Our extremely intense journey to a £1m valuation

September 2018, our list of ‘no’s’ had grown from 5 to 45 in a matter of months! Every grant provider, angel investor or random investment website that I came across replied with their own elaborate version of ‘NO’!

We only had 17 days left of money left in our account, YES, 17 DAYS!

We had one last hope. We’d made it through to the final stage of the Investec Beyond Business programme and were given the opportunity to pitch for an equity based investment. On the day, I turn up to the Investec head office in Bank with a weird sense of optimism. My pitch was rehearsed word for word, I even knew when and where to crack my hilarious jokes. My palms were sweaty but I was calm.

I pitched my heart out for 5 minutes and was then grilled for 10 minutes by the panel on everything from our financials to our overall long term vision. It was intense but I left the room even more optimistic than I had entered.

Later that day, I was called by Kim who runs the programme. it was good news. Investec were investing in us! Kim congratulated me, hung up and I breathed a massive sigh of relief as I knew what this meant for us!

Fast forward a few months later, we were able to make key hires in Operations and Marketing which has changed everything and we’ve now just closed our second round of investment with 5 angel investors at a valuation of £1m!

It’s amazing when others can see your vision and believe in what you’re building, especially those with deep pockets and lots of experience.

I never would’ve believed we’d be where we are today, but with the help of our team, investors and our board I know this is just the start and that the best is yet to come!

Raising investment can be an extremely rocky road full of countless ups and downs, but if you find the right investors that believe in what you’re trying to accomplish then it makes the hustle worthwhile.

Keep the faith and stay the course!