Introduction
With only 38% of investments happening outside of London despite London only hosting 19% of SME businesses, the regions and nations tracker by the British Business Bank shows that external finances for small businesses is still not evenly spread across the UK. The UKBAA is partnering with the British Business Bank to host 5 events designed to raise better awareness of how the early-stage funding ecosystem operates.
- Attract and encourage new investors from the regions, providing key insight and ‘next-step’ support for becoming an angel investor
- Raise awareness of the different forms of funding available and how to leverage it to close investment rounds.
- Give critical insight on how to secure early-stage equity investment, delivered by investors, to early-stage businesses.
- Build regional awareness of key local and national initiatives such as the BBI Angel programme, the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and the Midlands Engine investment fund and the start-up-loans programme and how to engage with these.
The format of the events
4 regional events will be held online and will consist of a mixture of presentations and panel discussions from key members of early stage investment industry. We will also hold one, in-person, event in London where we will invite all regional attendees to discuss the next steps in their journey.
Raising awareness
UKBAA is the national trade association for angel and early-stage investment, representing over 200 member organisations and around 15,000 investors across the UK. UKBAA has four key roles: to act as the voice of the early stage investment community; to build skills and capacity of angel investors; to connect the investment community and link them to quality deal flow; and to support the development of a coherent and effective ecosystem for financing high-potential entrepreneurs.
As well as working closely with BBB and the local stakeholders, we will also work with our national partners including, Beauhurst, Creative England, Catapults, Capital Enterprise, Home Grown, Field House Associates, Angel CoFund, BVCA, BGF, TechNation, Tech Advocates EISA and many others.
Key actions:
- Forming marketing and support partnerships with our national and local partners for each of the covered regions.
- Emailing our wider community of contacts, the UKBAA has over 10,000 active readers in our circulation.
- Utilising social media marketing. We have over 16,500 twitter followers and 8,000 LinkedIn followers.
- Creating a dedicated page on the UKBAA website which receives over 10,000 unique visitors every month.
- Engaging additional channel partners, including our 200 member organisations which, as well as many investor groups, includes over 30 accelerators and incubators.
- Awareness raising through our own events calendar. The UKBAA supports and hosts around 60 events annually across the UK, convening over 3,000 people throughout the year.
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