LBA reports 80 investments made since 2009
Of the 4000+ funding inquiries received by London Business Angels (LBA) since 2009, 200 technology companies have presented at LBA investor events and84 companies have received funding from LBA members (in aggregate excess of £10m). 14 of these investments were made alongside the UK Government’s Angel CoFund which launched in 2012 and has co invested circa £5m in these dealsto date. 16 companies that sourced funding through LBA in the last five years have grown fast enough and large enough to raise further rounds of capitaltotaling more than £70m. According to the May 2009 study by UKBAA/Nesta, nearly 60% of all angel funded start-ups fail. Start-ups funded by LBA in the last five years however, have just a 14.6% failure rate to date.
Several trends underscore company profiles of LBA sourced investments in the last five years:
oLBA has helped finance a vast variety of deal sizes
o The largest sourced deal size was £2,500,000
o The smallest sourced deal size was £150,000
o LBA has helped finance a vast variety of industry sectors
o 34%of companies funded were internet/software technology
o 32%of companies funded were medical technology
o 21%of companies funded were hardware technology
o 9%of companies funded were clean technology
o 4%of companies funded were retail technology
o Roughly 30% are business to consumer products and 70% are business to business
o20%of companies were pre-revenue generation at the time of the investment
o 85%of companies have received publicity from recognizable news outlets within the last year
o 82%of funded companies have intellectual property of some kind: of which 36% were patent pending technology or already had a patent at the time of investment
o Average undiluted premoney ownership of management is 56%
o The average age for a non medical technology CEO is 43 years old, however medical technology CEO’s tend to be older
o LBA members invest in companies from all over the UK
o LBA funded 6 deals from Scotland and Wales
o London remains a central focus for doing business with nearly 55% of the deals being sourced from London
o LBA has helped finance companies in a wide range of business maturity
o The younger companies that are financed through LBA are less than a year old at the time of investment
o The oldest company that was financed through LBA was 13 years matured at the time of investment
o There have been three known exits in the past three years: Phonetic Arts (3x), Sirigen (3x), and Brandwatch (partial 13x). The holding period to exit seems to be extending past five years.
Recent HMRC SEIS /EIS data confirms, private investment into SMEs is circa £1.2b per annum. LBA’s investment group has now established itself as one of the most active and successful angel investment networks in Europe.
