The Network for Sophisticated Investors SUMMER 2018
SANO
CLEAN FOOD, CLEAN PLATES
SENSE STAYING HEALTHY IS AS SIMPLE AS ABC WHITECAR THE PERFECT RIDE, CHARGING TO THE FUTURE
Welcome to the sizzling summer edition of the Envestors magazine! Whereas the ENVESTORS portfolio companies were very much about data in the last issue, this time the focus is far more slanted towards health. Our cover stars SANO are determined to keep London professionals in fighting form by delivering delicious, nutritious food straight to their desks. SENSE are launching eight vitamin supplements, each specifically targeting a particular aspect of health. WHITECAR are offering us the chance to hire a Tesla for the day and AMBICARE will err… zap our spots. Fintech is never too far away though; THE SERVICES FAMILY are building a fintech platform with the wellbeing of their customers very much a priority and THE ITI GROUP have constructed a platform to allow anyone to invest across the whole market. ENVESTRY continues to thrive and now offers two products, ENVESTRY ENGAGE and ENVESTRY NETWORK. We are delighted to have 82 partners licensing our platform – who have raised well over £8m since it went live in 2016 - and have recently welcomed our first partner in the property sector, INVEST IN CROWD. This edition features a Q&A and a case study to thoroughly explain just how it all works.
We have in the last month hosted two hugely successful events. The first was our SPOTLIGHT evening at Grace Belgravia, an evening entirely dedicated to female angels and the second was at the equally glamorous 12 Hay Hill in Mayfair. This was a chance for our ENVESTRY partners to mingle and make useful business connections, in order to do more and better deals. Both were such a success that there will definitely be repeat performances: watch this space.
Soaring above the crowd with a minimum investment of £25,000. © Envestors Limited, 1 Lancaster Place, London, WC2E 7ED. Envestors Limited is incorporated in England and Wales, registration number 07236828. Envestors Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the
The One Belt, One Roadshow continues to conquer China and you can read about Scott’s latest adventures – and the vital lessons he has learned for any company thinking about scaling the Great Wall – at the end of this issue. We are planning a dedicated event in London later in the year; as above, watch this space. If you would like to read about previous Roadshows, you can find them on our platform: envestors. envestry.com/blog. Some fantastic news is that JOBHAWK – featured in the last edition – has initiated their first close after raising nearly £500,000, £200,000 of which came from the ENVESTORS private network. And finally, we are just delighted to attach our Guide to Investing. This opus is the result of months of work and would not have been possible without the invaluable input of our sophisticated investors, to whom we are incredibly grateful. Enjoy the read and here’s hoping we all have a lovely, sunny summer. Fingers crossed! Oliver, Scott and Nick
United Kingdom.
envestors.envestry.com Victoria Maby Content Editor, Envestors
Helping fledgling companies grow and succeed
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Contents 18 Airbeem FEATURES
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
6
WHITECAR
The perfect ride, charging to the future
8
THE SERVICES FAMILY
18 ENVESTRY™ Q&A 20 ENVESTRY™ SUMMER DRINKS
Building trust in digital financial services with military precision
21 ENVESTRY™ CASE STUDY Envestry™ and the Side By Side Partnership: working together in perfect alignment
10
SENSE
Staying healthy is as simple as abc
12
THE ITI GROUP
Defeating the risk devil, banking on smart savings
14
AMBICARE
A leading light in the anti-acne arsenal
16
SANO TO GO
Passionate healthy food, delivered straight to your plate
22 POWERLINKS SUCCESS STORY Envestors portfolio company Powerlinks powering to the fore
23 SPOTLIGHT EVENT Sophisticated investing with a little extra charm
Events
24 ENVESTORS IN CHINA The One Belt, One Roadshow continues to scale the great wall of opportunity.
Fintech North Liverpool
Who’s Who in the Zoo – Crowdfinders
New Members Lunch
Finance Camp
Family Office Lunch
Investment Presentation Lunch
Date: Tuesday, 12th June Time: 8.30am – 8.00pm Address: ECL Liverpool, Kings Dock, Liverpool L3 4FP
Date: Thursday, 28th June Time: 9.00am – 5.30pm (11.45 – Speaking Slot) Address: London Zoo
Date: Thursday, 14th June Time: 12.30pm – 2pm Address: Envestors Limited, 1 Lancaster place, WC2E 7ED Date: Wednesday, 27th June Time:11.30am – 2.30 Address: Coutts, 440 Strand, WC2R 0QS
Date: Thursday, 5th July Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm Address: St James Park, Newcastle Date: Friday, 6th July Time: 11.30am – 2.30pm Address: Coutts, 440 Strand, WC2R 0QS
UKBAA Global Investment Summit Date: Tuesday, 19th June Time: 10am – 11.30pm
All events are by invitation only. Please contact julia.sinclair@envestors.co.uk for further details.
Risk Warning – Responsible Investing Please be aware that investments of this nature are not for everyone. Investment in new business carries high risks as well as the possibility of high rewards. Risks include a lack of liquidity (ie. the ability to sell your shares) and loss of investment. To help manage risk you should invest in a diversified portfolio.
Before investing in a project about which information is given, potential investors are strongly advised to take advice from a person authorised by the Financial Service and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), who specialises in advising on investments of this kind. For full information as to the risks, please visit: envestors.envestry.com/risk-warning
ENVESTORS 5
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
WHITECAR: THE PERFECT RIDE, CHARGING TO THE FUTURE
I think it would be fair to say that if you haven’t had a bad experience with a car rental giant, you’re in the lucky minority.
All it takes is a quick ask around and you are bombarded with tales of being charged 1,000 for a chip in the windscreen (my own personal misfortune, it being – quelle surprise! – warm in the South of France and the air conditioning caused it to crack) to being upsold unnecessary insurance, hours of queueing or hunting for the bay numbered 379 in an airport car park after midnight… Suffice to say, it’s not exactly an activity one would describe as enjoyable. Mark Strachan found himself in the unfortunate majority on a trip to Rome with his wife and three daughters in 2016. The online booking was lost, he had to pay the whole fee up front, again, they waited hours for a bus to take them to a different terminal only to find themselves in a terrible queue, at the end of which they were told there was no record of either booking. Most of us in that situation would stew, maybe send an angry email or file a complaint. But Mark decided to write a business plan.
‘The car rental business basically needs to grow up’, explains Mark. ‘This is the era of convenience at our fingertips – think the reliability of an Amazon delivery – and yet this industry is stuck in the past: they need to put the customer first, which, quite simply, they don’t. It shouldn’t have to be a nightmare simply trying to hire a car for a few short days – it should be enjoyable. I realised that there was a gaping hole in the market for something completely different: WHITECAR. ‘At the core of our business is a very simple principle: we want to make it ‘fun’. We rent out only Teslas, all Model S or X and all in white. This luxury car sets an industry standard for proficiency and safety, an allelectric powertrain that delivers unparalleled performance in all weather conditions, with dual motor all-wheel drive, ludicrous acceleration and the highest safety rating of any car ever tested.
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As Tesla only make electric cars, the design can take a different approach: they have embraced this new technology, allowing all the main features of the car to be controlled via a large touchscreen, located in the middle of the dashboard, or via the controls located on the steering wheel. Every Tesla has full self-driving hardware and is capable of a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver – we just need the government and its legislation to catch up. Which it will. Customer Service is our uppermost priority. The pricing is transparent – it costs £129 for the day with no hidden extras such as a second driver, VAT or insurance. We deliver the car to the home or the office and now operate out of Heathrow, Gatwick, London City Airport/Canary Wharf, Manchester, Edinburgh and Oslo; we are soon to be found at Munich, Frankfurt, Geneva, Zurich and Schiphol. A full battery has a range of 275 – 300 miles and we supply our customers with details of where to find them – it’s built into the in-car satellite navigation system - of every Tesla Supercharging point which is fast, simple and FREE! Our increasingly environmentally aware society has fuelled the rapid growth of the electric vehicle market so there are chargers practically everywhere in Europe: we supply a UMC (a universal mobile connector) that will even replenish the battery from any household socket in the UK. We also provide a Tesla sharing scheme. If you own a Tesla and you are going abroad, you can offer it up for rental (we deal with the booking, the insurance and all of the necessary admin) and we split the revenue, 50/50. As with the whole concept of Airbnb, you can earn money by simply going away. The company successfully raised £1,2,00,000 through a round with Crowdcube in February 2018 and from an AIM listed company; WHITECAR now has a pre-money valuation of £8.3m. ‘With so much interest from people seeking to invest in WHITECAR, we are seeking further funding through ENVESTRY as it’s still a good thing to do, even though we don’t technically need the money at the moment. These are very exciting times’. I must confess to being one of the lucky ones: I’ve been in a WHITECAR. It’s not the most corporate way of describing a short journey in a hire car but I’m stumped for anything else: I can confirm that the experience was deeply cool, and very, very fun. Oh, and a passer-by stopped to take a photo. Brilliant!
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
THE SERVICES FAMILY: BUILDING TRUST IN DIGITAL FINANCIAL SERVICES WITH MILITARY PRECISION
‘The public has rarely been more cynical about big business; trust is at an all time low. Strong and demonstrable ethical behaviour is critical to win back and retain trust among customers and investors’. Sir Win Bischoff, Chairman of the Financial Reporting Council.
In a recent survey, 89% of the great British public said that they hold our armed forces in high regard, associating them with discipline, transparency and trust. But returning to Civvy Street can prove to be a daunting experience: PTSD notwithstanding, it is well documented that many service personnel struggle to cope with life outside the relative ‘safety’ (an oxymoron if ever there was one, considering this could include deployment in Afghanistan) and structure within the strict confines of service life. A case in point is how ill prepared they are to access and use 21st century banking and insurance systems. Prior to the Financial Services Act of 1986, the Ministry of Defence had a duty of care to advise the armed forces in all things money; the FSA changed this and quite simply nothing was created to replace it. Air Commodore Mike Jenkins and Brigadier Tom O’Brien are well aware of this. Both ex-alumnae of the Royal College of Defence Studies, Mike served in the Air Force for 33 years as a pilot and later held leadership positions in regulation, development, internal audit, training, logistics and transformational change. Tom has designed and built some of the most complex technology and business solutions in pharmaceuticals, banking, insurance and telecommunications for – among others – Deloitte, Kwikfit Insurance and Vertex. Oh, and somehow, he also managed to fit in 40 years as an Army reservist. ‘I lived in the banking commuter belt’ explains Mike. ‘Through the recession and various high-profile banking scandals, I realised that the general, British consensus is that big financial institutions are held in low regard and, in particular, do not treat customers as well as they did. We wanted to challenge this perception using the values and ideals inherently learnt in the forces: we decided to build a financial services business that lives the values of our servicemen and women and provides quick and easy access to insurance and consumer loans, while employing all the policies expected of a regulated bank. THE SERVICES FAMILY LTD will provide disclosure on our fee structure, tax and payscales, we will build a reputation for trust, responsiveness and integrity and will strive to become the UK’s most responsible and reliable financial services company. Tom’s business and technology expertise makes him
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an ideal Chief Technology Officer and my experience in operations, risk and strategy will enable us to build the organisational aspects and risk analytics underpinning the company and deliver the best possible customer experience. Because our business model is simple and quite literally started from scratch, we are able to adopt the smartest technology and provide a resilient, digital platform to offer a unique experience. This technology approach allows us to look at our customers and make a better assessment of their way of life or circumstances and allows predictive ‘futures’ when considering their insurance or credit risk; the platform will better use behavioural analytics to reduce asset pricing dependencies and therefore produce a better quote or insurance premium. This will particularly benefit those who have devoted themselves to public service, such as the armed forces, but who have limited experience in the ‘smartphone’ finance world and need help to find the right financial products, jobs and find small business support. Serving one’s country, or indeed working in an international business, inevitably creates a ‘mobile’ lifestyle; it’s clear that many banks, mortgage providers and insurance brokers are wary of their – by default – chequered credit history and consider service personnel to be high risk despite Reference Agency evidence to the contrary.
THE SERVICES FAMILY have a pre-money valuation of £3.03m and are now seeking funding of between £250,000 and £1m (with £190,000 already raised and in the bank). They will use the funds for working capital for the insurance broking part of the business and will also develop and employ the Risk management platform to support THE SERVICES FAMILY and commercialise it for other UK SME businesses. With their exceptional management team’s combined experience of the armed forces, technology and business and a corporate responsibility ethos second to none, I truly believe the battle to bring back ethical banking will be an easy one to win.
‘A minimum of 30% of our staff made up of ex-military personnel or their families’ THE SERVICES FAMILY, however, will capture the experience of military personnel in order to deliver excellent service and customer benefit, thus providing services and products to support the Armed Forces’ way of life and all those members of the extended ‘Services Family’: over 5m veterans, blue-light services and public servants and their families. We are committed to social responsibility and intend to have a minimum of 30% of our staff made up of ex-military personnel or their families. Ultimately, we don’t want to just sell better, we want to provide better insurance and lending, better’. We’ll trade as equals® exploiting digital engagement – think Private Financial Services for the Private!
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
SENSE: STAYING HEALTHY IS AS SIMPLE AS ABC
The paradox: I want to live a high in fat and calories and devoid of nutritional value and fibre; indeed it’s got to the point that even the most conscientious food consumer will struggle to get their daily suggested nutrients. We are overfed, long, disease free life, but I also undernourished and yet we want to make old bones (and we’re unlikely to get the vital Vitamin D those bones need from our climate), so we want to eat pizzas and drink have to get those vital nutrients from somewhere else. an enormous amount of wine. We all know that healthy eating ‘Expert supplementation can reduce the negative impact of a nutrient lacking lifestyle’ and a balanced diet are the key to keeping the body in fighting Jonathan Ebsworth found this out the hard way. A City lawyer for 20 he lived the proverbial City life and eventually this made him ill. form and the scientific proof is years, He realised that if he wanted to keep going at such a pace he would need to start looking after himself and embarked on a mission to find the irrefutable. Yet our weak wills best way to do it. ‘I just knew that I needed to do something’ he explains. ‘Part of my recovery involved getting my insides right, killing bad bacteria that had taken hold and repairing the damage caused. It occurred to have lead to a rise in cases of me that supplementing your diet was no different than supplementing life, your real life, the one that you live because you want to live it. diabetes of 35% in the last 20 your If I had done this earlier and looked after myself better, using nutrition to detoxify those poisons I introduced voluntarily or those that got in years, cancer 20% and heart because of the world we live in, I doubt I would have been so ill. It really is about the happy, healthy medium: expert supplementation can reduce disease 10%. the negative impact of a nutrient lacking lifestyle’. Notwithstanding the stress, our processed, fast food diets are generally
He decided to make a lifestyle range of food supplements that could benefit everybody. ‘Anyone who has lived a normal life and had issues. No matter what your vice is...drink, nicotine, food or just a hectic lifestyle, everyone needs help from time to time. Always in the back of my mind, I knew this needed to be done’.
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And so, in 2013, Jonathan founded SENSE PRODUCTS LTD. Initially the range had 5 lines, but now, following a rebranding and hugely positive round of intensive market research, they are offering eight. Each has a formulation that specifically targets the area that needs ‘help’: busy lives, gut health, the immune system, brain function, weight management, heart health, joints/bones and – in your scribe’s somewhat shady opinion a very, very exciting one – for a night out. They are available as a capsule or a superfood powder that is a combination of the capsule with superfoods to add to smoothies or sprinkle on food.
‘The UK market for VMS (vitamins, minerals and supplements) generates £750m every year’ ‘The UK market for VMS (vitamins, minerals and supplements) generates £750m every year, Italy and Germany €1bn and in the US, $13.4bn. It is, however, proliferated and confusing for consumers. We have an ageing population and the millennials are increasingly health conscious; SENSE is offering a brand that is simple to understand, that is expert but friendly rather than just cold, hard product facts. This is not about medicine, this is about a branded, nutritious lifestyle for the modern, health savvy consumer’. SENSE have already hit the retail jackpot as their range will go on sale at Boots’ top 100 stores in August. They are in advanced commercial discussions with Holland and Barratt, Lloyds Pharmacies and the online shopping channel QVC. They have been reviewed by the MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency), using validated claims from the European Food Safety Authority and all their packaging has been approved for the big launch this summer by Boots and the Healthfood Manufactures Association. The team are seeking investment to fund their production runs, to prepare for launch, for marketing purposes, for admin personnel and upgrade the website. Ultimately, the message is that we can continue having fun as long as we supplement our nutrition depleted diets with the good stuff. Makes sense, really.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
THE ITI GROUP: DEFEATING THE RISK DEVIL, BANKING ON SMART SAVINGS
Chances are that if you’re reading an article inviting you to invest in a business in a magazine called ENVESTORS, it’s probably fair to say that you have a relatively extensive knowledge about the world of investing. However, you are in the minority.
Despite the great Thatcherite dream that ‘owning shares should be as common as owning a car’, individual share ownership has nearly halved in the last 30 years to just 11 per cent of the total value of UK traded shares. It would seem that we are a nation too wary to take the metaphorical plunge and a recent report points to a woeful lack of knowledge and education in all things financial, a fact not lost on The ITI Group (ITIG). Founder and CEO Simon Glover spent 25 years in the US, where he managed a £1bn hedge fund in partnership with AIG. Upon his return to the UK in 2012, he was shocked at the state of financial services provisions for retail investors and realised that the UK, along with most of the other OECD countries, is suffering from a savings and investment crisis. ‘I founded ITIG with a mission to help anyone invest successfully’, he explains. ‘A lot of people are put off using their money this way for a number of reasons: it can be complicated, their financial knowledge might be limited and the fees can be high. We want to provide a solution and encourage individuals to save more money through investing, particularly those who are looking to expand their pension and retirement funds.
‘Owning shares should be as common as owning a car’ In 2015 we built a database to calculate daily information on over 1,400 Exchange Traded Funds (which now provide low-cost and liquid access to all work markets and asset classes) and 26,000 mutual funds. Then in December 2017 we launched the Whole Money Lifetime Portfolio (WMLP), a single, geographically diverse portfolio in which investors will automatically be owning the total world market derived from all ETFs listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). This provides exposure to over 7,000 bonds, equities, properties and commodities and is made
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up of around 20 ETFs. WMLP also, crucially and uniquely, ensures that investors’ capital is protected though an automatic downside protection policy, ensuring that if markets undergo a downturn, their investment is converted into cash. This will have real appeal to the individual who is wary of investing because they are worried that their money isn’t ‘safe’. ‘We aim to target those who are looking to reinvest their defined benefit pension. Currently, it is estimated that these schemes are worth about £1.7 trillion; between 2015 and 2017 £50bn was cashed in, as final salary pension schemes do not pass to a spouse or family on the death of the beneficiary creating a pipeline of customers looking for an effective investment option’. ITIG’s objective is to keep the costs as low as possible. ‘We are pure technology (the WMLP is already available on Hubwise, one of the UK’s fastest growing and lowest cost financial advisor platforms), there is no expensive committee allocation as it is all done algorithmically directly from the LSE - which enables us to keep the fee at 0.45%, thus maximising the investment outcome and return. We are the only group to offer the downside protection and if you look at the fees charged by our competitors offering other ready-made, multi-asset class portfolios, such as Hargreaves Landsdown (1.85%) and Charles Stanley Direct (1.53%), it is easy to appreciate the huge benefits to what we have on offer. In addition, we will be easily accessible to even the most wary of savers, offering low minimum investments from only £50’. Another area they will focus on is the young. ITIG have partnered with Young Money and the LSE to provide all secondary school teachers with an app and materials to teach the basic principles of investing. There will be an ETF investment competition but ultimately the objective is to educate and, in doing so, build a culture of saving and investing across the UK, through children and young adults. The timing is also crucial: Child Trust Funds set up by Gordon Brown in 2002 (tax-free children’s saving accounts to help make sure that every child arrives at adulthood with a savings account) are due to start expiring in 2020 when these children turn 18. ITIG is looking to raise £500,000 at a pre-money valuation of £2.5m. They will use the funds to launch the portfolio, to expand their sales and marketing team and to cover general working capital. An investment proposition worth investing some time in, methinks.
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AMBICARE: A LEADING LIGHT IN THE ANTI-ACNE ARSENAL
There is a reason that people with acne are described as sufferers. There are undoubtedly many far more debilitating conditions, but a recent study found that the impact on the acne sufferers’ lives is at least as great as that of patients with chronic disabling asthma, epilepsy or arthritis.
85% of adolescents – as bewildering a stage of life as any without the added horrors of having your face colonised by angry spots and lumps – are afflicted to some degree, and the rise in adult acne has been described as an epidemic, with up to 50% of those over 40 affected. Acne develops when the body’s immune system creates an inflammatory response due in the main part to high androgenic hormone levels, but the recent increase has also been attributed to a combination of stress and lifestyle issues, such as smoking and poor dietary habits. In a society obsessed with looking good, this unsightly problem can cause severe depression, anxiety and self confidence issues, ironically the possible cause for the condition in the first place. Thankfully, Scottish company AMBICARE have the solution. CEO Graeme Low joined the business in 2013. ‘AMBICARE was formed in 2004. The founders – two highly distinguished Professors of Physics and Dermatology respectively – and working out of the University of St Andrews and Ninewells Hospital (recognised as one of the pre-eminent European Centres of Excellence in the field of Dermatology), had long concentrated on clinical trials – mainly for Japanese pharmaceutical companies – looking at the effect of sunlight on drug compounds. They realised that they could replicate the outpatient clinical experience and, having secured a grant from Scottish Enterprise, started the company with the initial focus on using light therapy in the treatment of nonmelanoma skin cancers’. With this technological expertise, the team decided to shift their focus onto the huge – for want of a better word – market of spots. In 2016, the US spent $4.9bn on acne treatment with each individual spending on average a whopping $300 – 1,000 a year alone. It has long been understood that light can significantly help when treating acne, though in the case of its natural source - the dreaded sun – it can also cause skin cancer. And so the LUSTRE range was developed: consisting of two products, all with an FDA-cleared, risk free blue light. An instant hit, they are listed on Amazon and Boots.com (selling so well that Boots stock it in their top 250 stores) and consistently get rave reviews (the current overall aggregate shows 91% of all ratings are 4 or 5 star).
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‘We have sold in the region of 4,000 units’, continues Graeme, ‘and this has proven highly successful from the technical, clinical and user perspectives because, quite simply, it works. However, they are very expensive to manufacture (and thus have a high retail price) and some users (think the anxious teen) find that the treatment heads, which are connected to the controller by wires, unattractive. We acknowledged this factor and have created a shift in the design by launching the LUSTRE SOLO.
‘Selling so well that Boots stock it in their top 250 stores’ The new design will be just as proficient and have the same clinical efficacy as the current products but with some key differences: SOLO can be charged from any device with a USB port, it doesn’t require a separate controller thus eliminating the need for wires and the manufacturing cost has been reduced by almost 90%, which in turn will make its retail price much lower. SOLO will continue AMBICARE’s unique ‘wearable’ technology family – with the adhesive strips, the user just has to stick them onto their skin rather than having to hold the device, thus minimising disruption to their daily routine. SOLO can also be attached anywhere on the body where there is an outbreak of spots compared to the rival Neutrogena light mask that is limited to the face only. Finally, this ambulatory feature means the user can get on with their life knowing they are receiving a precise dosage of blue light for the necessary amount of time, guaranteeing results in twelve weeks’. AMBICARE are now seeking to raise capital to fund the development of the LUSTRE SOLO. With the proven efficacy of the current range, its lower cost, the fact that it’s handsfree and easy to use away from home, the team know that it will be superior to all other available products, promising a dramatic increase in unit sales volumes and the highly realistic expectation that it will be the market leader. Therefore – with apologies for the appalling and somewhat predictable punnery - what it all boils down to is that AMBICARE have most definitely hit the spot.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
SANO: PASSIONATE HEALTHY FOOD, DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR PLATE
Ever been on a diet? Yep, me too. Every year brings a new fad that is the get-thin-quick super success of its era: Atkins, cabbage soup, no fat, high fat, blood group, only eating raw… the problem is, that in the long term, none of these frequently contradictory messages work.
The body simply cannot function without a balanced diet and by cutting out certain food groups, we are denying ourselves crucial vitamins and nutrients which leaves us feeling hungry, fatigued and above all not very well. The flip side is that in the hectic 21st century where we are all so time poor, living on a diet of fast food or ready meals is appealing until you factor in that poor nutrition also increases stress, exhaustion, impairs your cognitive ability, raises your blood pressure, make you fat and ultimately will shorten your life. Doug Richards first became interested in the whole concept of healthy eating after discovering two of his three daughters were intolerant to gluten, leading to a host of digestive, dermatological, cognitive and neurological issues. His wife Heather decided to train as a Nutritionist and through this met Dale Pinnock (also known as The Medicinal Chef and an award-winning author). With their combined passion for food and Doug’s corporate expertise (he was previously FD of Goldfish Bank and CEO of CMC Markets), the exceptionally strong trio co-founded SANO.
‘There is very little guidance on what and how much to eat in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle’ ‘There is so much confusion about what’s good for you’, explains Doug. ‘There is very little guidance on what and how much to eat in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle so, in July 2016, we created the SANO School of Culinary Medicine. We all know that education is the key in all facets of life: we offer a fully comprehensive training scheme in evidence based nutritional science, which empowers our students with the knowledge and tools to make healthier food choices and develop recipes to support their overall health.
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There are countless so-called healthy foods led by fad and fashion but there is a real lack of an authentic and delicious healthy food experience in London. With this in mind, we launched the true heart of our business, SANO TO GO. This has three core areas: the ‘grab and go’ opportunity from our distinctive HQ in Gray’s Inn Road, partnering with – among others - City Pantry, Feedr and Caterwings for the corporate side and for the retail side, with such companies as Deliveroo and Uber Eats. The third area is SANO Direct delivery via www.sanotogo.com, which has a key advantage: direct food delivery is a crucial element of our strategy unlike the larger high street operators for whom this is typically a secondary distribution channel and will shut down deliveries if it compromises their capacity to deliver service customers in their high street operations. I know, through my own experiences in the corporate world for over 25 years, that most large companies today are progressive enough to recognise that wellness is a vital element of any business’ success: this is not just a fruit basket or providing reactive healthcare packages, this is real education about the essential link between good food and good health. We understand that in order to reach as many people as possible, we must focus on the corporates and thus we deliver freshly made, nutritionally balanced and, crucially, delicious and invigorating food between 7am and 8pm, all within 60 minutes of the initial order. Speed is the biggest variable in customer satisfaction and our central location is in the corporate heart of the capital, allowing us to maximise our exposure across all channels within the optimal time constraint of the customers. The feedback has been fantastic: referrals are vital in this sector and we are confident that once we have proven ourselves to be a ‘sticky’ brand, it will lead us to win new clients, numerous amounts of repeat business and, in some cases, a monthly subscription model. However, it is not enough to just provide food. Education is also crucial so employees can embrace a healthy lifestyle leading to improved productivity and reduced absenteeism. Sano will provide lifestyle courses that include practical skills and solutions resulting in better nutrition, sleep, mental health, effective exercise and reduced stress.
that SANO will, with the increased understanding of the vital role that a balanced diet plays in the maintenance of good health, have a real impact on Londoners’ lives. As demanding as this levelling experience of hospitality has been, it is also hugely rewarding: by sharing our passion for healthy eating, we have also shown people just how much fun it can be and crucially just how great they can feel’. The team are now seeking funding to build brand awareness and grow their sales and marketing channels – they plan to acquire key talent in sales and marketing, create more highly targeted and relevant short burst videos and content, increase google and geo targeted FB advertising, ramp up their event and pop up activity, provide taster experiences for local corporates and will acquire 12 cargo bikes which will enable the working Londoner to instantly recognise the SANO brand It is impossible not to be enthralled by Doug’s passion, energy and commitment to changing our eating habits. And his top tips? In that he rarely gets ill and when he does he recovers very quickly, I think they’re worth a listen: cook with real ingredients from scratch. Real food doesn’t contain ingredients, real food is ingredients. Or, in the case of your hungry and humble scribe, head to sanotogo.com….
We are a digital brand and our core focus for the future strategy of the SANO group is online. We do not anticipate opening multiple retails shops in London or elsewhere, as operating online will give us a much wider audience. We share videos, we tweet, we photograph, we educate and our ultimate goal is to become the leader in healthy online food delivery to corporate and retail customers in London. We truly believe
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ENVESTRY Q&A
Q&A WITH THE ENVESTRY ™ TEAM: SOARING ABOVE THE CROWD
When and why did the idea for ENVESTRY come about? By 2014, ENVESTORS had grown to such an extent that we realised we just had to get online. We knew that by using a platform, we would be able to manage our hundreds of investments with our thousands of investors in a far more efficient way and set about acquiring an offthe-shelf solution. However, the harsh reality was that no such platform existed… so we decided to build our own. Was this an easy thing to do? Not at all! We were hopelessly optimistic in the initial stages that this would be a simple process. In the end, it took 2 years to build and cost £500,000. This can act as a word of warning to those who try to build a similar platform themselves and why we are such a cost effective and time saving way to offer up your deal: we’ve done all the hard work! Is it crowdfunding? Not really. Crowdfunding has been a huge buzzword since the first UK site was launched in 2011. A lot of companies come to us and say that although they eventually raised the money through traditional crowdfunding methods, the vast majority of that money came from their own sources – a crowd they had to build and now share - when what they really need is a platform to manage their funding with their own loyal community in a regulated way. Likewise, our network of investors is highly sophisticated and experienced; many of the crowdfunding websites cater to people who are almost entirely uneducated in the whole concept of investing. There are ludicrous valuations and many of these start-ups find themselves failing. We believe that this will lead to a huge shakeup of the industry, resulting in the need for sites like ENVESTRY that specifically work with seasoned angels who understand what they are investing in. The wisdom of a crowd is proportional to its constituent parts: a crowd of 500,000 investors who are not well educated is a lot less wise than a crowd of 1000 that is. ENVESTRY investors know what they’re doing and this in turn is attractive to other investors whose judgement they trust. Was ENVESTRY built for the licensees specifically? Initially it was built for ENVESTORS, but the rise in demand from others – to literally relieve their pain points – lead to the organic evolution of the ENVESTRY that we have today. Another big criticism of traditional crowdfunding sites is the lack of information for the investors, who are very much at the forefront of our focus. Many unquoted companies are
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very poor at keeping their shareholders informed; ENVESTRY, however, fully understands that the investor is king or queen. All of our licensee partners have investor relations tools that enable their shareholders to be kept very much up to speed by alerting them to any relevant information which, ultimately, builds a level of trust and proves them to be a serious company. Is ENVESTRY independent from ENVESTORS? No, ENVESTORS is still very much the parent company. We have raised over £100m for our portfolio companies since we started the business in 2004, we’ve won awards and our reputation in the industry is exemplary. The licensee knows that they’re not just getting the software, they’re getting an opportunity to share our collateral and to leverage a piece of the ENVESTORS expertise, experience and gravitas. We share our briefings, templates and knowhow to help our licensees make ENVESTRY work for them. We are an ethical business and will advise against using the platform if we think that it’s not right for them. Please explain how it all works to the layman. A good analogy is if you imagine ENVESTRY as a field of walled gardens. ENVESTRY ENGAGE is for individual companies raising finance for themselves from their own network or beyond. With our FCA regulated platform they retain ‘ownership’ of their investors and data (meaning that they can go back to the same following if any further rounds are needed), can customise the platform in any way they choose whilst benefitting from the promotion to our sophisticated investors. This saves them huge amounts of money, time and effort either building their own platform (an ENVESTRY platform takes less than a day) or directing their crowd to traditional crowdfunding sites, which in turn incur far higher fees. A recent report highlights the rise in ‘salami’ rounds, which means that instead of raising one single large amount expected to last 12-18 months, an increasing number of companies are opting for a series of smaller raises, a trend that is specifically catered for in ENVESTRY ENGAGE: you are technically ‘open’ 24/7 to potential investors. Our ENGAGE partners can keep their garden to themselves, managing and controlling what happens there and engaging with their private network or, if they wish to share their deal with other licensees who might be interested, they can open the ‘gate’ thereby getting increased distribution and paying a success fee for any funding that is raised outside their own contacts.
ENVESTRY Q&A
We then have ENVESTRY NETWORK. This is quite literally the ‘network of networks’ and is for organisations, networks and syndicates raising finance for multiple external companies from their own investor networks. Returning to the walled gardens example: there are many white labelled funding platforms, but we are the only platform that allows our partners to open the metaphorical garden gate. Quite simply, this allows our investor groups, networking organisations and wealth managers to open up and share their deals with other licensees. This helps establish relationships and connections with other likeminded people in particular sectors, groups or societies. For instance, if you’re part of the Green Angel Syndicate and have a company that has built a robot that fixes pipeline leaks, you could share that with Britbots to see if it would be of interest to their investors. Or if Sports Investment Partners have a company that is looking for an NED, they may share the deal with Stakeholderz who find investing directors. This cross-pollination of gardens increases the educated distribution and smart money available to companies and, in principle, all of our partners gain access to the vast ENVESTRY ecosystem. A crucial, extra bonus – and the model that ENVESTORS itself operates as a licensee of ENVESTRY – is that our NETWORK partners are given the opportunity to offer the ENGAGE product on their platform, thus providing another service offering.
Is ENVESTRY really unique? Yes, indeed we are. While there are several white labelled funding solutions on the market, we are the ONLY one that offers both full FCA platform cover (without needing to be an AR) and of course the entirely unique network of networks. We have developed a beautifully efficient, highly sophisticated platform that can be up and running for our licensee partners within a day: the off the shelf option that ENVESTORS originally wanted. Our 80 partners, with full control of their platforms, have already raised over £8m in under two years and, through our ‘network of networks’, they have been able to syndicate their deals and thus broaden their investor database and deal flows exponentially. And all of this with the ENVESTORS pedigree and gravitas at its core. We’re also the biggest licensee and if it’s good enough for us… Exciting times.
So, this really is the future of fundraising? Absolutely. Just as retailers like Mothercare failed to recognise the threat posed by competitors moving online, traditional brokers and corporate finance advisors will miss out on sales if they do not offer their clients the ability to view and manage their investments online. Companies will still need to focus on ‘off platform’ activities and face to face interaction with their clients but the modern, sophisticated investor, rather like every other sector of society, wants instant access to any information they need. ENVESTRY offers a fully live opportunity portal providing investors 24/7 online access to information; it provides a controlled-access secure data room and a dashboard of investments for each individual investor, the ability to view and access Q&A for each opportunity and a simple way to pledge investment online. A recent study highlighted the growing trend that many companies are moving from generalist to niche platforms: sites with a focus on specific areas, which is very much a key strength of ENVESTRY.
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ENVESTRY EVENT
ENVESTRY™ SUMMER DRINKS
On Thursday 24th May we hosted our ENVESTRY licensees at the beautiful 12 Hay Hill Members Club in Mayfair. It was wonderful to see the ‘ENVESTRY Ecosystem’ come to life in one room: sharing experiences, ideas and deals over drinks. Platform Director Jerry Plant kicked off the evening to outline the roadmap of technical development for the ENVESTRY platform. Our in-house tech team endeavours to ensure licensees’ requests are incorporated into the platform; all partners benefit from this to create a ‘best practice’ platform. Highlights of the roadmap moving forward are giving licensees the flexibility to publish deals in Preview Mode - without FCA approval – so they can promote deals in the run up to going live, integrating with nFiniti to have a smoother process for investors’ financial transactions and working with partners to offer both a Secondary Market and P2P facilities. Business Development Executive Jennie Sherington outlined our newly launched ENVESTRY ENGAGE product, which offers the potential of more deal flow for licensees to increase transactions through their platform. This also presents a particularly exciting opportunity for licensees to offer ENVESTRY ENGAGE to their client companies in addition to their service, thus extending their offering and potentially generating additional revenue. Finally, CEO Oliver Woolley outlined 7 Key Trends for 2018,
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namely the Nesta research evidencing the move from generalist to niche platforms tailored to a distinct target audience to build communities around a common interest and exactly what ENVESTRY provides. We intend to host these 3 times a year to encourage the syndication of deals and relationships to grow our ENVESTRY Network of Networks. We expect the next one to be in September and will of course update you nearer the time.
ENVESTRY CASE STUDY
ENVESTRY™ AND THE SIDE BY SIDE PARTNERSHIP: WORKING TOGETHER IN PERFECT ALIGNMENT
The SIDEBYSIDE PARTNERSHIP, founded in 2016 by John Bailye, was created as a means to invest the group’s experience and expertise alongside their capital. They invest in entrepreneurs and their potentially great businesses and, by sharing the same long term, audacious objectives and goals, they believe they can make a difference and add value beside money. They devote time to every one of their entrepreneurs to help them plan strategically and manage the challenges of a rapidly growing business; their bespoke involvement varies based on each company’s unique needs. Their approach reflects a proven formula developed by John based on his experience which has been gained from operating, investing, fund-raising and building their own businesses, thus shaping the relationship with the entrepreneurs they wish to back.
‘We are currently working with a network of 300-400 family offices.’
‘We are currently working with a network of 300-400 family offices. SIDEBYSIDE is professionalising the companies they see seeking capital by doing all the vetting, curating and deep Diligence before bringing these companies to the Family Offices network to consider for investment. This naturally takes an enormous amount of time and one of the first concepts that attracted us to ENVESTRY™ was how easy it was to get the platform up and running: to be able to build a personalised, branded, white labelled platform in under a week is an exceptionally attractive prospect. Because ENVESTRY™ covers all FCA requirements, this umbrella has saved us potentially a minimum timeframe of six months’ work if we’d have had to do it ourselves. The support is invaluable: we’ve had a huge amount of financial and technical advice from the ENVESTRY™ team. We’ve got to know them really well and Oliver, in particular, has been a joy to work with. We share the same vision and our goals are aligned; this has been a hugely positive and vital part of the reason behind why we chose to partner with you. Ultimately, we chose ENVESTRY™ because, having thoroughly reviewed the market, we know your system is the most complete’.
Envestry™ is the whitelabel software platform licensed by Envestors® and other organisations to manage and syndicate investments. Envestry™ is wholly owned by Envestors Limited. www.envestry.com @envestry
The ENVESTORS magazine recently caught up with Ben Ashworth, Commercial Analyst with THESIDEBYSIDE PARTNERSHIP, to find out why they have chosen to license and partner with ENVESTRY™, the software platform built – and used – by ENVESTORS.
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SUCCESS STORY
ENVESTORS PORTFOLIO COMPANY POWERLINKS POWERING TO THE FORE
ENVESTORS are delighted to announce that our portfolio company POWERLINKS has received several million pounds of growth capital from FORESIGHT.
About POWERLINKS POWERLINKS is a software platform which automates the buying and selling of personally relevant and user-friendly ‘native advertising’ and are emerging as a leader in their field. They connect advertisers and publishers and ads are bought and sold in real-time, based on precisely defined customer interest profiles which are then augmented by POWERLINKS’ unique ‘Personal Relevance’ data. The advertisements are visually styled to align with the surrounding webpage or app, thereby delivering a nonintrusive, ‘native’ user experience. This provides advertisers with a seamless route to scale with personalised messaging, superior engagement levels and a significantly lower cost of customer acquisition. The capital injection follows a year of success and growth and will accelerate POWERLINKS’ expansion into the US. They plan to add to their sales, client services and technology teams and will partner with global customers to roll out support in dozens of new markets, having recently expanded into Amsterdam and Berlin. As part of FORESIGHT’s investment, the POWERLINKS management team has been further boosted with the appointment of Alex Rahaman as Chairman and Mickey Christodoulides as Finance Director.
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About FORESIGHT Founded in 1997, FORESIGHT VCT plc is a generalist fund aiming to provide investors with attractive returns from a portfolio of investments in fast growing, unquoted UK companies. ‘POWERLINKS is poised to drive exponential growth for our customers, by meeting the challenge of automating relevant, personalised advertising to busy consumers who are overwhelmed with choice. This investment will accelerate our expansion and innovation teams and we are delighted to have Foresight’s backing and shared vision’. Kevin Flood, CEO, POWERLINKS. ‘POWERLINKS represents an opportunity to back a high growth business, operating in an exciting segment of the fast growing AdTech sector, with a strong management team and well invested platform. POWERLINKS has delivered exceptional growth and built fantastic client relationships’. John Cordrey, Investment Manager, FORESIGHT ‘ENVESTORS are delighted at the success and continued growth of POWERLINKS, following on from the previous round of private investment into the company which we facilitated. They are true innovators in a highly competitive sector, and we know that this investment will put them at the forefront on a global scale and will be well received by our own introduced shareholders’. Scott Haughton, COO, ENVESTORS.
ENVESTORS SPOTLIGHT
ENVESTORS SPOTLIGHT: SOPHISTICATED INVESTING WITH A LITTLE EXTRA CHARM
ENVESTORS has been working with angel investors for over 14 years. One trend that is overwhelmingly prevalent is the fact that the vast majority of angels are male. The ENVESTORS workforce is made up mostly by women, so why is it that so many of our investor meetings and events are predominantly attended by the unfairer sex? This investment gap needs to change, and we are delighted to be a part of this movement. The recently published report, “Women Business Angels for Europe’s Entrepreneurs”, highlighted the issues and barriers that women face in angel investing. ENVESTORS, with our strong belief in equal access to opportunities and our years of experience, were delighted to host the inaugural event in the ENVESTORS SPOTLIGHT SERIES. On a beautiful May evening we welcomed 70 intelligent and distinguished women to Grace Belgravia. We were treated to a fascinating and highly enlightening panel discussion, expertly MC’ed by Penny Avis, a member of the ENVESTORS board. It was an extremely interesting evening with superb speakers and I enjoyed meeting your team. All very inspiring! Emma de Courcy. Our speakers were Caroline Carter, Modwenna Rees-Mogg, Deborah Poole and Libby Gibson, all seasoned, successful angel investors and with decades of combined experience. They spoke to us about all aspects of investing from a female perspective – including the advantages and the challenges – and it was unilaterally deemed to be a genuinely empowering evening. We are incredibly grateful to all of them for their time, generosity and support for this important movement. Such was the success of the evening, repeat performances are guaranteed. If you would like to attend future events in the SPOTLIGHT series or join the ENVESTORS private investors network please register at envestors.envestry.com/register.
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ENVESTORS CONQUER CHINA
ENVESTORS IN CHINA
The One Belt, One Roadshow continues to scale the Great Wall of opportunity. Brief Reports, Wise Thoughts: The ENVESTORS team returned to China in April 2018. As in 2017, the objectives remain the same: o introduce leading high growth UK based technology T companies to strategic market development and investment partners in China including: • Corporate ventures • Technology focused investment funds • Ultra-HNWI’s • Tier 1 visa investors (£200k/£2m) • To assist UK technology companies to fully capitalise on the China market opportunity • To enable UK technology companies to understand the key challenges and requirements of doing business successfully in China • Understanding the opportunity and Provincial Government support available (grants, incentives, and ancillary benefits) to UK companies seeking to establish a formal office or operation in China • Understanding the market development opportunity for UK technology companies to set up a formal presence within a leading science and high tech development park in China.
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REPORTS We arrived in Shenzhen for our eighth exploratory trip in 16 months on 14 April with eight of our handpicked portfolio companies: ZAP&GO Ultra-fast charging for cordless and mobile devices using novel nano-carbon technology. ANCON Revolutionising explosives, drugs and chemical weapons detection with the security, border control and defence industries. Also providing new ways to monitor pollution in the air. BROMPTON BIKE HIRE Portable, foldable, top of the range bikes for hire. GOINSTORE Pioneering first-person shopping experience platform for online customers. SOLARIS High tech company commercialising upon advanced power generation technologies. ALPHACO Proven technology capable of converting a range of waste streams into oil. AERISTECH Hi-tech engineering, with breakthrough patented electric motor technology. THE THIRD BLADETEC BITCOIN MINE LTD A large scale mine comprising of hundreds of specialist mining computers, competing to win Bitcoins
ENVESTORS CONQUER CHINA
We travelled as guests of the International Technology Transfer Network (ITTN). This group organises conferences and their clients are the municipalities: the governors of China’s provinces and autonomous regions and centrally controlled boroughs who are appointed by the central government in Beijing. China takes the Provincial competitiveness very seriously; they see it as strategically and imperatively important to achieve and sustain its economic leadership in the global economy. Each of these regions has a mandate to promote itself, whether through industry or tourism: all of this adds up to the simple fact that the local council is a very important body indeed. The conference was organised by ITTN in partnership with the Shenzhen Provincial Government, and featured an audience comprising of leading VCs, major corporate ventures, investors, the aforementioned provincial government representatives and science/technology market landing support providers. Shenzhen is the ultimate template in capitalism: 20 years ago it was just a fishing village; now it’s a Tier 1 City with over 18 million residents and strategically placed for trade importance just 10 miles from Hong Kong. We stayed in Longhua, a new district situated to the north of Shenzhen City.
We were hugely fortunate to be granted a tour of the Tencent Holdings offices, which are located in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen. Started in 1996 by two partners as an electronic messaging service, they are now the world’s largest investment corporation and Asia’s most valuable company – and the 5th biggest in the world - with a market value of $580 billion. They are responsible for the creation of Wechat, a multipurpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app – think Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, The Game Centre and Apple Wallet all in one place - that has an astonishing 1 billion regular users. Its 44,000 employees have an average age of 26 and their headquarters are made up of two towers, connected by bridges to encourage staff to meet. This was an utterly fascinating tour and ENVESTORS was honoured, as a result of our reputation and partnerships in China, to be chosen to visit such a place.
‘We had some very, very good meetings in Shenzhen with Hong Kong investors. An invaluable trip’. Duncan Kerr, AERISTECH.’ On Friday the 20th of April, we then travelled to Shanghai. Through our highly prestigious alliance with The China-British Business Council (CBBC), we hosted a number of dedicated meetings with serious investors. CBBC is an organisation that co-operates closely with the Chinese government to assist UK businesses expand into China and we were invited to showcase our portfolio companies to a group of investment funds, corporate ventures and private investors. Our companies were extremely well received with ANCON, in particular, securing a game-changing investment intent.
AERISTECH had some very productive meetings here and are already in advanced talks with a view to creating a Chinese company. SOLARIS already a strong presence in China having accompanied us on previous Roadshows – and ZAP&GO had a great deal of investment interest; at the time of writing and as a direct result of introductions and contacts made through ENVESTORS, SOLARIS are on their second trip there since the Roadshow alone and are in highly advanced negotiations. We will update you on their progress in a future edition of this magazine. ‘We had been trying to contact a supplier, but it was impossible to get an answer as they receive 4,500 enquiries a week. Through Scott’s connections in China, we were given an introduction which resulted in the most wonderful meeting. This was a total coup’. John Kingdon, BLADETEC.
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ENVESTORS CONQUER CHINA
ENVESTORS IN CHINA
Chinese wisdom, the ENVESTORS way: With every Roadshow, ENVESTORS further adds to the crucial layers of knowledge and understanding that are essential for any British company wanting to expand into China.
不当家，不知柴米贵 4. The eldest is the wisest Many foreign businesses will appoint a local, Chinese representative when showcasing in China. With a cultural understanding and no language barrier this sounds like the perfect solution but in actual fact, potential investors would far rather meet and listen to a Western face. If you have letters after your name, promote your education to the max; China places enormous value on qualifications and often the first question they will ask you is just how educated you are.
With apologies to Confucius, a small selection of our learnings:
我們將一起努力 1. Collaboration is the answer In a bid to halt the mass exodus of talent and funds which invariably end up in foreign property, the government – quite understandably – try to make it as difficult as possible. Shenzhen’s geographical location is ideal due to its proximity with the far more ‘accessible’ state of Hong Kong. Ultimately, China naturally wants to advance Chinese interests, and the best way for a tech business to establish a presence there is to work with them in parallel. With our partnerships in Shenzhen and Shanghai, ENVESTORS is well placed to guide our companies through this process.
来日方长
2. All good things come to those who wait Many frogs have to be metaphorically kissed before finding the elusive prince, but we are now able to identify just who is important to our companies and who is not: this vital information can only be garnered by time and experience, and ENVESTORS are confident that we are now pioneers in this field.
鱼与熊掌不可兼得 3. You cannot have your cake and eat it too We have learnt that there is no such thing as a free lunch when seeking investment in China: a subsidised trip laid on by the local province may sound enticing on paper, but it can also mean sitting through hours of speeches specifically given to promote a particular area, which, in reality, is a publicity vehicle for a particular local government or council. ENVESTORS will run the future Roadshows with our portfolio companies’ collective agenda very much the priority.
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如果我看到你工作，我會學習 5.習If I see you work, I will understand China is a fantastic place to visit on a business trip, less so as a holiday destination. Our partnerships are so advanced that we are seeing the real way people and companies think and this has been a hugely beneficial learning trip for our portfolio companies. Our visit to Tencent was only made possible by the strength of the relationships that we have made and one of the most riveting highlights of the trip.
尊重政府 6. Respect the government It’s all about government in China. Appreciating the importance of the local politicians and councils are crucial in the road to expansion: this is not necessarily a negative concept, as there are many ancillary benefits available, such as grants, incentives and rent subsidies as each council battles the others to attract foreign interest and therefore, wealth. With the support of local government, things happen. ENVESTORS has that support.
强龙难压地头蛇 7. Local knowledge, big advantage The Chinese investor wants to advance Chinese interests and our companies very much learnt this ‘on the ground’. 98% of all solar panels are manufactured in China and so SOLARIS are perfectly suited to the Chinese market. BLADETEC have started discussions about the possibility of setting up a Bitcoin mine in China and AERISTECH, having produced a turbocharger for petrol engines that provides an unprecedented opportunity for improving the aerodynamic and combustion efficiency and transient response of any fossil fuelled engine, are the perfect business for a country that is so desperately polluted and in need of a ‘green’ alternative.
ENVESTORS CONQUER CHINA
有競爭力 8. Be competitive Most of the entrepreneurs are looking for funds. We do not recommend seeking investment before registering a Chinese company, patent, trademark, etc, and above all before having some market traction. Investors are not keen to process outbound investment and would not invest before showing the real potential and strategy plan. The Chinese start-up scene is very vibrant, so foreign companies have to show their great competitive potential in order to get attention from Chinese investors. Entering China is not a one-day long process, it requires full commitment and flexibility.
And finally, THE most important bit of advice of all:
計劃到達後 9. Plans come after arrival. Don’t think about China until you are in China. The best laid plans will all fall apart Our pioneering One Belt, One Roadshow is the essential partner to guide you through the bureaucracy, the cultural differences and the quirks and foibles of Chinese business practices. We will get you the crown jewels.
The Great Wall of Opportunity in China? Scaled.
Scott Haughton
STOP THE PRESS
ENVESTORS will be hosting a London event for any companies that are interested in expansion into China in Summer 2018. This will be followed by two further One Belt, One Roadshows in September and November 2018. For more information, please contact: Scott Haughton COO, ENVESTORS scott@envestors.co.uk 020 7240 0202.
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, e l p o e p 3 5 4 y o l p m Ie t n a w t s u b ut I j o t e n o e m so tal k to. People turn to you for leadership. But who can you turn to, to help manage and grow your business? Our specialist entrepreneurs group works with founders and management teams from vision to exit. We understand the complexities you face, including raising finance, understanding evolving tax regulations, global expansion and exit strategies. Running a business is a journey. And we’ll be with you all the way. To find out more, please contact Guy Rigby on 020 7131 8213 guy.rigby@smithandwilliamson.com smithandwilliamson.com
Mary Green &
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