The evening of Tuesday 6th of December marked the end of the 2016 season of Startup Funding Club’s investor events. For the occasion, the SFC team went back to Home House, London’s best Members Club of the year. Nonetheless, we did not take our guests to our usual spot in 20 Portman Square, but to number 21!
Location was not the only difference with previous event. This time, the investor event did not showcase any startups. This time, it was all about investors. The event, appropriately named “Tax-efficient Investment in Promising British Early Stage Companies”, had an educational proponent and was aimed at those interested in learning more about investing in startups rather than those who are already seasoned in the matter. Due to its nature, the event attracted more new faces rather than our regular guests – who tend to have some experience in startup investing. For this, after the initial reception and networking, Stephen Page of Startup Funding Club, began by introducing his company to the audience.
After the introduction of SFC’s origins, the CEO walked the audience through the mission and achievements of the company before handing the microphone to another member of the team, Daniel Tait. The Investment Associate talked about the exciting startup scene in the UK, one of the most active around the world. The attractive scenario sparked interest amongst the guests, who were now ready to hear more details about how to get involved in it.
Joseph Zipfel faced the crowd to get into more details about how to invest in early stage companies. The Investment Manager presented the different ways you can invest in a company – angel investing, fund investing, and crowdfunding. Following the detailed explanation, it was time to hear about the benefits of investing though SEIS and EIS. In charge of this was Mary Tierney, Tax Director at SFC Bennett Brooks – a joint venture between Startup Funding Club and Bennett Brooks, the accounting firm specialised in startups. The tax expert talked about the benefits these schemes offer when investing in young companies, such as the tax relief upon investment and the loss relief if the supported company fails.
After providing a quick crash course on the investment schemes, Zipfel provided the audience with an in-depth explanation of what is an SEIS/EIS fund and how the Startup Funding Club SEIS/EIS Fund works. In this section, he covered the process and details of investing through the Fund and what to expect in return, reminding the audience that investing in startups has a high risk. A few reasons being that the value of an investment may go down as well as up, and investors may not get back the amount invested. In this section, he also gave an overview of the company’s success stories such as the portfolio startups Onfido – intelligent background checking – and Quuu – hand-curated and automated social media content.
The last one on stage was Stephen Page, who talked about the secrets of finding the winners and the process Startup Funding Club follows to find them. He highlighted the importance of startups breaking the rules and revolutionising their industry as well as the relevance of the team in successfully bringing the project forward. Last but not least, the audience was given the chance to ask any questions they might have. The Q&A session generated many interesting questions – and answers! – for the various presenters, who also welcomed further enquiries while the Home House team served drinks and canapés.
As always, we would like to thank the amazing team at Home House who made our investor event run smoothly once more, the guests – first-timers and veterans – and of course, the presenters! We hope to see you all at our next event!
SFC Team
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