Growing Brighton’s most active business angel investor community

South East Angels facilitates an engaging and valuable experience for local angel investors where they can gain experience, make connections, and get access to interesting investment opportunities. 

This community, in turn, creates a source for  founders in the region and beyond who are looking to secure early-stage funding from individuals who are keen to support them on their journey. 

Solving the equity funding gap for early stage startups in the region

After running Brighton’s largest startup accelerator for 5 years, founder Kristina Pereckaite noticed that, with London next door, the rest of the South East was quite neglected in terms of funding options for startups. 

She says: “Having had the opportunity to work with some of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in the city I could see the potential that Brighton had to offer to the startup world. But there was a big problem: early-stage startup funding.” 

With no angel group, VC, or fund to tap into in the region, getting the backing to take a business to the next level can be extremely difficult. Every major city in the UK had an investor group, except for Brighton, so Kristina decided to start one. 

We have created a valuable community for individual investors, both experienced or new to the game, to learn, find opportunities, and connect with others. And most importantly, Brighton now has a source of funding for local early-stage startups. 

A promising first year

Since launching in November 2020, South East Angels have invested a total of £600,000 into seven startup companies. Kristina says “Our goal for the first year of business was to simply create an active community for local investors and a go-to funding hub for local, early-stage startups. Whilst it’s still early beginnings, and we’re coming up to 18 months of activity, we are excited to have already seen a promising increase in investment, and a positive impact on local founders.”

What is an angel investor?

An angel investor is simply a self-certified high-net-worth individual who is interested in investing their money into startups. They will usually invest anywhere between £10k – 500k into a startup, depending on their preference or how much money they wish to allocate. Most commonly angel investors make a number of  investments in a variety of companies and form a portfolio.  In many cases an angel investor will be involved at an early stage of the business and, if appropriate, support them occasionally through mentoring, sharing contacts, or sitting on their board – which in turn, helps them to maximise the potential of their investment. 

There are some really appealing tax incentives for UK investors that have been in place since 1993 which allow individuals to gain up to 50% of their investment back through their income tax return if they invest in early stage companies that have been assured by the HMRC Enterprise Investment Scheme. 

Credible & friendly investors from a variety of backgrounds

The investors in the group consist of both seasoned investors and first-time angels from a variety of industries including Engineering, Insurance, Tech, Marketing, and Events. Through collaboration and co-investment the members in the group are able to share best practice and make more informed decisions together. 

“South East Angels were fantastic during our fundraise and Kristina and her team have done a brilliant job of bringing investors to the region. We have had a wonderful working relationship with our South East Angel investors in realising our vision and growth plans.” Akshay Saswadee – Founder, Percept Imagery 

Helping women get into angel investing

In total, only 15-18% of all angel investors are women. In order to get more women into angel investing, South East Angels have just launched Future Angels Forum, a group for high net worth women who are interested in learning about investing in startups but are not quite ready to join as active members. Kristina says: “We know that a big barrier stopping women from getting into angel investing is not having access to other active investors where they can learn and share best practice and invest with others. Our Future Angels Forum aims to open our doors to aspiring female investors, give them access to our investments, contacts, and deal process.”

Visit southeastangels.co.uk to learn more about their mission and for some brilliant resources for both founders and investors.  

3 Things to prepare before pitching to angel investors:

Kristina shares a few key things founders should know before pitching to investors

1.Be crystal clear on your vision and storytelling around your solution – it doesn’t matter how great your idea is, if you cannot articulate it clearly and get others on board your mission, you will struggle to raise funding. 

2. Know your numbers and have prepared a detailed financial model – investors know that financial forecasts are not going to be accurate, but they will need to see something from you which will help them  to understand the assumptions you’ve made around the growth of your business. 

3. Have a well thought out plan of what you will achieve and in the next 12 months – whilst South East Angels doesn’t require businesses to have a lengthy business plan, they will want to see what milestones you will achieve in the coming year and how.