Читать книгу How To Become A Business Angel - Richard Hargreaves - Страница 89

The government-backed £50m Business Angel Co Investment Fund (the Angel CoFund) was launched in November 2011. Its aim is to boost the quality and quantity of business angel investing in England by investing alongside business angel syndicates. It provides a very promising source of help for putting angel-based financing packages together because its money can facilitate investment by syndicates.

Whilst this fund is not a source of deal flow, I have included it in this chapter because of its close link to angel networks and syndicates. You may come across it when you join a syndicate of investors and you may approach it if you are putting your own angel syndicate together.

The principal features of the CoFund are:

 It can make initial equity or quasi-equity investments of between £100K and £1m in SMEs alongside syndicates of business angels.

  Companies must not be in the 25% most wealthy wards, which can be checked with a postcode check on the CoFund’s website (www.angelcofund.co.uk/looking-for-investment/post-code-look-up.htm). This test is not as demanding as it sounds as there are three factors taken into account (Employment, Income and Education) and the address must only not fail on all three tests. For example, my own office near Harley Street passes the test.

  There is an upper limit of investment of 49% of any investment round.

  The size of the investment proposed needs to be significant enough to properly fund the business and to allow for the cost of proper due diligence and legal advice.

  The investment needs to be a new investment for the syndicate, rather than supporting an existing investment, which will help to ensure that the syndicate and the CoFund’s objectives are broadly aligned.

  The CoFund will, to the extent possible, follow the terms of the syndicate including the structure and price of any investment.

  Once invested the CoFund will be able to make follow-on investments alongside syndicates in companies that are already within its portfolio.

You can see full details on the CoFund’s website (www.angelcofund.co.uk).

At the time of writing I have completed three deals with the CoFund and have two others in process so I do have detailed knowledge of how the fund works. Its management team is professional, personable and pragmatic. Importantly, in the deals I have handled, their investment has fitted in well with the investment structures which were already in place.

I am encouraged by my experiences with the CoFund. I have had lots of dealings with public sector supported funds and this is one of only two that has been a straightforward experience – and the other is also an angels matching fund.