Despite all the economic doom and gloom of the last few years, something’s happening out there.<\/p>\n
I attended an Angels in the City event yesterday, ten pitches from hi-tec start-ups seeking funding to take mainly pre-revenue businesses through the next stage of their development.<\/p>\n
I’m the wrong generation for most of it – I don’t use Twitter, I’m not on Facebook, the thought of using either frankly horrifies me. But rock music horrified my father – didn’t stop its onward march, any more than my distaste for new media will impede its progress.<\/p>\n
Like so many of my generation, I simply have to accept there’s a new world out there that I’ll never understand, but which will inevitably generate a wide array of new commercial opportunities. Many will fail, but some won’t – and a few of the latter may become stellar success stories. Problem is, when you’re as removed from the technology as am I, how do you ever pick the winners?<\/p>\n
Several of the pitches were from people with a proven track record of success in tech start-ups – three had created businesses subsequently sold for significant (in one case, $55m) sums. They all had highly credible management teams. But I still have absolutely no idea which might succeed – although I do have an expectation that four of them will fail. I’m left with six that might make it, that could, possibly, be tomorrow’s multi-million pound success.<\/p>\n
To a degree, it needn’t matter. All ten were pitching for SEIS funding. Currently, if you’ve the right profile, you can’t lose – the tax breaks add up to more than the investment you make. London Business Angels are pushing to extend those tax breaks for a further year. If the Chancellor listens, the opportunity to take a de-risked punt will be there for a while longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite all the economic doom and gloom of the last few years, something’s happening out there. I attended an Angels in the City event yesterday, ten pitches from hi-tec start-ups seeking funding to take mainly pre-revenue businesses through the next stage of their development. I’m the wrong generation for most of it – I don’t[…] <\/p>\n