Raising Small Business Funding: Entrepreneurs Should Consider an Age Old Alternative to Banks and Crowd Funding - Business Angel Investment Through Venture Giant
LONDON, January 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
With so much uncertainty lingering in the markets, it can be a difficult time for a small business searching for business funding to expand or even to continue to trade. More recently, crowd funding platforms have been created with the premise that by raising small parcels of funding as gifts or exchange for products or services (£500 - £5000) can allow businesses to raise funding quickly; however, crowd funding, as innovative as it has been; has not provided the same level of expertise and mentorship that an individual business angel investor could provide day to day to a small business.
Statistically, the UK boasts around a third of Europe's angel investment with small businesses successfully raising £1bn each year through Angel Investment. This is not an area that has been overlooked; however, the traditional problem that small businesses and start-ups have faced when looking to secure angel investment is on how to locate these wealthy individuals and also on how to secure a deal with them. There are investor networks that provide this valuable service, however, with no real guarantees of success, large upfront fees and the large percentages demanded on successful deals completed have made these propositions cost prohibitive to the large proportion of start-ups that are already strapped for cash.
Enter Venture Giant into the fold. Established in 2008, Venture Giant refused to charge an upfront fee and also refused to charge a commission on any successful deals that entrepreneurs completed through their investor network.
Taking this middle ground by only charging an entrepreneur a very reasonable listing fee if Venture Giant was able to find suitable vetted angel investors has been the 'secret-sauce' in making the service extremely accessible to start-ups and getting them to try the service.
Entrepreneurs are clearly responding to this business model. Since 2008, Venture Giant has received over 25,000 small business registrations, featured to date over 1,700 investment deals and has received over 2,500 angel investor requests to use its service.
Entrepreneurs have already raised over £1.6m of angel investment completely commission-free through the online matching platform for their start-up ventures.
Success stories on Venture Giant have included the former Commercial director of Visit London raising funding for his major tech startup project, http://www.London.com and more recently an entrepreneur raising £500,000 as working capital to provide the service of resurfacing ALL London Underground Tube stations on the Piccadilly Line for a reported six-figure contract amount.
Entrepreneurs and small businesses that are looking for small business funding through angel investment are well advised to take a look at established networks that include the British Business Angel Association, Venture Giant and the private investors' unit of Vestra Wealth, which all exist to share knowledge and filter pitches from entrepreneurs.
A full list of Venture Giant's registered Angel investors on their network are available to view and Startup investment proposals from start‐up businesses are available to be viewed from the link above.
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SOURCE Venture Giant
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