Staying local: South East Angels’ Founder Kristina Pereckaite is on a mission to help Brighton realise its potential

Investing in the regions is a hot topic in our ecosystem and it has been under an even more intense spotlight thanks to the on-going pandemic. Brighton-based Kristina Pereckaite founded South East Angels in August 2020, to galvanise and stimulate investment in the region proving that investors and founders didn’t have to go to London, and could find what they needed on their doorstep. We sat down with Kristina to talk about setting up South East Angels, discuss how UKBAA helped her during the early stages and to find out her goals for 2021.

South East Angels officially started operating in November and was founded by Kristina, who had previously managed the NatWest Accelerator in Brighton. South East Angels was formed to address the lack of investment activity happening in the city. Kristina explains:

“When I looked at the stats, there was £16 million invested in businesses in Brighton over a one-year period, which is strange. I kept looking into this to understand why it was an issue. Brighton is quite a new startup ecosystem, it’s only really developed in the last decade, and because London is so close, if people were raising investment, they would just leave and go to London, and if investors were looking to invest in startups, they would just go to London. The challenge is, London is already super competitive, so Brighton startups have less of a chance.”

When Kristina formed the company, she turned to UKBAA for help and support before deciding to become a member. Discussing her initial conversations with Managing Director Roderick Beer, Kristina shares:

“UKBAA has been so valuable to me, especially in the early days. Whilst I was experienced in startup investment, I hasn’t worked for an Angel Group before, let alone run one so it was a whole new world for me. I got to meet with Rod before I joined and just that one phone call I had with him was so helpful, because he knows so much about the angel investment landscape in the UK. I instantly knew I needed to be part of UKBAA after that conversation.”

Following those conversations and after becoming a member, Kristina feels that being part of UKBAA has really helped whilst setting up and establishing South East Angels. She comments:

“Joining UKBAA gave me the credibility and the backing for when I approached new investors and companies and I get some great leads coming through UKBAA too. Most importantly, just staying in the know of everything that’s happening in the world of angel investing, through the events and news pieces that come through really helps you to stay connected with important news and to not miss any opportunities.”

“Joining UKBAA gave me the credibility and the backing for when I approached new investors and companies and I get some great leads coming through UKBAA too.”

During the process of recruiting initial members for South East Angels, Kristina had hundreds of conversations with local investors. From those conversations, she identified five founding members to get the ball rolling.

“Our members are all very entrepreneurial themselves, either having had exited their own startup or having already invested in a lot of startups. I set a high criterion for our members to make sure that this community stays really high value for everybody. They’re all from various industries and bring different perspectives which results in much more interesting and high value conversations.”

Forming during the pandemic made it easier for Kristina to get meetings with founders and investors. As the majority of people were in and out of lockdown, Kristina found that people she reached out to responded positively and were willing to have conversations. She believes the pandemic has refocused people on the importance of investing in the regions.

At this point in South East Angels’ journey, Kristina is keen to point out that the group isn’t singling out any one sector when it comes to looking for opportunities. She does state, however, that social impact companies are becoming more sought after as investors become more aware of the wider impact that they can generate by investing in businesses with a purpose beyond profit.

“Brighton has always been a place very focused on sustainability and could be seen as being progressive within the social impact space. I think this space has previously been seen by investors as a nice thing to put money into, and not really a great return opportunity. Today, with the combination of technology, and the desperate need for solutions that are doing good in the world, investors are realising that it’s actually quite a lucrative investment. Another area Kristina is particularly interested in is Deep Tech, especially if the company qualifies for knowledge intensive status.

Whilst South East Angels is a Brighton based investor group, they have also made investments into London and Bristol companies since launch, totaling four closed deals to date. Speaking about their first investment, Kristina enthuses:

“The first investment made by the group was in social care tech platform, AutonoMe. The social care sector is ripe for innovation, and we were really impressed with the simple yet highly effective solution that AutonoMe provides. Our group invested £135k in their seed round and we’re thrilled to be supporting William on his mission to improve the lives of vulnerable people.”

Looking forward to the rest of 2021, Kristina would like to grow South East Angels from eight to 20 members. As more exciting opportunities come through, Kristina wants to ensure that the Angel Group has enough investors to cater for them. And as lockdown rules ease, Kristina is looking forward to finally hosting in-person dinner and pitch events for their members and generating more investment activity in Brighton.

Find out more about South East Angels at https://www.southeastangels.co.uk.