FOUNDER FAQS

  • The vast majority of businesses we invest in are pre-revenue or in the very early stages of generating revenue. Our starting point for those businesses is £1.4m (pre-money) which is the average pre-seed valuation for a UK start-up, according to Beauhurst.  

    We may value your business a bit above or below that, depending on the following factors:   

    • Team: if you have experience running a business and expertise in the area 

    • Defensibility: is the product highly defensible or easily copied? 

    • Traction: do you already have people using your product and service? 

    • Revenue: do you have significant revenue (at least £3k in monthly recurring revenue)? 

    • Scalability: how big could this be?  

    • Sizzle: is this in a hot part of the market at the moment?  

    • Saleability: do you have recurring revenue with low acquisition costs?  

    • Grants: do you have substantial (at least £100k) of grants?  

    To be clear, these aren’t our general assessment criteria – these are just for establishing a fair valuation.  

  • Like other syndicate models, we operate on a deal-by-deal model – we don’t manage a pot of money that we invest. Investors who are signed up for our platform choose whether to invest depending on each deal. We only put forward deals where we are confident that we will raise investment.  

    In our first 10 months of operating, we have raised £800k for 10 start-ups. The average raised is £80k, the least anyone has raised is £10k and the most is £250k. Over time, we have got better at raising money and also recruited more investors to the platform so those figures have grown.   

  • Generally, most of the companies we have invested are either pre-revenue or under £100k in annual revenues. We will consider more developed companies but our focus is on early stage offerings.   here

  • By underrepresented, we mean that at least one founder is one of the following: 

    • Female 

    • From a global majority population 

    • Grew up in a working class household   

  • Most of our founders are underrepresented but we will consider businesses that aren’t led by underrepresented groups.  

  • No. We facilitate investments directly into the businesses which means each of our investors will show up as separate lines on your cap table.  

    The reason we don’t use SPVs is that they are expensive and we would have to pass on the costs to our founders or investors. In addition, we typically have 3-10 investors who are committing more substantial amounts so you are unlikely to have dozens of investors on your cap table.  

  • No – we only charge fees based on your performance. Everyone has raised something so far so we are confident that, if we put you forward, you will raise something.  

  • We charge founders 7.5% of funds raised.  

  • Companies apply for investment via our portal. Our team asses the companies through a combination of document reviews, interviews and external research.  

    If selected, you’ll move to a personal pitch call with our team and potential investors.

  • We don’t mandate this but investors are welcome to get involved in the business if they want to and the founders want them to.  

  • We only invest in companies with share capital, i.e. normal companies limited by shares and CICs limited by shares.   

  • No. We can help you find board members if you want.  

  • No – we don’t invest in businesses who fall outside of our mission.  

  • No – businesses have to be primarily operating in the UK to be eligible for investment.  

  • Yes! There are no limits on how many times you can apply. Your Dealum profile saves your information so you won’t have to start from scratch.

  • We only invest in companies that are eligible for SEIS or EIS. We strongly recommend getting advanced assurance as soon as possible. You can apply without it but we won’t put you forward to pitch if you haven’t got it by that stage.