Start-Up Series paused for a virus

18 Mar Start-Up Series paused for a virus

Due to the challenging times caused by the coronavirus outbreak Worth Capital have decided today to pause The Start-Up Series until June.

The Start-Up Series has been running since October 2016 and has seen £4.3 million being invested into 26 winning businesses. We have decided to pause the Series for a couple of months because:

• although much of the process is digitally enabled, the most important part of our selection is the half day ‘deep dives’ we have with the finalists. These give us a chance to delve into the proposition and strategy with the founding teams and see if there is the chemistry to create a successful relationship. Without these face to face meetings, we wouldn’t feel confident to be making an investment decision.
• we need to focus our time on supporting the businesses we already have in our portfolio through the challenges they are facing and will face over the next few months.
• we, and the investors that trust us with their money, need more clarity about the many economic and social impacts of Coronavirus before making any investment decisions. And as part of this the appetite that investors have for funding early stage start-ups will become clear, so in turn we’ll be able to share clear expectations on when investments can confidently be expected.
• it is likely that any business seeking funding also needs to work out what the impact of Coronavirus will be before finalising any investment.