Every month the Entrepreneurs Collective, founded by Michael Blakely, brings together Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists and budding start-ups for an evening full of potential in the heart of London.
At these events, they hand-select start-ups to pitch their businesses to a panel of investors, outline their concept, their potential scalability, and the level of funding they’re looking for.
We attended one of these fantastic events last Thursday [January 19th 2023].
The evening starts with a few drinks and the chance to network with founders, investors and entrepreneurs from across London. Many of the attendees were serial entrepreneurs with an abundance of experience in building up companies from scratch and into successes.
From there you have the chance to watch how companies pitch their ideas to a room of potential investors, all while under the eye of the panel of selected judges.
The panelists/investors:
Zahra Shah
Andrew Hugh
Monica Kalia
A few companies really stood out with their stellar pitches. So, here’s a quick summary:
The EasiChat founders began their pitch outlining how they believed that live chats and online customer service could be better. Their software harnesses the strength of AI and human conversation to improve companies’ online customer service while still keeping it automated.
So, instead of automated answers to a select number of questions, their platform could learn the customers business to better answer customer queries.
They stated that this franchise has huge scalability potential as the customer experience management market will soon be worth £33 million.
What did the investors think?
The panel had various questions regarding their competitors and capital consumption, but the main point that was made was – How will EasiChat scale effectively?
Well, EasiChat have already been operating in this space for over 10 years and so, made the point that they already had an entry point to expand from.
Find out more about EasiChat’s live chat service here.
This luxury resale platform for pre-owned clothing had a very strong pitch – confident and with a clear message. Their aim is to help resellers scan multiple listings of a particular clothing item, creating a price timeline and tracking the current market value – enabling them to be able to both accurately price items while also not overpaying for others.
In the next year, they’re looking to scale their market data base and build a key value source by using historical data and back catalogs.
What did the investors think?
One of the panelists, Zahra Shah, an investor and pioneer for ‘tech for good’ gave key feedback in questioning how Truss plans to get recurring revenue year on year.
Due to the resale platform being a mid point between customer and seller, much of their profit would be through subscriptions and partnerships and not direct sales.
The Truss Archive is currently available on the app store – providing customers with key information on luxury garments and where they are available for purchase.
A representative from the Turner Capital Group, a private equity investment firm specialising in the acquisition and development of wineries and vineyards, took first place for their pitch.
The PE firm takes a buy-and-build approach with the aim of transforming vineyards from not only producers but also hotspots for weddings, wine tasting days and a plethora of other hospitality offerings. By generating these other revenue streams, they then boost the potential ROI for their investors.
Their initial investment opportunity focuses on English vineyards, as the change in climate has prompted vine hectarage to skyrocket by 180% in the last 10 years.
What did the investors think?
Although their first acquisition showed a very positive financial trajectory, the panelists wondered how replicable it was and whether investors would be able to have a solid exit strategy.
However, Turner Capital Group were confident in the assets’ desirability which would encourage investors to buy in and buy out other investors within their portfolio.
You can find out more about the Turner Capital Group here.
After the pitches and a few final words from the Entrepreneurs Collective, you also have the option to stay and network for your business.
To read more about event like this one, follow the Nicholson LinkedIn page and check out the Entrepreneurs Collective.
