Pelle Jacobs

What’s your Elevator Pitch ? Only 1.4% Secured VC Funding: Is This the Gold Rush Where the Ones That Make All the Money Are the Ones paid to sell the Shovels? In November 2022, the Scottish Government launched Techscaler, a £42 million initiative delivered by Codebase, to support Scotland's tech sector and foster entrepreneurship. In its first year, Techscaler supported 517 startups and scale-ups, launched 11 hubs, facilitated £52.12 million in capital raises, and built a network of around 2,500 members. However, only 1.4% of these startups secured venture capital (VC) funding, revealing a challenging investment environment where many rely on self-funding (46.6%) and grants (23.6%). Dr Michaela Hruskova from the Stirling Management School notes that while the Scottish Government aims to make Scotland a world-leading entrepreneurial nation, the support system is complex and confusing. A study by the University of Stirling and the University of Glasgow found over 80 entrepreneurship support organisations (ESOs) in Glasgow alone, yet many offer similar services without addressing the evolving needs of startups at different stages, particularly scale-ups. The abundance of ESOs and the lack of targeted support indicate that the ecosystem needs a rethink. In my view the situation can be likened to the gold rush, where the ones who made the most money were those selling the shovels, not those doing the back breaking job of searching for gold. What do you think ? #startup #scottishedge #scottishenterprise

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Are you an early-stage company looking for Pre-Seed - Seed funding? ⬇️⬇️ - We cater to startups looking for investment ranging from £150k - £10m, specifically within the UK/EU. - Our investor network is eager to delve into diverse sectors, maintaining an open approach to ALL industries. - Commercial traction is advantageous - Particular interest lies in sectors such as: • SaaS • Fintech • Marketplaces & Platforms • Computer Vision & NLP • Enterprise Technology • Industrial Automation • The Transition to Sustainable Energy • Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Data Analytics • Software Development Tools Register at FundMyPitch.com and add your pitch today to link up with our wide-ranging network of investors. #fundraising #angelinvesting #startups 🤝 Know a startup on the lookout for investment? Help spread the word

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🚀 UK AI Startups in 2024: State of Play In 2024, the UK’s AI startup ecosystem continues to recover after a tricky 18 months. In this post I’ve focused on inward investment, how our universities are producing comparable talent to traditional powerhouses like Stanford, Berkeley and MIT and innovation. 💸 Record-Breaking Investment: UK AI startups are on track to reach $4.4 billion in funding this year, with $2.1 billion raised just in the first half, according to HSBC Innovation Banking and Dealroom. Major funding rounds, like Wayve’s $1 billion investment in autonomous driving, show the robust confidence investors have in the UK’s AI potential. https://lnkd.in/eJRyNUZz 🧑‍💻 Job Creation and Industry Impact: According to the PwC Global AI Jobs Barometer 2024, AI roles in the UK are expanding rapidly, especially in high-demand areas like data science and analytics, where salaries average 14% higher than other tech roles. This increase in skilled job opportunities highlights the premium on AI expertise. https://lnkd.in/eUnnTNrs 🎓 Universities Driving AI Talent: UK universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial College are increasingly competitive on a global scale, with a £118 million government-backed initiative establishing AI Centres for Doctoral Training. These programs at universities like Edinburgh and Bristol are attracting and producing top talent, enabling the UK to rival institutions like MIT and Stanford https://lnkd.in/ekFwBYGn 🌐 Global Leadership: With over 20 AI unicorns and a lead in Europe for AI-related university spinouts, the UK stands alongside the US and China as a powerhouse in AI innovation and commercialisation. This momentum is supported by the latest Tech Nation Report 2024, which highlights the UK’s pivotal role in the global AI landscape https://lnkd.in/eUnnTNrs As we approach 2025 do you feel confident in the UK’s ability to be a leader in AI innovation? What impact will this week’s budget and US election have? #AIUK #AIJobs #AIML #UKstartups #AIreport

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South Coast Startups: This is your moment!! I’ve got an incredible opportunity for startups on the South Coast of England. We’re talking intros to top-tier mentors and serious cash for growth—whether that’s through equity or loans. I’m on the lookout for standout startups to match with angel investors, CCs, and Ultra High Net Worth individuals who are ready to back the next big thing. If this sounds like you—or someone you know—tag them, DM me, or drop me an email at [email protected]. Let’s take your startup to the next level! #StartupLife #Entrepreneurship #Fundraising #VentureCapital #AngelInvestors #GrowthHacking #BusinessGrowth #Innovation #SeedFunding #ScalingUp #StartupJourney #EquityFunding #Disruptors #FounderLife #StartupCommunity #BusinessFunding #StartupMentorship #InvestorReady #PitchToInvestors #DreamBig

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Project Agorá moves to next phase and opens up call for private sector participation !! launched by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a group of leading central banks and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), is inviting the private sector to join its exploration of how tokenisation can enhance the functioning of the wholesale cross-border payments. #bis #tokenisation #cbdc Bank for International Settlements – BIS

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How would £300,000 in funding help you as an early stage founder? I've recently been working with an early stage founder who set up on his own and now has a team of 8 (all done within 4 months). He come to a point where he needed to raise some initial funding. But this is time consuming and juggling raising funds and running your business is a lot. So I offered help. I went out and found some Angels for him and he's just closed £300,000 from an introduction I made. This is how I help early stage founders, not just bums on seats. I've got some time from December to help some early stage founders. If you fancy a virtual coffee for some advice or how I could help my DMs are open. #zygopeople #startupfunding #startups

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Venture capital funding raised by UK start-ups dropped sharply in the third quarter of 2024, new research from Dealroom.co has found; adding further pressure for founders in search of new investment.  British start-ups secured around $2.9bn in VC funding in Q3, a 50% drop from the previous quarter but the funding trend is broadly consistent with levels seen in 2023. Fintech has been Britain’s best-funded tech sector so far this year, pulling in $3.3bn, down from $4.5bn in 2023.  

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Another super (and topical) episode of the 'Beyond the Hype' podcast, this time exploring whether GenAI-driven applications can ever been made secure. This is worth a listen for any connections looking to experiment with GenAI.

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🚀 Final 2 Spots: Fusion Tech Q4 Pre-Launch Offer 🚀 Calling all SME and Startup Founders! If you're looking for a cost-effective way to attract top talent, now’s the time to register your interest in joining our limited cohort of 5 companies** for the pre-launch phase next quarter. With only 2 spaces left, don’t miss out! Why choose Fusion Tech? ✅ Cut recruitment spend by up to 80% compared to typical agency fees   ✅ A solution managed by UK-based recruitment experts  ✅ Avoid the hassle of multiple recruitment and HR SaaS tools—host everything in one place for a fraction of the cost  ✅ Full placement guarantees throughout your subscription  This isn’t just another platform – it’s a tailored, cost-effective recruitment solution designed specifically for SMEs and startups with annual hiring needs between 2-50 employees, empowering you to compete with larger companies for top talent! ⏳ Don’t miss out! Secure your spot now and enjoy our half-price pre-launch subscription of just £200 pcm before the official 2025 launch. Once these spots are filled, you'll be placed on the waiting list at full price. 🔗 Register your interest here: https://lnkd.in/ep5hVskG Ready to transform your recruitment strategy? James Shakespeare | Olivia Baines | Evo Talent - Recruitment Reinvented

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Another great session for Exchange at Department yesterday! I learned so much from Holly Donohue's product workshop on navigating product & tech as a founder. As primarily a software engineer, I typically work with dedicated product managers embedded in cross-functional teams. By the time I get involved, the value of the planned work is already understood, and I'm focused on writing the code to implement the solution. This means I've been somewhat removed from the earlier stages of the process—where product decisions and planning happen. My key takeaways from Holly's session were: - How to write realistic OKRs to keep us at Mariposa AI moving in the right direction. - How to effectively hypothesise and research the assumptions we make about users. - The importance of a shared lexicon for product planning and launches, ensuring everyone is speaking the same language. - A newfound appreciation for the hard work product managers do. I've been fortunate to work with some great ones (Si Lewis, Jura Urbancik 👋), and now I feel like I've had a peek behind the curtain! #techmanchester #exchangeprogramme #techfounder #startup

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🔥 Welcome to Spendology! The money podcast for people who don’t like money podcasts 🔥 Incredibly proud to be able to finally announce this. It’s a project myself and Vix Leyton have had in the works for some time, and at last all the pieces have come together and our first episode has landed! 🥳 💰 On Spendology we take a real life look at spending and saving in one of the most financially unstable times we’ve ever faced. Personal finance doesn’t have to be pious, and it doesn’t have to be dull. 🛍️ We won’t tell you to make all your coffees at home, but we will tell you which coffee chain has the best loyalty scheme.   This is a podcast for people who want to spend wisely, and value their time as well as their money. 📈 Listen to episode 1 of Spendology now, where we tackle the risks of mobile gaming, and tips on avoiding gig ticket rip-offs. https://lnkd.in/e7WBypHR And remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode 😉 Learn more at www.SpendologyPod.com  Interested in sponsorship opportunity? Get in touch. #newpodcast #consumerpodcast #personalfinance #passionproject #moneypodcast #moneysaving #honestadvice

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Less than 2 weeks ago, I was enjoying this beautiful coastline in Anglesey 🏖️ But I've had such a wild start to September that it already feels like a distant memory... In the past 10 days, I've: ✅ crammed in Techstars Venture Deals course ✅ had 5 customer meetings ✅ had 4 team meetings ✅ had 3 business support sessions ✅ had a public speaking coaching session ✅ completed month-end finances ✅ raised an invoicing error with a supplier ✅ reviewed financial forecast ✅ built a financial insights officer custom GPT ✅ confirmed meetings and events for next few weeks ✅ published newsletter to Sweqlink members ✅ connected 2 founder members to talent ✅ attended 1 learning webinar ✅ fixed 1 broken link on our website ✅ shared useful resources and opportunities with other founder communities ✅ applied for a funding accelerator course ✅ read 25% of Lean Marketing by Allan Dib ✅ wrote a LinkedIn post that went a bit viral 😅 But despite all this, I feel a bit like I haven't achieved much (though writing this post has actually helped a bit). And I think I know why... There's one thing that should be on that list, but isn't because I keep putting it off. And in putting it off, it's diminishing everything else I do. So here I am, making a start on that thing - which is to share more of my insights and experience of being a founder, entrepreneurship and wealth creation. What's one thing you've been putting off that you could make a start on now? #founderlife #startupjourney #productivity #mindset

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Why does the UK VC market under-index the importance of a high quality CTO? This has come up in so many conversations recently, including with Chris Ashley last week. I just don’t get it. To build outlier technology businesses surely there is nobody more important in the room than the CTO? The US market is very different, the CTO is seen equally as importantly as the CEO. I don’t understand why we don’t do the same in the UK. Any ideas? _____________________________________ 🔔 Like my content and want to see more? Follow or connect: Kiran Mehta. ♻ Found this post useful and think your network will too? Please hit that repost button. #vc #venturecapital #founders #founderstories #raisingequity

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We spent 70 hours researching 300+ tech focussed communities, marketplaces and job sites We've selected the best 95 for you. Information organised in the following way; - name - site url - type - free Y/N - cost - focus area 👉 Want a copy of the notion page? 1. Like this post 2. Comment "communities" 3. I'll share

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Every tech founder want cash (nothing new here) 😂 Cash comes in many ways: - Revenues - the best form - Equity finance - Debt - Grants I (https://deallite.uk) sit on investor data with relationships built over a long time. Whilst I (Deal Lite) share this data through monthly subscriptions, I avoid investor introductions at all cost due to a number of reasons. I'm currently evaluating a light weight approach of investor introductions for Techcelerate members. Deal Lite also has the ability to include live fundraisers. Just wondering whether there is sufficient demand for us to create a product related service. It could look like below (not finalised - very early research): Product: - Listing on https://deallite.uk (company needs to keep us up to date so the data remain live) - Pitch deck sent to us for a quick review and inclusion with above. Service: For personal introductions, you would need to follow additional process: - Join Techcelerate as a Member. - Build credibility and trust within our community - Sign an agreement on light weight fundraising - Make introductions Of course, I would chat with Stuart Scott-Goldstone to understand legal ramifications. Whatever decided, it has to be a very light weight product related solution to ensure a decent quality of service. No decision has been taken. Just researching at present. I bet David John William Bailey might have some views on this. #fundraising #investment #DealLite

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Here's a founder failing at describing the problem they solve to an investor. Can you tell why it's bad? "There are 6bn tons of food wasted every year" Why does this suck? 1️⃣ It's not customer centric - There's no info on who the buyer is - just a problem that nobody owns - Nothing makes us believe someone will be motivated to buy the startup's product 2️⃣ Numbers are used but they're meaningless - 6bn tons sounds large - but there's no sense of how much the waste is worth - Even worse we don't know how much it is worth to individual customers Here's a 10x better version: "The average supermarket branch throws away $600k worth of food each year" Remember, you're not talking about problems for no reason. You're trying to show there will be demand for what you're building. Focus on the mission. I have a library of recordings of founders pitching - complete with much deeper analysis than this. Use it and avoid wasting meetings with basic pitching mistakes. Check one of them out below ⬇.

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How do you get deal flow? What's the secret to finding GREAT companies to invest in? First, let me dispel a myth. When people having access to 'great deals', they're often referring to signalling value. The company is in Y Combinator or they're backed by [INSERT VC] (even if it's a scout check). Those signals are single datapoints in a much larger picture. Top tier investors mint unicorns at a 3 - 5% rate. The data is clear. It's far from a certainty. My Opinion? You can't say if a company is good until you do the diligence. That all starts with have deal flow. The reality is that there is no magic bullet. You need to be sourcing broadly and doing diligence deeply to find winners. It's a numbers game! Deal sourcing falls into 3 buckets: ➕ Inbound Deals: If you're visible, an expert in your domain and an active investor, startups will find you and reach out. The challenge here is sifting through a high volume of deals efficiently because hit rates are low. ➕ Outbound Deals: You hear about a company and seek them out. The key is to time your approach with a fundraise. Networks matter. Warm intros help. Leverage it! ➕ Investor Referrals: Build a trusted circle of investors with a common thesis. Be purposeful with sharing deals and they'll reciprocate. It's about respect, trust, and leveraging each other's expertise and networks. Investing is all about relationships. If you want to learn about improving your venture deal flow, reach out to me by DM

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