both investors and entrepreneurs unprecedented access to capital and investment opportunities across the globe. Kirsty joins James Pringle and Hector Mason in this episode to discuss where crowdfunding is at now, creating products that cater to different kinds of investors & so much more.Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow The Riding Unicorns Podcast on our socials and your chosen podcast platform to stay up to date!

The UK Investor Magazine was delighted to welcome Sahiba Patni, Co-Founder of WeDeliver, to explore their horizontal logistics business which is providing a convenience and delivery service across London.Visit the WeDeliver website and download the app.Sahiba explains the opportunity for WeDeliver and their investors to provide everyday convenience solutions across London. WeDeliver is not simply a delivery app but one that allows users to arrange everyday tasks through one of their operatives. WeDeliver also acts as a platform for local businesses to arrange the delivery of their goods to homes and other businesses.Sahiba provides an overview of their current crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs and outlines their future growth plan.Find out more about the WeDeliver Seedrs campaign here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andreas has had a philosophical conversation about what kind of founder you have to be to start a VC-backable startup and Julia gives the investor's view on what it takes to build a VC case. They end up speaking about the characteristics of a VC case, what VCs want to see in a deck for a VC-backable startup, and what other alternatives to VC funding there are out there. Company of the week: Guestit Other resources mentioned: Almi, DBT Capital, Ark Kapital, Seedrs, @soren_ivarsen on Twitter. Hosted by Julia Delin & Andreas Johansson Edited by Victor Ganguly Responsible publisher: Lars Strannegård

The UK Investor Magazine was thrilled to be joined by Frans Nomden, CEO of WATT Mobility for a deep dive into the future of e-bikes and how they are making our cities greener and cleaner.Our cities are striving for cleaner forms of transportation, and governments are promoting the use of bikes and e-bikes.WATT Mobility is pursuing its growth strategy with a crowdfunding round on Seedrs. We discuss why WATT are crowdfunding now and the opportunity for investors.Find out more about their crowdfunding round on Seedrs here.McKinsey has produced a comprehensive report on the future of mobility, in which e-bikes play a leading role. Read the McKinsey report here.WATT Mobility has carefully positioned itself as an affordable option for riders and is targeting deep penetration of the European market by increasing its reselling network to 800 stores from 180 currently.Explore WATT Mobility's e-bike range here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this session we talk about why a brand matters and how you can do it too. About Zack Deris: - Already supported over 6,200 people to date in the last 15 years with his training services and account takeovers. - Growth advisor for Metabeats, Real Nifty, True Crime Crypto, Invisible Lotus, Art Save the Queen, and many more. - Investor of Seedrs and also was a general advisor of several other projects. - Website: https://www.zackderis.com/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zdnft/ About Kevin Riedl: - Founder of Wavect (Web3 Software Agency) - CTO & active partner of DebtRay (Data analytics for corporate debt) - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wsdt/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wavect_eth --- Need a Smart Contract? Easy - hit us in the DMs: https://wavect.io#brand #marketing #web3

In this week's episode, we are joined by Kate McCutchen, the CMO of Seedrs  and Global Head of Marketing for Republic Retail. As Republic looks to revolutionise the way ordinary individuals can invest in the best startups and VC funds, Kate is leading the charge with their marketing. Drawing on over 15 years of experience at Apple, Samsung, Amazon Fresh, Square and Away, she has a wealth of insight and experience in what it takes to grow a business in a new market and capture lightning in a bottle, at scale. It was such a masterclass for marketers who are trying to deliver growth at a global level. Amongst other things, we discussed:Why she thinks paint brands like Coat are incredible challengers in a redundant space How to launch businesses like Square, Amazon Fresh and Republic into new markets successfully  The one mindset modern marketers need to have in order to capture the viral moments Mentioned in the show: 

Lucy started raising for Loanhood by building a rewards-based Crowdfunder and receiving a grant from NatWest. This helped establish the brand's community and opened their eyes to the crowdfunding ecosystem. After some questionable advice, they tried to raise £400,000 from VCs who, from the get-go, said, "No, you're not ready for this. You haven't got any traction”. The founders also wanted to crowdfund via Seedrs as the business has a a major community aspect, so it made sense to go this route. They got commitment and went live in a way that felt poorly timed before several investors pulled out, and they decided to close the round when it didn't exactly work out. Lucy believes you must be honest with yourself in this situation – there's no shame in backing away and refocusing when the time is right. Thankfully, talking to other founders was invaluable and helped Lucy, and the team figure out the next steps - reaching out to Angel investors. After many LinkedIn messages, their lead investor reached out to them, which was a game changer, and the domino effect began.In this episode you'll discover:Why rewards-based crowdfunding won't work for everyoneHow important advice from the right people isWhy there's no shame in failing a funding round and starting over

Equity crowdfunding is becoming all the rage right now. But here's the bigger news: It's not rocket science to do a successful equity crowdfunding campaign and today's story proves it! In this episode of the Crowdfunding Demystified podcast, Salvador Briggman talks to the CEO of Altwork Che Voigt, who is the only person in the crowdfunding history to raise both a Republic and Seedrs campaign! You'll hear his top insider tips for founders, including: Why choose equity crowdfunding over venture capital? How long does it take to build a big fanbase on Seedrs?  What is the one thing most people underestimate when it comes to doing an equity crowdfunding campaign? We hope you enjoy the interview!  Book a Coaching Call with Sal Sponsors:  Fulfillrite: Kickstarter and crowdfunding reward fulfillment services. They come highly recommended! Download their free shipping and fulfillment checklist.  

Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer a big opportunity for your business but there is another way you can raise money from the crowd. You've guessed it right! We're talking about equity crowdfunding which recently became one of the fastest-growing crowdfunding models. In this episode of the Crowdfunding Demystified podcast, you'll hear Salvador Briggman speak to Nick Raimondo whose startup raised £128, 707 from 129 investors on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.  Nick shares his best tips and hard-learned lessons, including:  The social media platform that helped them attract most investors How to determine the valuation of your idea And the two things you need to sort out in order to blow past your funding goal Whether or not you are considering an equity crowdfunding raise, we recommend watching this space, and today's show shows why.  Hope you enjoy it! Book a Coaching Call with Sal Sponsors:  Fulfillrite: Kickstarter and crowdfunding reward fulfillment services. They come highly recommended! Download their free shipping and fulfillment checklist.  

Blake Mill is a premium men's fashion designer, based in Manchester, which makes completely unique and high-quality men's dress shirts. Founded in 2018 by Steve French, Ross French and Ken Price, with a passion to make high quality dress shirts for people who want to express their individuality through clothes. The brand aims to help their customers stand out from the crowd. That may be as simple as sporting an interesting collar and cuff lining on a beautifully made white shirt. Or it may be as bold and brash as a neon impression of real brain waves rendered on the entire body of the shirt.The three founders collectively have over 50-years in Fintech, and they want to drive even more technology innovation into Blake Mill. From the design concepts and prototyping, to how shirts are made and authenticated - think QR codes that tell the customer exactly where the materials are from, how they were sourced and how the shirt was made. Customers will also be able to register their products on resale markets, allowing shirts to live a longer life.In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Ken Price, Co-Founder of Blake Mill about the founding story and what differentiates the brand from other men's shirting brands in the market.  Our host Peter Brooker and Ken talk about the design process, the Seedrs crowdfunding campaign, harnessing customer feedback, sustainability efforts, and Art licensing. Whilst we have your attention, be sure to sign up to our daily MenswearStyle newsletter here. We promise to only send you the good stuff.Support the showOur new store shop.menswear.style is now live!

What happens when your business pivots so much you end up in a completely different industry? Steven Renwick founded Satago, a platform that helps businesses get paid faster, in 2012. It was actually one of the first companies to raise money on the equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.  Whilst it started out as a way to crowdsource data about when companies were getting paid and use that to make real time credit reports, Steven had to pivot the business multiple times, meaning it went from a technology to a finance business.  The more the company grew, the more they needed investment, plus Steven was now in an industry he had no experience in. They raised nearly £3 million in total. But, in 2017, Steven had to try to sell Satago after it became insolvent.  What went wrong? Listen to find out.  If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com  Sponsor links: quickbooks.co.uk/secretleaders

The UK Investor Magazine Podcast was joined by Kamel Belkadhi, the CEO at Landex. Landex is an investment platform that provides exposure to the asset class of farmland.We discuss the benefits of farmland compared to property and commercial opportunities. Kamel outlines the dynamics of farmland investment and the yields available to investors. Landex are currently raising funds on Seedrs and have already surpassed their €100,000 target. Find out more about their crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs.Visit the Landex website here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is no doubt that the alternative meat and dairy sector is growing, but it is likely that we as a species will ever completely remove animals from our diet? There are huge existential reasons we should all remove meat and dairy from our diets, and thus the reliance on industrial farming and the damage that can do to the planet, not to mention the obvious; animal welfare. A 2019 YouGov report, looking at the eating habits of people in Britain, showed only one per cent identified as being vegan and just three per cent as vegetarian. So, it looks like a big mountain to climb and it could take some time. But in this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, we meet a man who not only thinks it will happen, he thinks it will happen relatively soon. Klaus Mitchell is founder of the media platform Plant Based News, which produces podcasts, editorial, and plant-based lifestyle news all about making veganism and plant-based living part of the mainstream. We delve into his personal story to find out what inspired him to form Plant Based News and why he believes it is only a matter of time before we move away from the current model of food production. We also discuss the rise of Plant Based News and how shifting ideas around veganism and vegetarianism have helped the platform to grow. Listen to the full episode to find out why he believes current economic concerns could accelerate the transition away from meat and dairy, what he sees as the main obstacles to change, and the parts of the world he believes are leading the way in overcoming those obstacles. Klaus Mitchell, Founder, Plant Based News Klaus Mitchell has always had a passion for health and nutrition, initially coming top of his year for Human Biosciences BSc from the University of Exeter, and then doing a masters in The Genetics of Human Disease MSc on a full scholarship at University College London. Upon graduating in 2015, Klaus launched Plant Based News to raise awareness around the health and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, which now boasts over 2.8 million followers on social media.  In 2021, Plant Based News raised over £1 million via investment platform SeedRS as a way of scaling up and expanding its reach.  Klaus has been an author of an article published in the journal of Public Health Nutrition, which explored the effect of diet on various health markers; was script editor on groundbreaking Netflix documentary Seaspiracy; and directs an annual documentary series on Plant Based News, showcasing the developments in the sustainability and alternative protein sector.

Lucy Hall is the Co-Founder of LOANHOOD, an online fashion rental platform and community that allows users to loan inclusive, diverse, and creative styles for an affordable price. Chad talks with Lucy about being a peer-to-peer fashion rental app, building a community, and reducing the impacts of the fashion industry on the planet and people by helping to create a sustainable future. LOANHOOD (https://www.loanhood.com/) Follow LOANHOOD on Twitter (https://twitter.com/loanhoodlondon), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/loanhood/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/loanhood), TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@loanhood), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzWBlASKUfH1OsdPEJOKxg), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/loanhood/). Follow Lucy on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hall-616b1614/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Lucy Hall, the Co-Founder of LOANHOOD, who are changing the face of fashion. Lucy, thank you so much for joining me. LUCY: Thank you so much for having me, Chad. CHAD: How are some of the ways that LOANHOOD is changing the face of fashion? LUCY: So we're starting off with a peer-to-peer fashion rental app, which we just launched ten days ago now. CHAD: Congratulations on the launch. LUCY: It's been a long time in the making. And, like I said, we're starting with a fashion rental app. But there are so many different ways that we want to change the face of fashion. It definitely needs a facelift. CHAD: What caused you to start with the rental platform? LUCY: It was something that we were really passionate about. So my co-founders and I actually worked in the fashion industry for the majority of our careers. So we could see first-hand how it was changing, how it's developing. And sustainability started coming into our lives, and we could see that things had to change. And we know that the fashion industry is quite archaic. Big fashion businesses are like these huge ships. It's so hard for them to change their course and to actually implement sustainability into their supply chains or their values. And we knew that we could do it quicker and better and faster than them. So we started testing the idea of circular fashion by doing clothes swaps which is a kind of an entry-level way to circulate fashion for free or relatively cheaply. And we started getting this amazing feedback from people like, "Oh, we would love to do this again. And have you thought about monetizing it?" And, of course, that was our...to get to scale, we knew that we had to monetize this sharing of clothes. And that's how our peer-to-peer fashion rental app grew and was born. CHAD: That's great. So you have two co-founders. LUCY: I do. CHAD: Jade and Jen. Were the three of you working together at the time? LUCY: Funny story, Jade and I are actually best friends. And Jade was my model back in the day. So Jade has been a fashion model for 12-plus years. And she was on Britain's Next Top Model. And I was a model agent. She came into my agency as one of the runner-uppers, and we forged a lifelong friendship from there. And we've both been passionate about fashion. And then, as I said, our career paths, we could see the detrimental effect of the planet. And Jade decided to go back to university and start studying. She did her master's in fashion futures at London College of Fashion. And that's where she started seeing sustainability. And the idea of a peer-to-peer rental came from that course. She was studying the future of fashion, and she knew that this was the only way we can move forward. And Jen was a friend of Jade and is a graphic designer by trade and is an amazing brand builder and amazing designer. So we were asking her for some advice. And she came on as a co-founder at the beginning because she just knew this was the right path for her. CHAD: You started with these swaps. Were you doing the swaps as friends because you felt it was the right thing to do? Or did you have an eye towards this could be something more? LUCY: Well, we knew from the beginning that we wanted to do something big. We knew we'd got to a certain point in our careers where we were like, right, let's use our skills to really make a change. But we were also working, and we all had jobs, so we were kind of doing it as a side hustle, just testing the idea and going, "Oh yeah, we'll do this." And then it started picking up, and we got a contract with a local council. And we were like, wow, people are really interested in this. Let's keep going, and then the pandemic hit. CHAD: How did the pandemic affect you? LUCY: [chuckles] Well, as you can imagine, people weren't really doing clothes swaps or renting or even thinking about those things at the beginning of the pandemic anyhow. So we kind of just put it on hold and did what everyone did in the pandemic, hunkered down. And we started learning as much as we could about the circular economy, about sharing economy, trust economy, marketing, product, really teaching ourselves from the bottom up what it takes to make a global brand. So we were quite lucky in the respect that we had that time away to really hone our skills and focus on what we wanted in the long term. So post-pandemic, when we came out of the lockdowns, although there were multiple back and forth, as you know, it was definitely a stop-start for us, but we knew that it actually...it just allowed us that time to really focus our minds on what we wanted and a long-term plan, not just like, oh, let's try this out. We know what we want for the next 5 to 10 years, basically. CHAD: At what point did you decide, okay, we have to make an app? LUCY: It was a difficult one because we thought Shopify, Sharetribe there are all these amazing platforms. You can just get a business at the click of your fingers. However, for peer-to-peer fashion rental, it's a much more complex model. Even Sharetribe, which is supposed to be for those kinds of models it's not as detailed as we needed it to be. So we tried to build a website from scratch. And, again, we just knew that we're very much focused on Gen Z. And when we were talking to our audience, we knew that they wanted an app. So we just scrapped it and said let's just go for it. But having no technical background was a real difficult decision for us because we had no funding. We'd all just left our jobs. The pandemic had happened, so we didn't have any savings really. So we had some money from the clothes swaps. And we did a rewards-based Crowdfunder, and we raised £14,000 from friends and family in our community that were buying free rentals for the future and just believed in the mission that we were on. And we were able to get that £14,000 and put it into the start of building an app. And as you're aware, apps cost a lot of money. CHAD: [laughs] LUCY: We didn't get that far. And we learned a lot of lessons with the build because we tried to project manage it ourselves. Having no technical background, that was tricky. And we offshored it to a team in India who were lovely and amazing but not as skilled as we needed them to be. Because we had no technical background, we really needed somebody to lead that for us. So we had a starting point, but we knew that we had to actually get a technical lead on board pretty soon. And we were lucky enough to find a partner in a company called ON, who are based in the UK. And with them on board, they led the tech from there on. CHAD: Continuing to work with that team in India, or did they actually provide the entire team at that point? LUCY: We switched to another offshore team because it costs so much money here in the UK. CHAD: So when was this all happening? LUCY: Last year, mainly. 2021. CHAD: To give folks an idea, you make the decision to start building an app. You start doing that in 2021. You just launched. But your business is more than just the app. Were you right up to the wire with the app being ready? LUCY: Like you said, we're building a community. And what we learned from the pandemic is that you can't rely on one part of your business to help you succeed. You need multiple things. And what we're passionate about more than anything is community. And what we found with the fashion industry is that it can be quite elitist. And if you want to work in the fashion industry, you have to move to London or New York or Paris, and you have to probably know somebody in the fashion industry, and we wanted to change that. We wanted you to be able to start your own fashion journey wherever you are based. And what we also saw was that all this money that people were spending on fashion was going to big fashion businesses and to probably one guy at the top of that chain, whereas, with peer-to-peer rental, you can actually circulate that money within communities. You're lifting communities up so they can create their own sustainable fashion future. So what was really important to us was to have community as one of our main pillars going forward. CHAD: And how have you gone about building that community? LUCY: Organically so far, which has been really nice. And again, the events that we do have been part of that. But to scale, we really need to start building out ambassador programs, referral systems that can help us hit those kinds of network effects. CHAD: So I know you're only in the UK. LUCY: Correct. CHAD: What are the limiting factors to expansion beyond the UK? LUCY: Money, obviously. CHAD: [laughs] Okay. LUCY: We're on a funding journey at the moment, and that's a ride for sure. So we kind of use the Depop playbook. Do you know Depop? You're probably over 25, so that's probably why you don't know it. CHAD: [laughs] Yes. LUCY: A third of 16 to 25-year-olds are on Depop in the UK. It's the 10th most-searched-for resale platform in the U.S. And they started off in the UK, and they organically grew into the U.S., which is nuts. We probably won't do that, of course, but we plan to go to the U.S. potentially next. But it depends on investment, on what our audience is saying, where they're based. What we find with our audiences, the universities that we partner with we have a lot of international students. So they're taking that idea back to their hometowns, which is really interesting. But on a tech front, going into the U.S. is easier because it's an English-speaking country. Going into Europe is a bit more complex because you have lots of different languages, although you have one single currency, which is helpful. CHAD: Since your model is peer-to-peer, individuals are sending the rented item directly to the person who's renting it, right? LUCY: That's correct, yeah. CHAD: And so I suppose one potential barrier is you don't need to be able to receive centrally or to handle things in the United States. But you need enough people in the U.S. to make it worthwhile for individuals to be sending each other things to have enough rentals and activity. LUCY: Always, the problem with the marketplace is the cold start problem. There is a great book by Andrew Chen called The Cold Start Problem. And we really need to build both the supply side, which we call the loaner, and the demand side, which we call the borrower. So we have been working really hard in the UK to get as many of the supply side on board because we know the people that we want to be on the platform, so emerging designers, young makers, and creators. And because we have our fashion backgrounds, we can identify those people quite quickly. And we've done things that are totally not scalable, like messaging them on Instagram and scouting people in the streets. But as a small startup, you kind of have to do those scrappy things as well just to kind of build the supply side. CHAD: Right. And I think that's why so many marketplaces end up focusing on particular geographies even if they could expand because that focus helps you do those unscalable things that you need to do in the early days to bootstrap that community that you need for the marketplace. It hadn't occurred to me until you just said it that I've been thinking that this would totally be individuals, but for an emerging fashion designer to be on your community offering up their clothing for rental, that hadn't even occurred to me as a possibility. LUCY: Something that we're passionate about, especially post-pandemic, a lot of young people that are either at university and didn't get the real university experience had to make some extra money started these side hustles of teaching themselves to crochet or teaching themselves to knit. And now they have these amazing pieces, and they're open to renting them out as well as doing their retail side of it. And what we found from the resale people, so the Depopers or people on Vinted, was that they'd get this kind of seller's remorse. So they'd upload the item, take amazing pictures, and they'd sell it once. But with rental, you upload it, and you can rent it out over and over and over again. And you still get to keep it and wear it yourself, so a bit of a no-brainer. CHAD: Yeah. So you went on the journey of creating the app, creating the community. You've just launched. So are you actively fundraising? LUCY: We are actively fundraising. We're just closing our pre-seed round. And we were very lucky to have an incredible lead investor come on board. He just got the idea instantly. What we found difficult is being female founders who don't have tech backgrounds; it's definitely a couple of negatives against us. [laughs] But we're going to use it to our advantage, and the people that are on the journey with us now 100% are behind us and believe in what we're doing. Because we're an impact business as well as we want to have profit alongside people and planet, that's what's important to us to make impact socially, environmentally, and through the industry. So the next step of our fundraising journey will be a crowdfund, an equity-based crowdfund. So we did the rewards-based crowdfunder last year. This year, it's going to be equity-based because we really believe that we're building this platform for our community, our audience. So they should be able to invest in us and come on that journey with us. And hopefully, the business grows to huge proportions, and that they can get some money back out of that later in their lives. CHAD: Are you going to be using a platform to do that? LUCY: We are undecided, although I'm leaning over to between one and another. There are only two platforms really in the UK, so Seedrs and Crowdcube. And I've spoken to some other founders that have done both platforms. And I've spoken to both the companies. I've looked at articles trying to find which one's the best fit for us. One interesting thing that we had with the Crowdfunder was we were deciding between Kickstarter and Crowdfunder UK. And Kickstarter is very much more focused on men, more sports, definitely a male demographic, so that's why we went with Crowdfunder. With Seedrs and Crowdcube, they don't have that; it's a very equal split. So it's just on the feedback that we've had from other people that have used those platforms. So I'm leaning towards one, but I won't say yet because I haven't fully decided. CHAD: So you're only allowed to do that with people in the UK? LUCY: I think it can be global, actually. CHAD: Are you planning on having it be global? LUCY: We have friends and family all across the world. I spoke to somebody today in Lithuania. I spoke to somebody the other day in Australia. I speak to people in the U.S. all the time that are like, "When are you coming to us?" [chuckles] CHAD: Yeah, that'll be interesting; the fact that you're able to do the equity crowdfund anywhere, but people won't be able to actually use the product right away. You know, it's sort of a catch-22; you've got to have one before you can have the other. And so, hopefully, people go along on the journey. LUCY: Chicken and the egg. We need the money to build the tech, to build the audience. But we need the audience and the tech to show the investors that we've got engagement and traction. And yeah, there's always something. I think we're doing pretty good. MID-ROLL AD: As life moves online, brick-and-mortar businesses are having to adapt to survive. With over 18 years of experience building reliable web products and services, thoughtbot is the technology partner you can trust. We provide the technical expertise to enable your business to adapt and thrive in a changing environment. We start by understanding what's important to your customers to help you transition to intuitive digital services your customers will trust. We take the time to understand what makes your business great and work fast yet thoroughly to build, test, and validate ideas, helping you discover new customers. Take your business online with design‑driven digital acceleration. Find out more at tbot.io/acceleration or click the link in the show notes for this episode. CHAD: You mentioned that your three female founders have faced some bias, it sounds like, especially in talking with potential investors and seeking to grow your community. How has that been for you? LUCY: You know, I don't want to put it down to being a female founder. I actually think the statistics tell us that, unfortunately. But I think what's the problem is that most of the people that I speak to in investment, either VCs or angels are guys, middle-aged guys between, say, late 30s to the 60s, and they are investing in businesses that they get. They don't generally get a peer-to-peer fashion rental app for Gen Z. They're like, "Oh, they're going to want to ship things to each other, and like, what about the packaging?" And they've never heard of Depop. It just got bought by Etsy for $1.62 billion. It's a huge industry, and rental is just an evolution of resale. And they're like, "Oh, okay, kind of get it," but they don't really. We have to hand-hold them a lot through the pitch deck and get them excited. But that's, the problem is that we don't have enough women in the investment space or ex-founders. I know in the U.S., it's a lot different. They have a lot more ex-founders investing, especially angel investors, which is great because they get the journey. Whereas if you have somebody with a financial services background, all they care about is the math of it. And it's like, you know what? Startups don't always just succeed on the math; it's the vision, it's the idea, it's the network effects, it's the audience. There are so many different things at play here. And if you've never started a business yourself, you just don't get that. CHAD: There's a lot that goes into creating a company. And it may not be the fact that your female founders directly contribute to it but in an environment where they're looking for a reason not to invest. LUCY: Exactly. CHAD: That bias can creep into all of the excuses or differences that someone might point to and say, "Oh, this isn't going to work," or "I don't get this." LUCY: 100%. If you've got a good business idea and you've got a strong pitch deck and a strong financial model, then that business will do well, for sure. However, there are so many other factors at play. And when there are so many great businesses competing against one another, they unbiasedly go with one over the other. CHAD: So you also mentioned you have another excuse that people might use is you just don't have a technical founder on the founding team. LUCY: That's definitely a struggle. We will be bringing in a CTO later in the year, which will be really exciting because it's definitely the missing piece to the puzzle. We have domain expertise in fashion. We have that side of it down. But yeah, the technical side of things, I think all the founders that I have spoken to that do have a CTO in the founding team or even have brought their technical team in-house just say it's a game changer. When somebody is invested in your company, and they're using the platform every single day, they can see the bugs. I mean, Chaz from Fat Llama, which is a great rental app, said that his developers would pull out a laptop in the pub and be like, "Oh, I just saw a bug. Let me quickly fix it." I mean, wow, that would be insane. Our developers finish at a certain time, and that's it; they're gone. So if we have a problem on an evening or even because they are in India they have a different time, we can't get hold of them. It's so frustrating. CHAD: So when you start to build a team, will you be doing it based in the UK? LUCY: Or based in Europe, at least. I think another thing to come out of the pandemic is this remote work, and I think that's great. I think there's so much talent across Europe, across the world. But for the timezone issue, I think Europe is definitely a better fit for us because we don't want to be having the same issues that we're having now with the time differences with India. But yeah, there's so much talent across the whole of Europe. CHAD: Yeah, that's what we do at thoughtbot. We are all throughout the Americas, all throughout Europe, Middle East, and Africa. We've built our team. But we're grouped in by timezone. So people work with clients and with each other. And there, it's based on the timezone that they're in. And so that does make a big difference around how communication can work and how a part of the team you're able to feel because you're online at the same time as each other. LUCY: Yeah. Definitely, that's a great show. CHAD: But I definitely recommend casting as wide as possible. It definitely allows you to hire the best person for the job. LUCY: Yeah, I think we need to find somebody that's passionate about the mission and who understands working with three co-founders that don't have a tech background that we probably do need a little bit more hand-holding than another founder would. We're learning so much as we go. Hopefully, we'll be coders one day. [laughter] CHAD: I actually don't think that. Some people might say, "Oh, you really should learn to code yourself." And I think that that does a disservice to what you are bringing to the table with your domain expertise and with your ability to really understand the industry and know what needs to happen from a business perspective. LUCY: Yeah, I would totally agree. You can't be an expert in every part of the field. You can't be an accountant; you can't be a CTO. You need to be good at exactly what you do. And I'm the CEO, so I have an overview of everything. And that's what I love is kind of have a little finger on each little project that's going on and really get an understanding of across the board. But you need those people that are drilling into, like, we have my co-founder, Jen, who's a graphic designer by trade, but she's our Chief Creative Officer. And she really drills down into the creative side of things. And she knows what she's talking about. And she is the expert in that, and that's so valuable. CHAD: And I think that that's the important thing to founders to do early on is to really understand what their product and business are. You don't necessarily need to learn how to code. But I do think it's a mistake when early founders start stepping away from the product too early. LUCY: Yeah, you need to be super close to the product. And you need good communication across all different divisions. So marketing and product have to talk to each other all the time, so we can tell our audience what's happening in the product, and then we can build the features that we need to grow from the marketing side of things. It's all about communication. And it's so hard as a startup because there are so many different things going on and so many people pulling you from left to right. There are metrics to hit; there are bills to pay, there's audience, the community to keep happy. And it's like, oh, you can't drop the ball on anything. You really have to just do as much as you can. But if you communicate to each of those stakeholders, we're doing our best. I mean, we had a mail-out the other day that said this is a business built by hands. It's built by people. I know we're a tech company, but there are real developers there hammering on their laptops. We're all here writing the copy and doing everything that we can to make this the most successful business so we can make real impact on the climate change and communities. CHAD: I want to talk about that impact, but before we do, I'm curious, so you're all in the same general London area? LUCY: No, we're not, actually. So Jade and Jen are based in London. And I actually moved out of London a couple of years ago, and I live in New York in the north of England. CHAD: Oh, okay. LUCY: See, definitely a different dynamic. And another reason why I'm passionate about bringing the fashion industry outside of London is because I travel up and down all the time, and I'm lucky it's like an hour 50 on the train. But that becomes expensive, and it's difficult to travel all the time. CHAD: So, are you meeting in person with each other? LUCY: We try. I just saw the girls last week. I'm seeing them again at the weekend. We speak every single day on Slack, WhatsApp. We have weekly calls, and we jump on pretty much video calls to each other every day. And that's, again, another thing from the pandemic that's been a game changer. Because when I actually left, it was just before the pandemic. We were like, oh my God, how is this going to work? But I knew that it was the right decision for me. And then the pandemic hit, and everyone was on video calls. And we were like, oh, this is so easy. This is great. [laughs] CHAD: Yeah, it really opened that up to everyone's expectations. LUCY: Yeah, and I think it's great. I think it's much more flexible. And we will get an office for sure. But I would love to have an office here and an office in London so we can have teams across the nation. Because I think we don't all have to go and live in a capital city to get the same out of the fashion industry. CHAD: Yeah. So let's talk about sustainability, the environment, and climate change. I am somewhat aware that an enormous amount of resources goes into creating new items of clothing. LUCY: It's crazy. So the fashion industry accounts for 10% of the global greenhouse gas emissions at the moment. And if nothing changes by 2050, it will use a quarter of the world's carbon budget. It is insane, and it affects not only the planet but people. The garment workers are paid nothing. They're treated badly. And this is all part of the supply chains of fashion businesses. And like I said, when I started in the fashion industry, e-commerce really was only just starting, and Jade, who is the model, was working for Asos, which is a big fashion brand and big fast fashion brand. So when she started working for them, she was shooting like 10-15 items, 20 items a day, and when she left, so five years later, they were shooting like 70 items per day. They were just churning out more and more fashion, more options. And you can imagine most of the clothes are made...well, we have this whole disconnect about clothes. So I actually had a restaurant for three years in between my fashion career. And that's where I found sustainability because you have that connection with food. And you know that eating organic or eating locally and seasonally is better for you and better for the planet. But nobody thinks that your clothes come from the ground. They're made from plants. Or if they're not made from plants, they're made from oil. It's nuts that people don't have as much education around it. And that's partly because the fashion industry doesn't want people to know, and it's a lot of smoke and mirrors. It's a very opaque industry. We went to one university, and they said that they thought all clothes were made from machines. They had no idea that there was cotton and linen. And so, like, wow, this is crazy. CHAD: So given that it's the magnitude of the size of the problem but also the industry, there are two ways of looking at that, I'm sure, one is the potential for your impact is huge. The other is how do you get started? How can we have an impact there? So how are you tackling that? LUCY: I get asked a lot by people, like, how can I start my sustainability journey? I feel so much pressure to do things. I should be vegan, or I'm not recycling enough. I got a plastic bag, oh, I feel terrible. And it's like we are all on a journey. And you just have to start one day at a time and just be more conscious. So whether that's instead of buying one dress for a wedding that you are probably just going to stick in your wardrobe, why don't you rent it? Try one of the platforms that are out there, and you can rent a really cool dress, and that's probably someone else is going to rent it, and someone else is going to rent it. And by prolonging the life of an item, you can save so much energy and water. And those small things that we can each do will make a huge impact globally. There's a lot of mindset shifting and behavioral change that needs to come with rental. As we saw with Airbnb when they started, people were like, "Oh God, I don't want someone sleeping in my bed," and now I Airbnb in my house all the time. And it's a great source of secondary income, especially for a startup founder [chuckles] but also giving people the opportunity to have these experiences in small communities, which I love. And that's what we want to see with fashion is that people will start being more conscious. And how LOANHOOD is different to other more traditional rental systems is it's much more affordable. And it's much more accessible because you can meet in person. So how we see it growing is these hyperlocal communities where you can meet people in person, a bit like Facebook Marketplace. They've done super well in more of the suburban areas. You can drop off your dress to somebody around the corner. So you're reducing the cost of delivery and reducing the emissions by meeting in person. So those hyperlocal communities will be really important in helping people adopt this behavior. CHAD: Are you worried from a business perspective that if it's just renting to someone around the corner that they might not want to do it through LOANHOOD? LUCY: I think people will still do it through the platform because of the added value that we give, you know, rental protection. I could go and borrow people's clothes like my friends in the area. I wouldn't do that. I might do it once or twice. I think if it's not somebody that you're really friendly with, then you would definitely do it through the platform. CHAD: Yeah. And by rental protection, you mean if something gets damaged or that kind of thing, it's protected. LUCY: We don't have full insurance yet because, again, the sharing economy is a new economy. And, of course, insurers are very old school. And it's hard for them to grasp the fact that there's a new industry here, but that is changing. And as soon as we have more data, we'll be able to get full insurance for these items. But right now, we do it in-house and protect items, minor damage, or repairs. And if it isn't returned or damaged beyond repair by the person that's renting it, then they have to cover the retail price of it. CHAD: Yeah, makes sense. What's beyond rental platform in terms of this is where you decided to start, but your goal is to change the face of fashion? What's beyond? LUCY: There are lots of different verticals that we can do within rental or in fashion. So we're really passionate about digital fashion. Jade, my business partner, is actually doing her Ph.D. in digital transformation in the metaverse. So how can we bring sustainability and ethical practices into the metaverse with fashion is something that we're really passionate about and something that we're exploring, renting different things so femtech, or skiwear, activewear, all those kind of things and then just creating a space for our community to grow creatively. So entrepreneurship is really important to us as well, and giving people the opportunity to be...especially Gen Z they have this way that's called pay to create. So they're passionate about making money out of things that they can do themselves, whether that's creating content, renting out the things they own, upcycling. We want to expand on that and give them the tools to actually create their own career paths. You don't have to go down the traditional university routes. We see a world where there's a LOANHOOD campus where you can come and learn how to be content creators or all sorts of different things. It's a really exciting time. And our 10-year plan keeps getting more bigger and bigger. And we're like, oh God, it's just exciting. CHAD: Yet do you worry about spreading yourself too thin and compromising on the early steps? LUCY: We always come back to the point of why we're doing this and who we're doing this for because what's the point? Otherwise, we're doing this to reduce impacts of the fashion industry on the planet and people. And we are doing this for our community and to give them the options and give them the power back. As we've seen with governments around the world, people in leadership roles are not doing enough, and we can't rely on them. So if we want to create our own sustainable future, we have to do it ourselves. And we want to give people the tools to do that. CHAD: Well, I wish you the best of luck in that. I'm very confident that you're going to have the impact you're looking for along the way, and I wish you the best in that. Thank you for stopping by and sharing with us. I really appreciate it. LUCY: Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat too. CHAD: If folks want to find out more or get in touch with you or follow along, where are all the different places that they can do that? LUCY: Check out our website, loanhood.com. If you are a founder and you want to talk about funding or building a product, marketing, you can email me lucy (L-U-C-Y) at lucy@loanhood.com. And we are on Instagram and TikTok @loanhood. CHAD: Wonderful. You can subscribe to the show and find notes which include a link to everything that Lucy just mentioned along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

Today, we discussed big fintech news from FTX, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Ramp, J.P. Morgan, Zelle®, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Bank of America, Seedrs and more.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

The UK Investor Magazine was delighted to welcome SuperSeed VC to the Podcast for a comprehensive discussion around venture capital, key trends and the impact of any economic downturn on private tech companies. We were joined by SuperSeed Managing Partner, Mads Jensen, and Partner, Dan Bowyer. SuperSeed focus on revenue generating tech companies driven by strong founders. We explore what went wrong in many VC deals during the pandemic and how SuperSeed avoided them. Mads highlights the importance of positive cashflows during leaner times and points to the favourable VC valuations achievable during economic downturns. We do, however, touch on the economic conditions and slight improvements that mean we could be moving towards the beginning of the end of economic strife. This raises the question of a lag in public in private markets and we talk to how investors can navigate this.Mads and Dan explore the key attributes they look for in companies as well as the key tech trends they are monitoring. Find out more about about SuperSeed on their website here.Explore SuperSeed's partnership with Seedrs here. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

We were thrilled to be joined by LandEx CEO Kamel Belkadhi to explore the investing in Farmland and their Landex investment platform providing investors with access to a range of Farmland options.Farmland provides a sustainable investment opportunity with a high yield and diversifies a portfolio away from traditional stocks and bonds.LandEx CEO Kamel Belkadhi outlines how their platform works and the benefits for investors. We also discuss their upcoming round on Seedrs which can be found here.Download Landex Apple App HereDownload Landex Android App Here See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

AboutJeevan SunnerJeevan graduated from UCL in Pharmacology where she spent time in clinical settings spanning healthcare and academia. She thereafter joined PwC's Insolvency and Restructuring department, implementing turnaround and restructuring projects for large corporates during crisis. After completing her ACA Chartered Accountancy qualification, she moved to PwC's Commercial Innovation team where she worked with 20+ B2B SaaS startups whom she supported throughout their Series A fundraises. Jeevan is co-creator of startup podcast, When Unicorns Fly, and has interviewed guests from Seedrs, Antler, Innovate UK, Indiegogo and Lakestar. Jeevan joined Playfair in September 2020. She works closely with portfolio companies, sources and leads deals, and co-leads Playfair's D&I initiative: Female Founder Office Hours. She was recently shortlisted on Sifted's Top 30 Young Venture Capitalists list. Outside of Playfair, you can find Jeevan on the squash court or with a camera in hand. She is dog mum to our office pooch, Cassius.Waitrr provides contactless QR ordering & payments technology to restaurants, cafes, bars & hotels in seven countries. Customers scan QR codes to order food & drinks, and make payment, all from within their phone's browser (i.e. NO app download required). Orders go straight into the POS, without the need for manual entry. Waitrr's partners reduce their manpower costs, increase average ticket sizes and increase table turns, increasing profits by more than 15%. 

This week Jessie sits down to chat with Sophie Baron from Mamamadefood.com about how she raised £800k on Seedrs and why it was such a success. How a shy person can still get hundreds of thousands of views on a Tiktok. Why testing every channel is important. Why posting from your personal TikTok might work better than your brand page. Why Shopify is the best platform for brands in the scaling up phase. Why it is so important to know your numbers when scaling up. How to navigate the nuances of marketing to parents, particularly mums. Full show notes can be found on www.ecommerceinfluencepodcast.com. 

This is a video podcast on M&A Stories regarding Pitching for Fund Raising and Investments with James Church Show Notes: Pitching is one of the entrepreneur's most powerful tools, especially for fundraising and investments. In this session, James Church talks about how to make your pitch highly impactful for your business. He talks about his book called Investable Entrepreneur where he mentions a 6-Principles of creating a perfect pitch (Plan, Projection, Structure, Content, Clarity, and Design). What is the mismatch in pitching between founders and investors? Investors look for Risks, Proofs, Assets, and Strength of implementation plans Entrepreneurs/Founders/Businesses pitch Possibilities, Revenue, Opportunities, and Ideas What sort of language do investors expect from the entrepreneur/business? Whether the entrepreneur/business is highly resourceful or not? Understands financial risks and financial wars. How much money is going to be used to build? How long will the investment last? Investment thinking. Commercial success. Implementation strategy. Watch the episode to know more about "Pitching". James Church is the co-founder and COO of Robot Mascot, the UK's leading pitch agency. Their clients are 40x more likely to raise investment and they are the trusted pitch partner to Crowdcube, Seedrs, Seed Legals, Swoop Funding, and Dent Global. James is the author of the best-selling book “Investable Entrepreneur”, where he shares his unique methodology for convincing investors. He has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, on numerous industry blogs and podcasts, ran mentoring sessions at Tech Hub, Google Campus, and Runway East, and delivered mastermind sessions for Design Museum, Dent Global, and The Chartered Institute of Marketing, and the University of East Anglia. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescchurch/ ------- The hosts of the interview are: Anirvan Sen, CEO Fifth Chrome: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anirvansen/ Marcella Hall, HR M&A Expert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hallmarcella/ ------- This interview is part of a series run by Fifth Chrome (https://www.fifthchrome.com), a firm that enables experienced professionals to build "Future Capabilities for Business to thrive". ------- Books mentioned: The Investable Entrepreneur by James Church: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08NRBW565/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FYAA1DZBDT59RFMB67CM ------- Websites mentioned in the episode (for a free digital copy of the book): https://www.robotmascot.co.uk/pitchready/​

Today Andy Silvester chats to City A.M. reporter Charlie Conchie, and whistles through the main headlines you need to know. Andy and Charlie go through this week's fintech Innovate Finance summit -- they discuss the London Stock Exchange CEO's candid comments yesterday on bosses needing a pay boost; Ron Kalifa's views on the mindset shift needed by investors to be willing to back long-term growth opportunities in the UK; the Klarna CEO's perspective on the UK's approach to financial regulation post-Brexit; and the political push on crypto and NFTs. And in the headlines, the boss of crowdfunding platform Seedrs has hit out at regulators, claiming that they're stifling growth; the Bank of England is expected to hike interest rates four more times this year, the fastest pace since 1988; and two of Lidl's adverts have been banned. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, we're joined by Andrew Sears, Business Development Associate at Seedrs - Europe's biggest crowdfunding platform.We explore how equity crowdfunding fits into the wider cannabis investment landscape in the UK, and what Seedrs is doing to help UK cannabis startups grow.

The UK Investor Magazine is joined by the founder of investment platform Get Income for a discussion around income investing and Get Income's Crowdfunding platform on Seedrs.Kimmo has extensive experience in FinTech and has been involved in successful exits in the sector. He's identified an opportunity for investing in loans and the income opportunities for investors who can invest from €10. Get Income have surpassed their target on Seedrs and are now in over funding. You can find out more information on the Seedrs website here: https://www.seedrs.com/income/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

All startups share the same fear - what if Google, Amazon or Apple decide to invest in this space?Well, today's guest faces a slightly different problem- what if they already have?The world of audiobooks is dominated by Audible/Amazon - but it has not really updated from cassette tapes of 40 years ago. Enter xigxag which you can check out at www.xigxag.co.uk/jimmyKelli Fairbrother - co-founder and CEO of xigxag, a company that has created a new type of audiobook which allows you to read, listen, quote, search and see illustrations all in one. It's a fitting finale to our third season - the earliest stage company ever to be on the show taking on the 4th largest in the world. With such a unique guest, we spend a bit more time discussing the ins and outs of creating a startup than usual to create a fuller picture of what it takes just to get something to market.We chat to Kelli about:Why audiobooks are primed for disruptionHow xigxag customers actually read moreWhy crowdfunding is such a powerful toolWhy starting a career in the Army lead Kelli into a world of booksJob creation in the Audiobook spaceWhy she's growing a company in CornwallIf you'd like to check out xigxag for yourself head to xigxag.co.uk/jimmyxigxag have just launched their crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs which you can find here. Legal disclaimer: This show does not provide investment advice and your capital is at risk. You can follow us on social media:Instagram: @JimmysjobsTwitter: @JimmysjobsAnd most importantly on LinkedInIf you'd like to see more information about the job roles being offered please look at my Twitter @jimmym

Gabriele Musella is a well-educated, well-traveled, co-founder of Coinrule.com, a company where you can build or copy sets of rules for automatically trading cryptocurrencies. The company recently raised $3M+ from MKB Bank, Urban Innovation Fund, Zilliqa and many Business Angels (Kayak Co-founder, EightSleep Founder). Before that they also successfully ran a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs, providing funds which helped them to navigate the pandemic when capital briefly dried up. During this podcast we dive into Gabriele's past, which is full of education (London School of Economics, MIT, Harvard), travels throughout Europe and the USA for various jobs (Nokia, Loyds Bank) and three previous startups before the current one, Coinrule. The most notable was Paylinko, a fintech payments app. Gabriele has certainly lived a full life so far, and it was exciting to piece together all the highlights that came before his current project and then also spend some time talking about how to build a Crypto trading platform. Enjoy the podcast. Yaro Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/ Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Joining us today on Small Business Marketing – Then & Now is Samit Patel, who runs an agency that helps businesses bring products to the market using sales channels like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Crowdcube, Seedrs, and Amazon to deliver huge sales volumes for new products.  He discusses his proven system called 'TLFES' which has delivered over $43 million in multiple different industries and is used by everyday brands. Samit has been featured by Forbes, Alphr and Fast Company and speaks at major events around the world, educating audiences on how to launch new businesses or new products to market.  You can click www.samitpatel.net to learn more.As always, this podcast is brought to you by Profit Master Business Solutions, implementing measured marketing for small businesses while calming the chaos and creating the confidence and competence to exceed expectations.Click www.profitmasterbusinesssolutions.com. You can find your host, Howard Wolpoff, at:www.profitmasterbusinesssolutions.comTwitter - https://twitter.com/hwolpoffInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/hwolpoff/TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@hwolpoffThank you for listening!

During my time in Government, I was involved in a number of meetings where we would try to create memorable lines which could sum up Govt policy, you can probably think of a few famous ones yourself. Tough on Crime, tough on the causes of crime. Long term economic planVote Leave, Take Back Control Brexit means Brexit There are also some less memorable ones, which I enjoy thinking about from time to time, like Nick Clegg's Alarm Clock Heros, anyone who woke up to an alarm clock should be called a hero. Two of the most important phrases that you'll hear for the coming years are ‘levelling up and building back better'. Neither of these are going to be able to be achieved without a serious focus on the reskilling agenda, which was at the Heart of the Queen's Speech last week. And that is why I am delighted today to be joined by Elizabeth Tweedale who is a thought leader in the space of how children learn new skills such as coding. She founded a company called Cypher Coders, which specialises in teaching kids from the age of six to code, and is expanding into many other areas as we discuss. As this podcast is all about the skills of the future, it seemed important to look at what kids need to be learning. If you listen to this podcast shortly after release, Elizabeth and Cypher Coders are crowdfunding on Seedrs, so you might be interested in checking them out, but of course if you do invest your capital is at risk. Jimmy's Jobs of the Future is hiring, read more on our next chapter here and you can sign up to our newsletter here.A reminder you can follow us onInstagram: @JimmysjobsTwitter: @JimmysjobsAnd most importantly on LinkedInIf you'd like to see more information about the job roles being offered please look at my Twitter @jimmym

Today we have one of the pioneers of the European tech ecosystem on to discuss how the European early-stage VC landscape has changed since its early days – and how their fund, Passion Capital, has unlocked access to investors with their latest fundraise.Eileen Burbidge, a Founding Partner of Passion Capital, and I had a fascinating conversation about all things VC, opening up access to the asset class to individual investors, what it means for the future of venture capital, and Eileen's love of Arsenal and why she's not a fan of the European Super League.Eileen has built a reputation as the go-to VC for seed stage companies in the UK and Europe – and for good reason.Her aptly named fund, Passion Capital, has built a name for itself as one of the top early-stage funds in the UK because of her passion for rolling up her sleeves, much like she did in her days as an operator at Skype, Apple, Yahoo!, and Sun Microsystems.I won't forget when we met last year at her office – she had just stepped out of non-stop meetings with one of her growth-stage companies, where she was helping them figure out team and talent questions.Not every seed stage VC has the ability to stay involved as their companies grow nor does this type of work, but that's what separates Passion from the pack.Eileen is just as much at home in her office, which doubles as a co-working space for Passion portfolio companies, as she is in 10 Downing Street, where she has been named the UK Treasury's Special Envoy for FinTech, has been appointed by the Chancellor as the Chair of Tech Nation, and was awarded an MBE in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honors for her services to businesses.So maybe it's no surprise why she's been described as “The Queen of British VCs” by Fortune Magazine.She's certainly backed many of the British startup royalty at early-stage, being a Seed investor in Monzo Bank, where she still serves on the board, Tide Bank, GoCardless, Digital Shadows, Marshmallow, Butternut Box, and a number of others.Eileen has also had an illustrious career as an operator, working for Apple, Yahoo, and Sun Microsystems in the early days of the internet before moving to London in 2004 to become one of Skype's earliest employees and Head of Product. She then founded Passion in 2011 as one of the first Seed funds in London, serving a critical market need for the entrepreneurial ecosystem in London. She's now trailblazing once again by being one of the first funds to open up their LP base to the crowd, where they have partnered with Seedrs to allow individuals to invest into Passion's latest fund.She's also an independent non-executive board director at Dixons Carphone, a 10B pound revenue electrical and telecoms retailer and on the Transformation & Innovation Advisory Board at UniCredit.Thanks Eileen for being a pioneer in the European VC ecosystem and bringing innovative structures in venture capital to LPs.I hope you enjoy.

With Cathie Wood and her ARK heading straight for the moon with their new ETF, ARKX, built around space st0nkz, we try catching up in our space tractors (courtesy of $DE) and figure out why on Earth (or should we say, OFF EARTH) is Netflix included in the holdings. What's more - get to hear a better angle on #SuezBLOCKED from the inside and what sort of ramifications this would have on small cap companies, why we're annoyed with the UK Competition and Markets Authority in regards to halting a merger between Crowdcube and Seedrs, and why we're invested in a remarkable small health-tech company called Transmedics (Ticker symbol: TMDX) which looks to be making great strides with the FDA over in the U.S. So grab a cuppa, and let's get the show running.

Market [2:45] - Why did you decide to build an automation solution for crypto trading? Why that asset class? [4:47] - What is the current state of crypto trading? [8:12] - What is the maturity of crypto trading today? [11:37] -What is the geographical landscape for crypto trading? On Coinrule [13:32] - Who is this platform for and what problem does it solve for them? [20:16] - Are you worried about the exchanges building the functionality you have? [22:24] - How do you make money? What fees does an investor incur? [24:02] - Can you comment on the state of legislation in regulating these virtual currencies? On Scaling [27:18] - Why did you decide to raise money through a crowdfunding platform? [29:38] - How did you get your first 16000 users? [32:59] - Biggest mistakes and advice for other entrepreneurs  If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple or any other platform you listen too,LinksCoinruleBooksTraction by Gabriel Weinburg and Justin MaresOpen: An Autobiography by Andre AgassiAll the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

In episode 54, Simon talks to Jeff Lynn. One of the world's largest platforms for investing in private companies. He also serves as Chairman of The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), a non-profit advocacy group for UK startups and scaleups. Jeff began his career as a corporate lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York and London. He has been named one of the 100 most influential men in the UK by GQ and one of the 10 coolest people in tech by Business Insider.

Jeff Kelisky is the CEO at equity crowdfunding platform, Seedrs. Jeff is an experienced executive whose track record in building, leading and scaling successful technology businesses has made him one of the most revered figures in his space. Before joining Seedrs, Jeff was CEO for Picsolve and Multimap, the latter of which he led through a successful sale to Microsoft. In this our sixth ever episode we discuss with Jeff his remarkable career, what it was like selling a business to Microsoft and what impact the Seedrs/Crowdcube merger will have on private market investing.Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

It's likely that when you start a business, you'll need some money to get up and running. You might initially need to invest in equipment or stock, or maybe you've grown your business to a point where you need some cash to be able to scale to the next level. When it comes to getting money into your business, there are so many options out there from bootstrapping, getting a loan or a grant, crowdfunding to finding angel investors, but it can be hard to know where to start, how to navigate the process and how to know which direction is best for your business.Joining me today is Fleur Emery, startup expert and founder of Real Work, an online co-working space for women. Fleur has a wealth of experience when it comes to raising funds for businesses, and today, she shares with me 10 practical ways you can take money into your small business. We take a look at what options are available, we break down some of the jargon associated with each one and look at both the pros and cons to give you an idea of which route could work for you. You can follow and connect with Fleur at:Real Work: https://www.doreal.work/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doreal.work/Fleur shared some great resources in this episode. All the links are below:Small Change: https://www.smallchangeuk.org/UK Government Grants: https://www.gov.uk/business-finance-support?types_of_support%5B%5D=grantReward Crowdfunding Platforms: Indiegogo, Kickstarter, CrowdfunderMerger between Crowdcube and Seedrs: https://www.cityam.com/crowdfunding-platforms-seedrs-and-crowdcube-announce-plans-to-merge/FCA Crowdfunding and authorisation: https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/authorisation/when-required/crowdfundingThe Wallet with June Angelides: How to get funding for your businessRosa Bloom: https://www.rosabloom.com/You can learn more about Vestpod and subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.vestpod.com. You can follow us on Instagram @vestpod and join our Facebook group. My book is available to purchase from Amazon and your favourite bookshop.* Please note that we are not certified financial advisers! The articles and information made available on Vestpod and this podcast are provided for information and educational purposes only and do not constitute financial advice. You are advised to consult with an independent financial advisor for advice on your specific circumstances.* See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With Crowdcube and Seedrs announcing an intention to merge, let's look back at how they helped create and grow the products we love.

Tune in to this episode of the Security Token Show where Kyle Sonlin and Herwig Konings discuss the latest Security Token News and Insights with this week's focus on how issuers can manage their own private market to create liquidity. = Stay in touch via our Social Media = Kyle: https://twitter.com/kylesonlin Herwig: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herwigkonings  Opinion articles, interviews, and more: https://medium.com/security-token-group   = Timeline = All articles that were discussed were sourced from https://STOmarket.com/news  Kyle's Company of the Week: Nomura Research Institute - https://www.nri.com/   Herwig's Company of the Week: Aegis Custody - https://www.aegiscustody.com/  = Market Topics = NRI Issues First Japanese Tokenized Bond: https://www.securities.io/nri-issues-first-japanese-tokenized-bond/  Hong Kong Bank Partners with Aegis to Focus On Asset Digitalization Using Blockchain Technology: https://www.the-blockchain.com/2020/03/30/hong-kong-bank-partners-with-aegis-to-focus-on-asset-digitalization-using-blockchain-technology/  HSBC Puts $10B of Private Placements on R3's Corda Blockchain: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hsbc-puts-10b-private-placements-070000846.html  Judge Halts Telegram Token Issuance in Injunction Requested by SEC: https://www.coindesk.com/judge-halts-telegram-token-issuance-in-injunction-requested-by-sec  Enigma Reaches Settlement with SEC on 2017 ICO: https://www.securities.io/enigma-reaches-settlement-with-sec-on-2017-ico/  DLT Replacement of ASX ‘CHESS' Program Delayed: https://www.securities.io/dlt-replacement-of-asx-chess-program-delayed/  NEM Releases Symbol Blockchain Standards for Issuing Security Tokens: https://www.securities.io/nem-releases-symbol-blockchain-standards-for-issuing-security-tokens/  TokenSoft Partners with Ex-Military Cyber Firm Hub Security: https://www.securities.io/tokensoft-partners-with-ex-military-cyber-firm-hub-security/  TokenSoft partners with Hub Security on ‘miniHSM' crypto storage solution: https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2020/03/25/tokensoft-partners-with-hub-security-on-minihsm-crypto-storage-solution/  Smartlands Launches Private Stage of Equity Crowdfunding Campaign on Seedrs; Early Birds to Receive Exclusive Golden Smartee Co-Owner Payment Card: https://smartlands.io/news/smartlands-launches-private-stage-of-equity-crowdfunding-campaign-on-seedrs-early-birds-to-receive-exclusive-golden-smartee-co-owner-payment-card/  ‘The Runway Fund' Looks to Provide Relief for Start-ups Impacted by COVID-19: https://decrypt.co/23447/cnbc-host-launches-fund-for-struggling-startups  [Interview] Kyle Sonlin: Secondary Market Updates: https://medium.com/@blocklikecom/sto-secondary-market-updates-7cab2da85243   = Security Token Offering Topics = None :( = Events covered in this episode = [Event] Securities Finance Technology Symposium 2020 on May 7th in London: https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/503652/1006083/  Security Token Realised's San Francisco event on November 7th: http://sanfran.securitytokensrealised.com/   = Check out our Companies = Security Token Group: https://securitytokengroup.com  Security Token Market: https://stomarket.com  Security Token Advisors: http://www.securitytokenadvisors.com/  InvestReady: https://www.investready.com 

Scott and Karris McCulloch are founders of The Vegan Kind, an incredible vegan box subscription service and online plant based supermarket. Today we sit down with Scott to chat about the journey to their current Seedrs campaign and how they've built a supportive online community. Listen in to hear how they select the products that go into their boxes, as well as Scott's story of quitting his stable job to pursue his business dream. This podcast is produced by Vevolution and edited by Bridey Addison-Child

In this episode David, Jason and Simon jump into the news accompanied by Richard Davies. This week borderless bank accounts, can your voice be secure and we make Simon talk Apple pay. We also have interviews from Transferwise, Seedrs and Pensionbee to cover their big announcements this week. Guests Richard Davies Global Head of Propositions at HSBC Joe Cross General Manager at Transferwise Jeff Lynn CEO at Seedrs Romina Savova CEO at Pensionbee News this week Techcrunch – TransferWise launches ‘Borderless' account for businesses, sole traders and freelancers – Link BBC fools HSBC voice recognition security system – Link Apple Pay now supports higher value transactions at most UK contactless tills – Link American Banker – If banks wait for APIs to be mandated, it will be too late – Link British firm Seedrs plans a secondary market for crowd-funded shares – Link afr.com – How Pocketbook went from a Sydney spreadsheet to a fintech with 300,000 users – Link PensionsBee partners with Revolut Crypto craziness! A story on it all going off! Reuters – BofA, HSBC, Intel, others invest $107 mln in blockchain startup R3 – Link The post Ep256 – News: We're Breaking Free appeared first on 11:FS.