Venture backers offer more than cash

Startup firms should seek business advice as well as funding

UK technology entrepreneurs often fail to get good business advice early enough, according to one of the UK’s leading venture capital companies.

“Startups don’t often fail because of problems with technology,” said Martin McNair, general partner at London-based Advent Venture Partners. “The issue for management is often about how to build a team.”

McNair explained that as well as supplying cash to grow small businesses, some venture capital (VC) firms can provide a broader range of assistance, even very early in a company’s lifecycle. “European VCs are now putting in a lot more effort and have built up a greater pool of resources to help create businesses,” he said. “We’re not just taking carefully placed bets in early-stage businesses and watching which way they go, we’re actually helping.” He added that such help can extend from formulating basic strategies, to assistance in marketing, partnering and “globalising the business”.

McNair said that US venture firms have assumed this kind of mentoring role for decades, but that not all European funding providers have caught up.

One UK startup that has adopted this route to market is Ubiquisys, which is developing a device to allow any 3G or GSM cellphone to connect and make calls over domestic broadband connections. Advent got involved when Ubiquisys was “just three guys with a prototype”, according to McNair. This was much earlier than most similar startups might seek external funds. “They said, we need some money to get going. The typical VC response is, I’m sorry we can only invest five to ten million. So how do they get going? It’s chicken and egg. So we, together with another investor, Atlas Ventures, put in a small amount of money to get them up and running and then actively helped them shape the business plan, hire a CEO, and look at bringing in a third investor. We spent a lot of time with them, with customers and channel partners, to help construct and shape a business.”

This effort culminated in Ubiquisys securing $12m earlier this month from three VC firms to fund the next stage of its development.

This nurturing approach is a long way from the image of investors portrayed by the television programme Dragons’ Den, where inventors attempt to convince financiers to back their innovations based on a brief demonstration. “[The show] confuses great ideas with businesses, and that’s dangerous,” McNair said.