What We Learned from the Quantiply Scotland Launch

Quantiply is now up and running in Scotland, having kicked off with a launch event in Edinburgh on 19 February. In attendance were entrepreneurs and innovators, investors and lenders, business support and government. We were fortunate enough to engage them all in a conversation during a workshop moderated by Siobhán Jordan of Interface and inspired by the ever forward thinking David Bowie’s Bowie Bond, which we used as a framework to discuss what other financial innovations could improve the funding landscape for entrepreneurs and innovators in fields beyond music and art.

The feedback from everyone in the room was fascinating and fairly consistent too. Even in a part of the UK where Government support for young businesses is so pervasive there are clearly some obvious inefficiencies and problems which Quantiply is addressing.

Here are the 8 key points raised at the workshop:

1. Investors take meetings with companies which they know upfront do not fit their criteria — confusing and time-wasting. Similarly pitches are frequently inadequate and not fit for purpose. There needs to be a more transparent means of sharing vocabulary between the investor and companies.
2. There is a great angel ecosystem in Scotland, but routes to (later stage) investors are not transparent. This tends to lead companies to adopt a scattergun approach which is inefficient. The financing process should be more joined up and by streamlining it companies would be able to get on with the day job.
3. Companies do not know the investment markets and need assistance in finding the right investor, wherever they may be based. Also, they do not always know what investors are looking for. They need more assistance in ensuring they are properly prepared, and that their pitch is as good as it can be.
4. Companies would benefit from early exposure to potential future investors. They can get to know their counterparties in a relatively relaxed environment before there is a specific deal to be done, and can gain significant insight into the funding process and feedback on their business proposition. Investors are typically keen to meet with early stage companies.
5. There is hardly ever any specific feedback in the investment process, so companies struggle to learn from unsuccessful financing approaches.
6. There is a need for patient finance at all stages of funding, to ensure that companies have the ability to build their businesses, and survive through potentially drawn-out customer lead times and overseas market penetration.
7. Companies need to be more realistic about valuation in the context of the overall funding journey, not just the round they are currently looking to complete.
8. There needs to be more collaboration between companies to enhance the chance of success. Typically incentives are misaligned and entrepreneurs are protective of their business models rather than being encouraged to share. By sharing more and aligning incentives we can fail faster or succeed faster, which is to everybody’s benefit.

Needless to say, we were not only delighted with the quality of feedback from our attendees, but also encouraged that there appears to be a real need for a platform like Quantiply to provide quick and efficient investment readiness advice online, and to remove the mystery from the process of identifying and contacting appropriate investors with the best possible investment proposition.

We hope and expect that the results of the pilot programme in Scotland will demonstrate the power of the Quantiply proposition as we roll it out across the UK.

What are your thoughts? If any, please leave them as comments below.