Simon Blakey gives us the benefit of his 20 years experience as an Angel Investor.

Now, 20 years later, I have invested in over 35 companies in 75 funding rounds with eight profitable exits to date (with a similar number of failures) and am well ahead return-wise. I also have more experience than I had back then, but I am forever grateful to people such as Nitin and Milan Shah (founder of Pepe Jeans), James Gordon of Gordon Solicitors and Modwenna Rees-Mogg of AngelNews for their guidance and support in those initial years (and of course my amazing brother Michael, who I have angel invested with throughout this time under the Avonmore Developments umbrella).

Dataseat, a London-based tech startup, helping mobile app advertisers to manage programmatic media buying in-house, has launched with its first seed round of funding of £1.75m through Play Ventures, Backed.vc and SAATCHiNVEST. The impressive funding syndicate also includes angel investors, ex Criteo, Eric Eichmann (CEO) and Jonathan Wolf (CPO).

DPL, the London-headquartered data tech start-up that enables clients to automate the application of artificial intelligence and behavioural science insights to improve marketing effectiveness, today announces the completion of a new funding round with an investment of £1.3m and senior management changes.

Scotland’s leading business angel investment group, Archangels, has sold its 25% shareholding in Bellshill-headquartered document outsourcing specialist, Critiqom, as part of the sale of the business to Opus Trust Communications.

Archangels first invested in Critiqom in 2005 and since then the company has grown to become a national provider of a variety of complementary document mailing solutions, including an end-to-end suite of data, print, post and multi-channel services. The business is headquartered in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, with manufacturing operations both at Bellshill and in Warrington, Cheshire.

Edinburgh-based business angel investment syndicate, Archangels has recorded another active year of support for the Scottish tech and life sciences sectors, leading investment of £14.8m in Scottish start-up and early stage companies in 2019.

The syndicate directly invested £8.2m across the year (2018: £10.9m) and was lead investor on a total of 10 funding rounds with total investment, including co-investors’ contributions, of £14.8m (2018: £22.4m). Scottish Investment Bank (SIB), the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise, was the largest single co-investor in 2019 at £3.9m, with co-investment from other organisations including NVM, Par Equity and Tricap.

My Bespoke Room, the tech-enabled interior design service, has closed £700K angel investment as it reports 104% annual revenue growth. This brings total investment in the female-founded business to £2 million since 2014, as it continues to build innovative new products that benefit customers and designers.  

This investment round, which included high-net worth individuals from Angelgroups and Connectd, will help My Bespoke Room deliver on its mission to support more meaningful businesses and careers in interior design.  

HealthTech startup PinPoint Data Science has successfully raised over £1m as part of an early stage funding round, with support from Angel Investment Network (AIN), the world’s largest angel investment platform. 

The PinPoint Test uses AI/Machine Learning to rapidly ‘rule out’ cancer from a simple blood sample, and may be used for all cancer types. AIN was the only external organisation PinPoint accepted investment from in a round that lasted just six weeks.

The Invested Investor has released a new book, centred around the challenges entrepreneurs face along the start-up journey. Titled Founder to Founder: Tips and tales from 100 Entrepreneurs and Investors, the publishers have managed to include content from our 100 global entrepreneurial leaders.

EBAN, the European Business Angels Network, has produced the new editions of its much anticipated annual mapping of fiscal incentives and co-investment funds available to business angels in Europe. 

Snaffling Pig, the UK’s leading pork-based snack business, has received investment from multiple Henley Business Angels members, who contributed to a record breaking funding round of over £1.1m.

Chosen as one of the Thames Valley 50 Game Changers in 2018, Snaffling Pig produces a wide range of pork snack products, including flavoured pork crackling sold in traditional foil bags, gift jars and advent calendars, as well as a variety of sauces, beers, nuts, and additional food goods ideal for gifts. The products are supplied into some of the UK’s leading supermarkets, such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative, John Lewis and Selfridges. Over 2,000 pubs, including Greene King and Punch Taverns among others, are also supplied with its products.

Envestors has announced that the banking giant Santander has acquired a 50.1% controlling stake in Ebury for £350m. This has provided several members of the Envestors private network huge returns on their original investments and placed Ebury firmly on the path to becoming the first Envestors unicorn portfolio company.

Bioplastics company Teysha Technologies has successfully raised £1.2m of investment, supported by Angel Investment Network (AIN), the world’s largest online angel investing platform. London-based Teysha has created a patented, renewable, fully biodegradable plastic substitute, using waste from landfill to creating polymers for hundreds of different applications.