Startup Fundraising 101: How to raise a £multi-million investment round

Description

Are you a startup seeking investment? Join us to hear from exceptional startups who have raised over millions in funding and discover how they did it and what they have learned.

Upstream is delighted to bring you the next event in the Money Talks series where we will be exploring the do’s and don’ts of fundraising in a panel discussion with innovative startups based in Hammersmith & Fulham. The panel features White-City based fintech Comma, the UK’s first payment system that enables small and micro businesses to bulk-pay bills, salaries and taxes efficiently who has just raised £4.34M ($6M) in a seed round of funding led by Octopus Ventures and Connect Ventures.

The panel discussion will last around 40 minutes with speakers sharing their fundraising experience and how to overcome pitfalls followed by a Q&A.

We will then have a short talk from the Newable & Innovate UK Edge Growth and Scale programme. This free programme advises innovative organisations on sourcing funding, entering new markets to grow and scale, improving innovation management and more – scroll down for more details. Attendees will be able to sign up for an initial meeting to discuss their eligibility.

Programme:

17:30: Registration & drinks

18:00: Talk begins

19:00 -19:30: Networking & drinks

About the venue:

This event will take place in one of West London’s hot spots – Huckletree White City. Huckletree is a workspace accelerator bringing together a diverse, disruptive community of startups, scaleups, innovation teams and global brands – all powered by the belief that collaboration is key to building a successful business. A place where “creativity meets talent and curiosity inspires innovation”.

*The venue has COVID safety measures in place, we will update you via email in the lead up to the event. Attendees are required to show proof of vaccination status OR a NEGATIVE lateral flow test (LFT) on the day.

About the speakers:

​​Tom Beckenham (CEO of Comma) – Tom is second time founder focused on fintech and payments with a mission to “remove business banking bs from people’s lives” – to make the whole process simpler. With previous experience working with Specle and then running global operations at an international marketing consultancy, Tom noticed that billing and payments over £1000 was a very painful process. Comma was developed out of passion for efficiency, aiming to make the payments process for large amounts as simple as paying by card. It is the UK’s first bulk payment system that pays bills, taxes and salaries for accountants and small businesses making use of the latest additions to open banking technology.

Raj Tandon – Innovation & Growth Specialist, Innovate UK EDGE

Newable & Innovate UK Edge Growth and Scale programme is for innovative businesses requiring help to develop, launch, scale or grow their business.

Newable, the London delivery partner for Innovate UK EDGE, provides free support to London-based innovative and ambitious businesses along their growth journey to scale.

This funded support is led by experienced innovation & growth specialists to maximise the company’s potential by working with them to identify needs, develop an action plan and achieve desired outcomes. They can help within a variety of areas from funding and finance, through to protecting your IP.