The Innovation Pitch - Raising Money For Emerging Technologies

Monday, 13 September 2010, 1.00 - 5.00 pm

Are you an innovator thinking about raising money for a pioneering technology, product or service?

How do you pitch your groundbreaking, potentially disruptive, business or business idea effectively to investors and who are the right investors for you? Are you investment-ready? How has the current economic climate affected investors’ willingness to put money behind innovation?

This highly interactive workshop will focus on how to present an early stage technology business or business idea to potential investors. Our guest speaker will be Dr Lamia Baker, investment manager with the Rainbow Seed Fund, an early stage VC with a track record in investing in emerging technologies, who will spell out the criteria investors are looking for when financing high-risk innovative businesses.

Participants will learn about the content of investor presentations as well as how to deliver effective pitches for innovative products and services.

The following topics will be covered:

• What are early stage investors looking for?
• Criteria for investing in early stage technology businesses
• Investment case studies
• The perfect elevator pitch
• Pitching formats
• Content of an investor presentation
• Individual presentation skills & delivery
• Creating rapport & trust with investors
• Live pitches & feedback

In the interactive part of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to perform and observe investor pitches hands-on. The result will be a highly realistic simulation of what it looks, sounds and feels like to pitch to investors.

About the coach

Irene Bejenke-Walsh, founder and MD of MessageLab, has been coaching entrepreneurs and management teams for investor presentations and pitches for more than a decade. Her clients include the UK’s largest Business Angel network, London Business Angels, where she has coached more than 300 entrepreneurs pitching to the network in a real life “Dragon’s Den”, contributing to an increase in investment rates of over 30%. She also coaches early-stage companies entering the London Technology Fund competition as well as many small and large businesses seeking investment. At the other end of the investment spectrum, Irene advises international corporations preparing to list on the London Stock Exchange or AIM on their IPO presentations and therefore covers all stages of the funding cycle. Irene has become a sought-after expert in this area and with her background in financial journalism (The Wall Street Journal, CNBC) and corporate PR, she brings fresh angles to the investment arena.

Guest speaker: Dr Lamia Baker,Rainbow Seed Fund

Rainbow was launched in May 2002 and comprises a partnership of public research laboratories with funding of £10 million provided by the Office of Science & Technology. The Rainbow Seed Fund provides investment to support the early stages of business formation out of research in the public sector science base. The partnership includes the Central Laboratory of the Research Council, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Natural Environment Research Council, Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. From this wide base of research Rainbow will make individual investments of between £10,000 and £500,000 in promising spin-out companies.

Lamia is an Investment Manager on the Rainbow Seed Fund following ten years working in technology start-up companies. She was responsible for developing and bringing to production optical devices and systems for telecoms applications in three companies in the US that were subsequently acquired by major telecoms firms. Lamia has a degree in physics and MSc in Optics and is studying for a PhD i telecommunications from University College London.