Virtually every process includes some level of human work coupled with some form of technology enablement. We offer for start-up solutions that weave together office space, legal, finance, IT and HR infrastructure as scalable and flexible services that are aligned with your business outputs or results. Smartly integrating technology is key to unlocking improved levels of value. Our underlying infrastructure includes the centralized computing and communications capability for all aspects of process delivery and management which helps you to quickly organise your back-office already in the early days of your start-up.
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We enter silent partnerships with high net worth individuals, family offices and institutional investors wishing to invest into start-ups as part of their asset allocation strategy but without having the necessary experience and time to select and manage the start-up investment.
These silent partnerships are set up for utmost confidentiality based on a gain share agreement that will allow accessing innovative concepts at an early stage, scaling investment over time while having a professional co-investor on your side who manages the investment. Apart from the initial set up fee, there are no annual management fees.
Invest together
We enter silent partnerships with high net worth individuals, family offices and institutional investors wishing to invest into start-ups as part of their asset allocation strategy but without having the necessary experience and time to select and manage the start-up investment.
These silent partnerships are set up for utmost confidentiality based on a gain share agreement that will allow to scale investment over time and to access innovative concepts at an early stage while having a professional co-investor managing the investment. Apart from the initial set up fee, there are no annual management fees charged.
Invest together
The true value of a start-up cannot be measured by a simple spreadsheet valuation nor by filling in an online form. We build confident intervals that provide a clear line of argument from pitch event to contract negotiation.
We validate business models with combination of proven tools such as sum of the parts, cost of capital benchmarking, free cash flows and multi-dimensional risk assessment to provide investors with a valuation that will allow them to have a qualified discussion with their investment committee, commercial banks and external advisors. Pipe up
Our experience has given us a unique ability to understand a company’s current and projected performance. We offer buy- and sell-side investors a comprehensive review of business plans in the context of the strategy and growth plan of the company. Our scenario planning provides key insight in the sensitivity of the forecast and the materiality of risks involved. As part of our work, we look at sales and customer engagement strategies, projected market conditions, the industry and competition in a model-based approach to calibrate future revenue and margin expectations for the final investment proposal.
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We help family offices and investors to maintain important know-how and talent in the target company. During our due diligence work, we carry out a thorough profiling of each team member highlighting strengths and weaknesses.
This ties into the assessment of pension obligations and contractual commitments that could have a significant impact on valuation. Our strategies to safeguard employee knowledge and to retain talent at all levels in the organisation, are developed together with our clients alongside an assessement of key metrics such as absenteeism, occupational safety, and remuneration policies.
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Together with experts from leading universities, we assess the technological platform of your product or service, its ability to scale and the cycle time that is needed to develop the next generation of the product or service.
If you believe that your concept is unique, we like to understand why nobody else on this planet has come up with the technology, yet. We look into infrastructure set-ups, project management and cybersecurity measures as they are all crucial for the robustness of the business model and the valuation of the business.
Make contactBecoming a founder is a big step and involves a lot of risk taking at the beginning. We believe that most start-ups are launched by aspiring entrepreneurs who have had limited or negative previous experience to a mature corporate environment. Your success depends on appropriate planning, proper assessment of markets, imaginative marketing as well as good corporate governance. This is why we want to build with you an eco-system environment that provides business support and teaches you of how to systematically reduce process cost.
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Only when you have learned how to sell and deliver services in a cost-efficient way, you can address properly the customers’ problems and processes. We focus our founders on the front-office where the business idea is developed, a highly divergent and complex environment which requires full attention of the founders. The back-office is a non-market activity which is simple and with few transaction but it requires a lot of attention and experience to make your business investable. We help you to design and to set up such back-office to keep you focused on the essential, product growth.
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Courtship describes for us the phase during which you search for team members, partners and investors you want to build a relationship with. It is all about testing values and opinions thus engaging with different people in a casual way before committing to build a nest. Developing trust can be a lengthy process which we will guide you through until you are ready to make a commitment. Building trust at this stage plays a major part in your ability to sustain partnership over time. It sends a strong signal for future bearings and reinforces a mutually satisfactory cost–benefit trade-off.
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When you feel the urge to get your structures ready for your business idea, we help you to form long-lasting relationships with your suppliers and gathering the best team around you. This stage involves making physical preparations such as the legal structure and definition of processes based on your needs and our experience.
The team members become now more selective about the company they keep and prefer sticking close to the nesting ground as part of an intensive bonding exercise. We will actively disencourage you from pivoting your idea at this stage. That is why we call it our lock-up period.
Nest nowTogether with other likeminded investors, we want to build a robust network of small companies that cooperate with large enterprises as well as academic and research institutions. The strength of the equity linkage which is solely decided upon by the founders, will be reinforced by joint back-office projects and collaboration in marketing and sales to protect the eco-system against the risk of failure. Our investors fulfil important stewardship and monitoring roles, are actively engaging while leaving a lot of breathing space to the founders.
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Many product innovations fail because they have been developed without thoroughly checking the size of the potential market before it is launched on the market. With their research approach and experience, Research for Future help our start-ups to solve pain points of potential buyers and to test the most promising ideas, product concepts, scenarios or prototypes. With more than 1,300 market research projects, they know the entire spectrum of methods such as in-depth interviews and online surveys.
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OION aims to provide investors with the widest possible range of investment opportunities, both in terms of stage of development and capital requirements. It is the largest angel network for Oxford and beyond considering start-ups with a strong vision for growth and seeking investment from £200k to £2m. The Network has strong links with providers of new deal flow including universities, research institutes, large companies and individual entrepreneurs undertaking development of innovative ideas.
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OX1 is Oxford's first start-up incubator programme designed by student entrepreneurs, for student entrepreneurs, which does not take equity or IP. It fulfils all our ideas about long-term value creation and building an active network of start-ups with a common university background. Similar to Standford University and CalTech, OX1 allows the University of Oxford to play an equally important role in the UK. We assist during the idea phase, take a close look at the team composition and truly enjoy Demo Day.
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You have worked for weeks on your pitch deck and the date is approaching rapidly on which you want to make an impression to investors, sponsors, customers or an award jury while aneager audience is watching your performance. Before you go live, we offer you an intensive training and rehearsal using some cool models to stretch you to the limit. Structured feedback, key messages review and interaction with the audience and your co-presenters make this workshop a must-do before you go out and pitch.
Recommend size: 2-3 people
Course duration: half day
Pricing starts at: € 1,500
Founded as a non-profit student think tank to solve AI challenges in machine learning, mathematics, image processing, engineering and deep learning, the OxAI group has evolved as a driver of innovation that reaches beyond the boundaries of our world today. Members have to go through a strict selection process to promote forward thinking capability, analytical skills as well as building diversity in gender and area of interest. We like their forefront thinking and access to state-of-the-art technology and code.
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You are looking for the best possible route-to-market approach to reach potential customers with your product or service? You want to hit the next threshold with investors and need to shine with your marketing and sales strategies? We provide customised support at all stages of your go-to-market process. Start with booking our Initial Exploration Workshop where you define and document alternative routes forward that deliver initial impulses and next steps.
Recommend size: 3-5 people
Course duration: one day
Pricing starts at: € 2,900
Align your team and grow your brand. Ideal for founders and CEOs who want to align their core team on the values and cultural heritage of their business. Our approach is based Johnson's cultural web which will allow your team exploring stories, symbols, power distribution, organisational structure, control systems as well as rituals and routines in your organisation. Agree on cultural cornerstones and a common agenda for going forward.
Recommend size: 8-10 people
Course duration: 2x half days
Pricing starts at: € 3,800
Seedcamp invests early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. They share with us the vision that funding at the earliest stage of a project is the greatest asset an investor can bring to your project.
This diverse team of founders, makers, operators, executors, investors and tech-enthusiasts finds the best product market fit, builds sales and marketing capabilities and has a access to a powerful community of incredible people across the world. We value Seedcamp for their engagement in Labstep and their ability to local mobilise experts.
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Pier 11 stands for more than legal excellence as they are our chosen law firm for entrepreneurs. We believe that they act as entrepreneurs in the way they advise and calculate their fees in a fair and transparent way.
Probably the first business law firm that we have met, which proactively offers an alternative to the hourly-rate billing model. We enjoy working with them for their high quality advice and clear set of common values.
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From theatre to virtual reality headsets, small businesses to international corporations, crowdfunding has helped entrepreneurs and project leaders across the world to raise money, build their customer bases and prove that there is a market for their product. Former CEO of E*Trade and serial entrepreneur Julian Costley shares key tips to make your campaign a roaring success, and gives you the guidance and advice you need, taking you step by step all the way from planning your crowdfunding campaign to getting the money in the bank.
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