Manchester Angels Newsletter - September 2024

Kids are back to school and we're back investing

Author

David Levine
September 03, 2024

Manchester Angels Newsletter - September 2024

Hello there!

Welcome back to your desks if you’re just joining us! Summer has been as exciting as being stuck in an Oasis-ticket queue on TicketMaster just wetter, cold and less summery!

Table of Contents

Save the date: Next Dinner 🍲 

Since it’s September, it must be almost time for our next Manchester Angels dinner.

This time we’re at the absolutely spectacular MAYA in Manchester with private bar and dining area all to ourselves.

We’re in the midst of finalising the startups due to present and we’re thrilled to be joined by Raj Mahapatra (who some of you will remember from our last dinner) and Dan Glazer from Wilson Sonsini who are sponsoring.

Dan leads Wilson’s London office, which provides US access and support to technology-driven UK & European companies through their US life cycle – US launch, expansion, fundraising, partnerships, M&A and IPO. Wilson Sonsini is the original Silicon Valley law firm whose client list reads like a who’s who of tech companies.

We’re also hoping to be joined by Eleanor Harry, CEO of our investee company HACE to update us on her progress as well as her experience of working with us.

P.S. If you register and cannot attend, please do let me know as we not only incur costs if you don’t turn up but with limited places it prevents other angels who can!

Looking for Support - Marketing Lead

Are you interested in helping increase the profile of Manchester Angels to increase volume and quality of deal flow as well as recruit additional great angels?

We’re looking for someone within the network to get more involved in setting and driving the marketing strategy to include social media and event planning.

Please let myself or Richard Fallon know if you’re interested.

2024 Investments - the story so far

Deals under discussion

  • ConveyD - Al-driven online conveyancers i.e legal process for buying or selling properties, disrupting a legacy industry with 3x the speed of traditional services. The married founding team of Manasi and Ste presented at our last dinner and have secured some soft commitments from angels Mike Jeffries and Richard Hamnett with Simon Thorpe championing. Now looking to close down any remaining interest. Full details here and video here. WhatsApp group here.

  • Manhole Metrics - Developing Sensors and software to prevent flooding for infrastructure clients. Raising £1m at £4.6m pre. Deck here. Deal champion Suzanne Oliver has spent some time with the business. “very, very impressed with them. I have firsthand* experience in their domain and with regards to every question I asked, Will and the team had either already thought about the topic, had either already solved the problem, or it was in their plan to.“ WhatsApp group here.

Deals done

  • Cytix - Jeremy Gidlow has invested alongside Praetura Ventures into Cytix; a CyberSec business that combines human and automated penetration testing.

  • Atelerix - Jane Theaker and Joely Jones invested in Atelerix to solve the problem of storage and transportation of biological samples at ambient temperatures using hydrogel encapsulation. Thanks to our friends at Cambridge Angels for sharing with us.

  • Firenze - Seb Jackson has invested into Firenze which democratises access to Lombard loans alongside leading fintech angels & A16Z, Lakestar, Atomico & Ada.

  • MonumentTX - Our new HealthTech angels Mark Dearden and Jane Theaker have been joined by Mike Jeffies in a £45k ticket into Monument Therapeutics (via Cambridge Angels).

  • Secure Choice- Suzanne Oliver has invested into Neuro-Diversity recruitment and passport platform ND Axon.

  • GigPig - Chris Tottman, Richard Flint, Chris Meehan, Fraser Durris, Richard Flint, Richard Hamnett, Chris Cheney and myself have invested a total of £110k into music marketplace and gig booking business GigPig.

All deals can be viewed here. Note you can switch filter from from To be Reviewed (by deal team), In review, Rejected, Invested and No Conviction.

Deal champions

Having a deal champion is critical to getting a deal funded. We look to identify angels within the network who have a particular interest in a sector or opportunity and want to spend some time getting underneath the bonnet of a business with a view to potentially investing themselves and presenting the business to their fellow angels.

If you have time and want to get under the hood of some really interesting businesses, please do let me know!

Current list of deals we’re talking about, thinking about and/or lining up to present either face-to-face or on a virtual call are here.

Membership - in with the new and out with the few!

We’ve welcomed a number of new angels over the past few months (to a total of 47). Particularly thrilled to welcome angels who have joined very recently and hope will join us on September 19th:

Membership renewals - price increase

We’ve managed to keep our membership price the same from inception - until now. Due to increasing costs of pretty much everything out there - prices will increase from your next renewal to £850.

Portfolio

Manchester Angels have participated in the following deals

  • Molymem - newclass of functional and sustainable membranes that help address global water and wastewater challenges.

  • Twine - expert freelance hiring platform.

  • HACE - child labour index.

  • Keaze - shared ownership proptech platform.

  • Together - circular economy ecommerce platfrom where clothes designs are manufactured to order with a P2P swapping marketplace.

  • MatZero - Solar powered heating mat for displaced persons.

  • GigPig - Music marketplace and gig booking platform.

  • Firenze - Democratised access to Lombard loans.

  • MonumentTX - Therapeutics platform.

  • Secure Choice/ND Axon- Neuro-Diversity recruitment and passport platform.

  • Atelerix - solving the problem of storage and transportation of biological samples at ambient temperatures using hydrogel encapsulation

  • Cytix - CyberSec business that combines human and automated penetration testing

We have a number of links worth bookmarking or referring to from this email including:

🌐 Website

💰 Deal flow

🖇️ LinkedIn Group

If you or one of your portfolio businesses are planning a tech event please check out www.manchestertechevents.com.