Crowd funding alternative: Start-ups and entrepreneurs continue to raise business funding through Venture Giant. £1.6m worth of deals already funded through online investment matching platform

LONDON, January 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a recent poll conducted by Venture Giant, an online matching service that connects vetted business investors with entrepreneurs and start-ups revealed that over 72% of its network of millionaires, angel investors and even investors from the Sunday Times Richlist believed that in spite of the economic climate in the UK there was still significant 'potential for profit' in investing in UK Start-ups over traditional investments such as stocks and property.

Business angel investors are private high net worth individuals that have chosen to invest their own money and experience directly into Business Start-ups and established businesses with the aim of profiting from a potential exit via a trade sale of the business. According to Barclays Wealth there are 619,000 millionaires currently residing in the UK and approximately only 5% of these millionaires would class themselves as Business Angel Investors. Locating these individuals as a source of business funding has become increasingly difficult especially with the current tightening of the credit markets for SMEs.

Enter Venture Giant into the fold. Since 2008, Venture Giant has received over 25,000 small business registrations and seen an increase of over 67% of investment proposals submitted to them in 2012.

Entrepreneurs have already raised over £1.6m of angel capital commission free from the online matching platform for their start-up ventures. Success stories on Venture Giant have included the former Commercial director of VisitLondon raising funding for his major tech startup project, London.com, and more recently an entrepreneur raising £500,000 to assist him in providing him with the working capital required to resurface ALL London Underground Tube stations on the Piccadilly Line for a reported six figure contract amount.
 

For entrepreneurs that have not been investment-ready, the portal has connected them to successful angel investors that have provided them with vital advice on where their business needs to be positioned to attract investment and profitability and this advise has been provided without charge.

Venture Giant is not the first online entrepreneur-investor matching platform to be launched in the UK but is one of the first to refuse to charge a commission on any investment deals that are funded on their network in the hopes that other crowd funding sites will follow suit. Entrepreneurs are clearly responding to this, and the network has featured over 1500 investment deals and has received over 2500 angel investor requests to use its service.

Since last summer, angel activity has picked up amongst angel investors as more and more investors are actively looking to diversify their investment portfolios and small businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to raise finance should consider business angel investment as a viable source of funding. Angel investment is an age old alternative source of financing and entrepreneurs have quickly realised that having an experienced business angel investor onboard with a large investment and 'skin in the game' can make all of the difference towards a new start-ups long term growth prospects and saleability. Crowd funding, as new as it is, will never be able to provide the same level of expertise and mentorship that an entrepreneur can receive day to day from an accomplished business partner that has the ability to leverage his experience.

As Rishi Anand, Managing Director of Venture Giant commented, 'Investment capital is just about everything for an entrepreneur but an investor's experience, contacts and mentoring can make all the difference to a start-ups success of failure.'

Some established networks include the British Business Angel Association, Venture Giant and the private investors' unit of Vestra Wealth, which all exist to share knowledge and filter pitches from entrepreneurs.

A full list of Venture Giant's registered Angel investors are available to view and Startup investment proposals from start‐up businesses are available to be viewed from the link above.

http://www.venturegiant.com - 'Bringing Entrepreneurs & Investors, together'