Robert Loch at Internet Peeps hosted a great event here in London last night to gather together a group of internet entrepreneurs here in the UK to mingle and take part in a Q&A on raising finance. Representatives from 3i, Benchmark Capital, First Capital, and Mind Candy / Firebox were on hand to talk about their perspectives on what VC’s are looking to invest in, how best to approach them, and their current experiences.
Speaking to everyone after the talk, the general feeling was that the VC networks are struggling to find good deals to invest their money and are also taking a cautionary approach to early stage business ventures. It was noted that the UK has a distinct lack of visibility with so called Angel Networks (smaller amounts of investments from £20k – £400k from successful entrepreneurs) in order to help businesses scale up and get investment ready for these VC networks. Without this, a business is often caught in what is known as the “equity gap” where they don’t have enough money to grow and at the same time they can’t get the money because they are not big enough!
There were examples where good entrepreneurs left the country to set up on the US West Coast where attitude to risk is a lot more positive, with VC’s willing to take a greater leap of faith to back good experienced teams with a solid idea to deliver on. It would be a shame to see more of this occurring whereby we lose our best talent abroad and hurting what has the makings of a really strong vibrant entrepreneur tech and internet community here in the UK and Europe.
On a more positive note, the event had such a great vibe by bringing together some great entrepreneurs to talk about our businesses, ups and downs, and life in general. The likes of Matt Ogle (Last.fm), Sam Sethi (Techcrunch UK), Karen Hanton (Top Table), Philip Wilkinson (Crowdstorm – of course!), Alex Tew (Million Dollar Homepage), Oli Barrett (Connected Capital), Michael Birch (Bebo), Paul Birch (cominded), Cary Marsh (Mydeo & poker dice champion!), and 50 more I don’t have space to put here!
It’s a great feeling to mix with fellow entrepreneurs as we share so many of the same characteristics and approach to life that we don’t usually see with our existing friend networks. It reminded me of the hero Achilles in the Trojan war. Achilles was a warrior of great determination and vision who didn’t easily accept orders from his King Aggememnon. He built up a team around him known as the Myrmidons and was fully driven by the need to make a name for himself and mark a mark on the world, even in the face of extreme odds, risks and challenges.
Achilles was an entrepreneur!
Event Photos:
