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Octopus and seed funding

Alex Macpherson - 18 October 2010

Last week, The Daily Telegraph reported Octopus' seed investment into Touchtype. The company is the developer of Swiftkey, innovative software applied to predictive text applications for devices like mobile phones. The funding marked our new move into seed investment and our desire to make further investments of this kind. You can read the full story here: http://bit.ly/bnAJvnwith more detail from us below.

Seed funding refers to making small investments into very young companies. These companies are often at the stage of proving their business concept and are unlikely to have achieved any revenues. The company may still be simply an idea that the entrepreneur has and he or she requires a small amount of funding to get the business and concept up and running. By their nature, seed investments tend to be higher risk, with greater uncertainty, and may also involve a less formal quicker investment process. We're prepared to invest at this stage to find great entrepreneurs who can build businesses on very little expenditure and then invest further in them to build truly global businesses.

Octopus is a long-term investor in the smaller company space, and our ventures division is one of the most, if not the most, active investor in the market, with 21 new deals already completed this year. The new seed investments will be completed alongside our ongoing investments into early stage and more established smaller companies.

So, why seed investing? We're keen to meet brilliant entrepreneurs who are passionate about their ideas, and have a vision to create a special business. As a European VC it is important that we're seen as open and accessible in order to be able to partner with these businesses initially and as they develop. This is why we run an open office every Wednesday morning for anybody to book a half hour slot and come in and chat to us. Rules are simple - no agenda, half an hour talk about whatever you/they want. We've been running these programs for a while now, in London and Oxford, as part of our relationship with the student organisation Oxford Entrepreneurs, and it's pleasing to see how many people are now returning to us with their plans more clearly formulated.

We anticipate that some of our seed opportunities come from these meetings. Then, by investing a small amount, it enables us to be in a position to react quickly without a long due diligence process. We're investing in this way to see businesses develop so that we'll be able to invest further at some point in the future as they prove their business model and market place. It's during this period, while working directly with a business, that we can build a strong relationship, truly understanding the needs and challenges the business may face as it approaches a formal round of funding.

Naturally, we will wish to be investing at this round, as this will help drive returns for our clients, the investors in our funds, but I disagree with commentators that this may disadvantage the entrepreneur. For a strong entrepreneur, financial capital, potentially available from a number of sources, should be the least of the issues the business faces. What's important is finding the right partners who can invest and assist the development of the business, knowing when to get out of the way of the team and when to provide input, bringing complementary skills and contacts to the business. We would hope it is during the initial development phase after our seed investment we are able to demonstrate and prove to the team we are the right partner for them.

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