Comment from UKBAA's Jenny Tooth

As of this week, the UK has been placed on the world's centre stage as Parliament discusses whether to agree upon the proposed Brexit deal. Succeeding resignations of key cabinet ministers, the pound has dropped and shares in UK companies have been negatively impacted. Whilst this can be expected in times of political uncertainty, it is important to question if UK SMEs are prepared for Brexit - whatever the end result.

By Damien Lane, Episode 1 Ventures

A lot of founders that pitch to us miss a fundamental point of venture funding – VCs are all about trying to find really big outcomes. They want to discover the startups that will grow into 200million, 300million, 500million, billion dollar companies. Such companies are – to borrow a phrase from current political discourse – the few, not the many. 

And so, as a founder, perhaps the most important part of the pitching process is convincing the investor that there is a chance that the idea you’ve got, the business you’re running, can get to that size. That’s difficult, especially as you might not yet have any revenues to speak of. But some entrepreneurs we see don’t talk at all about how big the opportunity could be.

WestBridge Capital has appointed a new Investment Manager as growth continues.

Flint Hire and Supply Ltd (Flints),the UK’s number one theatrical chandlers, has secured funding from Independent Growth Finance (IGF) to facilitate a management buy-out (MBO).

Inovus Medical, a leading designer and manufacturer of medical and surgical simulators, has announced the successful completion of a £500,000 investment from NPIF - Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Fund Managers and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.

The investment is part of a £700,000 investment round alongside an angel investor and will help to create four new jobs, accelerating the growth of Inovus Medical’s commercial operations in the domestic and international markets.

The company also plans to utilise the funding to add a suite of new 3D printing technologies to its manufacturing processes and introduce new software additions to its existing product offering.

Leading law firm, Ashfords has advised Fluidly, an applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) company, on a recent £5million investment led by New York-based venture capital firm Nyca Partners.

By Belinda Thomas, Triple Point

Making the journey from start-up to scale up can be one of the most precarious and unpredictable times in the life of any firm.  Causes of failure are plenty, but research indicates there are three major factors that account for forty percent of early-stage business failures.

Festicket, the world’s largest portal for music festival experiences, is announcing $10.5 million in Series D funding. The round is led by transatlantic venture capital firm Beringea and joined by Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund InMotion Ventures, Channel 4’s Commercial Growth Fund, Lepe Partners, U-Start and ex Spinnin’ Records CEO Eelko Van Kooten.

Eyal Malinger, Investment Director at Beringea, will join the Festicket board, along with Treatwell’s Chief Operating Officer, Ben Leaver. The company will be appointing an independent non-executive chairman in the near future.

We won’t know if the Brexit deal is good, bad or ugly for another 10 years.  If you’re serious about creating, building and safeguarding wealth in the next decade, you need to consider global opportunities.

An online photography marketplace has secured £500,000, less than nine months launching its new customer facing platform. Perfocal.com was founded by entrepreneur and former photographer Tony Xu. Since then it has delivered more than 100,000 images.

Healthcare entrepreneurs from the South West of England gathered at Exeter Racecourse to take part in a four-day workshop 

Kumulos, a Scottish software company which has developed a platform for managing mobile apps, has completed a £750,000 funding round backed by Mercia Fund Managers, the Scottish Investment Bank and angel investors.  The Kumulos platform incorporates multiple tools to help companies and developers improve the performance of their mobile apps. The platform provides data on user engagement and allows them to optimize their ranking on the App Store and send notifications to customers.