Q: What type of Investors use Venture Giant & what types of investments are they looking to invest in?
 
A: Venture Giant has hundreds of self accredited high net worth individuals, Private investors, individual Venture Capitalists, and Venture Capital firms registered to us right now, actively seeking to invest into bright talented investor-ready entrepreneurs that require seed capital for start-ups or even growth capital for existing profitable established mature businesses. 

Further, we have a range of angel Investors, Angel investment groups, and angel syndicates all subscribing to investment deal flow from Venture Giant all waiting to hear from you.

Q: How do I know that the investors using your service are real Angel Investors?

A: When we are asked this question, we understand how valid and serious of a concern it is and realise its significance. Firstly, we are an openly registered UK company and you can easily find out who we are and that we are a legitimate company. 

Secondly, we do our very best to insure that every investor who registers for our service is who they say they are and sincerely interested in investing in various stage companies. We have now started publishing some of our angel investors details and what their interest in Business Angel Investing is. This should set you mind at ease about the quality of people that will be reading and reviewing your investment proposal. We have gone through great efforts to build our database of Investors (more about that below) and as you will see on our featured angel investor profiles most angels registered on Venture Giant have invested in 2 - 4 angel investment proposals already. That's why we believe passionately that there is no other angel investment network that can compete with the price that we offer entrepreneurs, or, compete with the quality of our angel investor database. 

And finally, although we pride ourselves in a completely transparent, upfront and ethical approach to business, we cannot insure that all other people in the business world have the same values. With that said, we have a 100% refund policy. Please note however that although we guarantee legitimate contact with real investors, we cannot guarantee that they will invest in your business, this part is up to you!

Q: How has Venture Giant built up it's Angel investor database?

A: Venture Giant has hundreds of self accredited high net worth individuals, individual Venture Capitalists, Venture Capital firms, and Individual Angel Investors registered to us right now actively seeking to invest into seed capital for leading edge start-ups to growth capital for profitable established mature businesses. Further, we have a range of Angel Investors, Angel investment groups, and angel syndicates all subscribing to investment deal flow from Venture Giant.

We have gone through great lengths to build our angel investor database and advertised and spent tens of thousands of pounds on sites like Digital Look (owned by CMC markets) targeting shareholders who have an average share portfolio of £250K. It has taken a while to build up our database. Building a database and grooming a database of HNWI’s is an expensive process, and we have steadily grown and groomed our database.

We have also signed a Joint Venture deal with First Tuesday which services the needs of established technology entrepreneurs and companies seeking venture capital, angel investors and related service providers. Founded in 1998, they now have 38,000 members and over 10 branches across Europe. This is a really big deal for Venture Giant, and will further bolster Venture Giant’s Angel investor database.

Venture Giant is also expanding to the following territories this year via JVs with private equity houses and high net worth individuals with offices and staff in each country servicing the needs for each territories user base: India, UAE, and Australia. More to follow on this.

The goal of Venture Giant is to create the Worlds largest Entrepreneur angel investment network. Angel investment has traditionally been seen as a local proposition, i.e. an angel investor would only usually invest in his/her chosen city or country. But with the constant evolution of communication technology we are seeing the landscape of angel investing changing, and we want to ride this wave as more and more investors seek to invest internationally.

Q: How many investors have invested on Venture Giant?

We get asked this question alot by entrepreneurs – and we do appreciate how important this question is. The first major point here is that Venture Giant is restricted by the quality of investment proposals that we receive and send out.

The majority of our registered investors have already invested in two to three businesses (as you may have seen on our investor profile pages) - and are highly experienced business people. 

Some other investors would be in £200m net worth mark and when we speak to them the consensus view is, 'the money is there - but - it's about finding the right people to invest into!'

As you may appreciate - angel investing is a human proposition, and the results vary drastically from person to person. So it is not uncommon to receive feedback from one entrepreneur that this investor was very rude etc - and then suddenly receive an endorsement for the same investor from another entrepreneur and that they are in advanced negotiations to take the deal forward.

This is all relevant information - because how an angel investment proposition will end up will ultimately come down to your experience and your investor-readiness as an entrepreneur.

Angel Investing - is like dating - it is a process that does not happen overnight. We have real Investors, private investors, high net worth individuals, individual Venture Capitalists, and Venture Capital firms registered to us right now that are all actively seeking to invest.

Venture Giant’s role is primarily to get your investment proposal in front of these investors that are interested in your investment proposal – and then for them to contact you if they are interested in discussing your proposal further.

Q: How much is your service and when do I pay?

A: We employ a pay on performance business model. Therefore you only will have to pay a one off listing fee of £99.00 payable only when an Investor makes contact with you. 

All investor contacts are included in this fee without any catches.

Also included in the listing fee of £99 is a minimum of six months promotion and listing on Venture Giant.
 
Venture Giant does not take a commission on any money raised or strategic partnerships formed and we do not get involved with the process of deal structure, which is why our fees are low.

Click here to take a tour to see how easy it is to upload your proposal to Venture Giant.

Q: Is there anything extra to pay above the £99.00?

A: We only charge a one off fee of £99.00 and we provide you with the opportunity of meeting with real investors that have expressed specific interest in your investment proposal. The real task of raising investment will rest upon your investment proposal, your pitch, and ofcourse yourself as a credible, backable Entrepreneur!


Q: How will Venture Giant get me an investor contact? 
Will you just post my proposal on your website and hope that I get the investor contacts?

A: No!

We are very pro-active in what we do and with all of the investment proposals we receive from entrepreneurs. Once you have registered, our easy to use template will get us your investment proposal for review. 

If for whatever reason your investment proposal is not satisfactory, we will always offer help and guidance to get it to a standard that we feel will help you increase your chances of attracting investor interest.

If it is upto a satisfactory standard, and meets our criteria, as well as posting your investment proposal on the Venture Giant network - we will also send your investment proposal out to every single investor that has an interest in investing in your industry/sector, investment range and region. 

We will never mass-spam your investment proposal to our investor database as it simply is not in our interest to do this as the investors will quickly close their accounts with us! 

Instead, we prefer to listen to every investor's investment requirements and ask them questions like what they are interested in investing in, and the most revealing question - what they are not looking to invest into. 

From this information we build an investor profile, and if we feel that your investment proposal would serve their interests - we send it to them. If we do not feel it will be of interest, we do not send your proposal to them. Simple, and we have found this works best for all parties. 

When an interesting investment proposal does come up - we also pick up the phone and ring around to make sure that the right investors have received the investment proposal and we can then gauge their interest. if it is of interest to them for the purposes of investment, they make contact!

Q: How else will you promote my investment proposal on Venture Giant?

Everyday, we have new investors that we approve to use Venture Giant. If we feel that their investment requirements matches what you are offering, we email them your investment proposal on your behalf. 

We have found that this is highly effective and ensures that your investment proposal is constantly promoted over the six month listing period.

How many investors will receive my investment proposal? 

The amount of investors receiving your investment summary will largely depend on your industry type, region and investment requirement. Some industries are ‘hot’ at the moment and for that reason we will have more investors looking to invest in a certain sector. Broad strokes, we intend to send your investment proposal out to approx. 200 - 500 active UK investors as soon as we place it live on Venture Giant. 

This amount will significantly increase during your six month listing period of your investment proposal because: 

1) We will email your investment proposal to all new investor applications that we approve on Venture Giant. This keeps your investment proposal fresh and ensures that the most amount of active investors read your proposal when they are actively searching for new investment proposals.

2) Angel Syndicate groups (Investment capital pooled from tens or even hundreds of angel investors) will also be receiving your investment proposal from Venture Giant which means that your exposure will be increased drastically.

Q: How is the ‘Funds Available’ figure on your website calculated?

A: Venture Giant has hundreds of self certified high net worth individuals, individual Venture Capitalists, Venture Capital firms, and Individual Angel Investors that are registered to us right now actively seeking to invest into seed capital for leading edge start-ups to growth capital for profitable established mature businesses. Further, we have a range of Angel Investors, Angel investment groups, and angel syndicates all subscribing to investment deal flow from Venture Giant.

The Funds available figure on our website is an exact representation of the total pool of combined capital from our registered Investors. We calculate this by adding up the maximum amount of funds that an investor is seeking to invest in entrepreneurs. This number is calculated daily and is not a random figure.

Q: How is my Idea protected with you?

A: Your idea is protected as Venture Giant will only display a snapshot or summary of your business idea to our business investor community. By keeping our Entrepreneurs’ investment summaries brief we have found that this provides a sufficient safe guard of knowing that at the very least the execution of your idea can not be copied and this is the main part of any business idea that must be protected. From our experience, serious, credible Investors’, who are serious about investing, will only need a brief snapshot or executive summary of your idea or investment proposal before deciding on whether or not they wish to contact you to discuss your plan further.


Q: Is it guaranteed that my investment proposal will be listed on Venture Giant?

A:  We are an investment deal-flow service for high net worth individuals and business angel investors. Therefore the quality of investment proposals that we send out to our registered users have to be of a certain quality and we employ an internal review process for every single investment proposal that is submitted to us. This is the reason review of your investment proposal can take anywhere between 24 hours and 72 hours. This being said, we will never out-right refuse an entrepreneur's investment proposal, but where necessary we will give pointers as to how the investment proposal should be improved to maximise the potential of it receiving interest from registered investors. It will then be up to the entrepreneur to resubmit the investment proposal for us to re-review.

Remember – the review service is free for entrepreneurs, and we send your investment proposal out to investors for free as well, once we have approved your proposal. In fact, you only need to pay Venture Giant a one off fee of £99.00 only after you have received investor interest.

Q: How easy is it to upload an Investment proposal to Venture Giant?

A: Firstly we thoroughly recommend you see “How it works” on the left hand menu. It is quick and informative. But it will only takes you two simple steps to create your investment proposal and post your capital requirements on Venture Giant today:

Step 1: Your Business Summary
Type up your Business Summary, or cut and paste your executive summary from your existing business plan, amending it slightly to cover the basics of your proposal in no more than 2500 characters or approximately one page. 
 
Fill in all of the investment figures to Venture Giants questions for example the amount you wish to raise, the return on investment figures an investor can expect to receive etc.

Step 2: Your Video Pitch (optional)
Maximize your business plan potential by filming your own video presentation in a digital format and uploading it directly onto your proposal. This promotional tool is also especially useful if you are trying to raise investment for a particular product that requires a visual presentation of it and is hard to describe in the written medium.
 
Your presentation can also point out individual aspects of your product whilst you describe the financial projections directly to an interested third party.
 
Even Entrepreneurs seeking to raise working capital or funds to expand their existing business can visually film their business in operation, ensuring that Investors can understand exactly what you are proposing first hand without requiring them to make an onsite visit to determine whether they are interested in you or not.
 
Uploading your video onto Venture Giant can also reassure a potential investor of your credibility by visually demonstrating your individual character and creativeness behind your business proposal. Click here for more info on the benefits of uploading a video pitch.

Q: My business is at the start up stages and therefore I am not entirely sure of the investment required, can these areas be left blank initially with a note in the investment proposal section that the angel finance (or angel investment) needed is negotiable?

A: We have a range of self accredited high net worth individuals as well as Business Angel Investors that regularly use our service.

As soon as we approve your proposal, we send it out to all of the angel investors on our database that registered interest in your chosen industry (which is property), your region, and your angel investment range. Further, when we receive new angel investor account applications, and angel investment groups sign up to our deal flow email, when their investment criteria matches yours, we email them your investment proposal. If an angel investor is/are interested in contacting you after they have read the information you have provided, they will send you an email, and at that time you will be able to pay your listing fee. All subsequent investor contacts are also included in this fee.

So, we will require investment figures from yourself. This way we can be sure that we are sending your investment proposal to angels that can afford to invest in your business.

Q: How long will my proposal remain on Venture Giant?

A: Your proposal will remain on our database for a minimum of six months and all investors that contact you during this period will be included after you have paid your one-off listing fee. Payment can be made with any major credit card and for further security we use PayPal's secure online payment processing service. We also have now employed Google Checkout for non-paypal registered users.

Q: How is my Security protected with you? 

A: Your information is kept private and never shared with third parties and any information stored in our system is protected electronically as well as through procedural safeguards. Further, only registered Accredited Investors who meet Self Accredited guidelines can view your investment summary. 

Q: How do you ensure that my proposal will be seen by the relevant Investors that are actively seeking to invest in my Industry?

A: Venture Giant groups all registered Investors into interest categories sorted by region, investment stage, company stage, and their very particular investment preferences. When a new proposal is submitted to Venture Giant we match it with Investors very particular investment preferences and inform them via email of your investment proposal. When a particularly impressive investment proposal is submitted, we contact our Investors directly by post, email and phone to inform them of your proposal at no extra charge to you. This ensures that your proposal receives an instant exposure the moment it is added to our database.

Q: When I submit my proposal will it be edited by venture giant? And if so will I view the edited version before publication?

A: We always look over all investment proposals submitted to us. This is to maintain the quality of deal flow that we send to our angel investors. You can request us to do this, and we will gladly email you with the changes before making it live. But this is something that must be requested. Alternatively please add a note that you would like to be emailed (if you have space in your proposal) and we will follow your instructions.

Q: How does an Angel Investor find and view my proposal?

A: Venture Giants registered Investors will always have unlimited access to your online business proposal (and video presentation, if you decide to upload one) which means that your chances of meeting high net worth individuals are considerably higher than by using normal brokers and agents as Venture Giant allows the High net worth investor to browse freely through all of our proposals.

Q: Can I upload my entire business plan to Venture Giant, along with my brief investment summary?

A: Venture Giant will never ask Entrepreneurs’ to upload their ENTIRE business plan to us as we recognise how valuable, confidential and sensitive these documents are. We have a policy to inform entrepreneurs’ to always be extremely diligent when it comes to posting or sending their business plan to third party websites or investment services.

Q: I would like to know more about the video pitch function.

A: If you would like to know more on how to film a perfect video pitch, Venture Giant has a detailed section available to registered entrepreneurs. Alternatively, please click here

Q: How do you protect me against Fraud?

A: As you might expect, Venture Giant has a zero-tolerance policy against any kind of fraudulent activity on our network. We constantly carry out checks on our registered Investors to ensure that they are real, active and qualified. Further to be a registered investor on venture giant, investors will have to attest to stringent self-accreditation guidelines on being an Investor.

Q: Why shouldn’t I use an Agent, or brokerage house?
 
A: With so many tools and resources available online and offline today it would be unwise on your part to pledge alliance to one agent or brokerage house. Even though the press keeps telling us that we are going through a credit crunch there still is a lot of liquidity out there for high quality entrepreneurs and business proposals. Getting your idea out there is now more important than ever and this is the most important thing an entrepreneur seeking capital can do. So, to the contrary we DO recommend using Agents and Broker houses to assist you in finding the capital you are looking for (if you can afford this). But – be careful about how much information you disclose to each one of them. If you feel uncomfortable about a particular online entrepreneur angel service asking for more information than you are willing to disclose take a step back and use someone else. Sadly, this advice goes for this website too!

Q: What are your company policies?

A: Please view the tabs to the left which clearly outline all our terms and conditions and policies.

Q: Should I make the angel investor sign a non-disclosure agreement before I provide them with my proposal? 

A: This is entirely up to you and each business owner and business is unique. However, we would personally recommend doing anything possible to protect your business ideas and a non-disclosure is never a bad idea.

Q: When should I disclose my full business plan to an Investor?

A: Usually a serious credible Investor will read and contact you directly with very specific questions on your idea or investment proposal. Once you answer these questions satisfactorily, the Investor may ask to see your full business plan. Only IF you are comfortable should you disclose your business plan. It is always wise to have the Investor sign a Non Disclosure agreement beforehand, though not really enforceable, at least it will demonstrate that you are serious about what you are doing and that at the very least you are FORMALLY requesting that an investor NOT disclose the information to any third party!

Q: I am very very paranoid! Without an international patent, how could an inventor or entrepreneur feel comfortable sharing priceless information on an ‘open-forum’?

A: Firstly Venture Giant is NOT an ‘open-forum’.We value greatly the privacy of both entrepreneurs as well as registered investors. 

This is the reason why we only accept executive type investment summaries from entrepreneurs. It is important to note that as a product Inventor or entrepreneur, it is fundamentally the execution of the idea that must be protected. So as an analogy - you may not be able to protect or patent the concept of a ‘Pizza’, but you would want to protect and patent the execution of it, i.e. the process in which it is made and cooked. 

This is why Venture Giant only sends executive type summaries (1000-characters long) to investors and we will NEVER ask entrepreneurs’ to display their entire business plan. So as an example that is quite relevant to an innovative idea that could be copied quite easily: The AA pencil battery that is rechargeable through a computer USB port. In this particular case, it is agreed that it would be remiss on an entrepreneurs’ side to state in their Venture Giant investment summary: "I have created a battery that can be recharged via the usb port of your laptop and can be used in any AA battery powered appliance.”

Instead, a more diligent way to address the investment summary would be to talk a little bit about the industry, the demographic customer you are targeting and the problem you are solving. i.e. ‘Batteries are a £40 billion global industry and growing every year. The product that I have developed uses a completely different source of power and is something that any UK or Global household can recharge without using any of the traditional sources of power that consumers are used to using.’

Venture Giant will never ask an entrepreneur to upload their ENTIRE business plan to us as we recognise how valuable, confidential and sensitive these documents are. We have a policy to inform entrepreneurs’ to always be extremely diligent when it comes to posting or sending their business plan to third party websites or investment services.

For further information on this please visit Venture Giant's entrepreneur resources on Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights etc.

Also please visit Venture Giant's article on Non disclosure agreements, and Questions to ask a potential business angel investor

Q: Should I pay an Angel investor a fee prior to them investing in my company?

A: You should NEVER pay a legitimate angel investor any upfront money for them to invest in your business. There are various investment scams taking place on the internet and they are more popular than ever. Of course there is nothing wrong with paying for a matching service on an online network or deal review fee to an angel network group, but these fees are nominal and cover the service or group overhead. 

Be very aware of a potential angel investor that makes comments like "I need to have you commit £thousand in order for my solicitor to prepare the documents to release your funds so I can invest in your business." The advantage with Venture Giant is that Angel Investors that meet self certification guidelines will not ask for any kind of fees and we carry out checks on Angel investors that agree to use our service. As an entrepreneur, whether you find an Angel Investor on Venture Giant, or another angel investment service, you should also do your own due diligence on potential investors and if they say they have invested in companies before, always ask to see their portfolio with company contact details. You can also carry out company credit checks for a nominal fee.

Q: Can I list my company name and/or website details and contact details in my investment proposal that is sent to your angel investor database?

A: We send your investment proposal with generic details. But if you would like to list your specific contact details etc than Venture Giant would require you to pay your listing fees upfront, as Venture Giant employs a pay-on-performance business model. As you can imagine, listing your contact details would advertise your brand and allow investors to find your company through Google, thus circumventing Venture Giant.

To further promote entrepreneurs, every time an Angel Investor signs up and we approve their angel investor account they register very specific investment and regional data in the investments that they are looking for. We send them a break-down of all of the proposals that match their criteria - and the angel investor can then contact Entrepreneurs directly from this email or browsing them online. So by paying your fees upfront, and listing your business name and contact details will ensure that your proposal is read by the maximum number of high net worth individuals and angels.

Q: Who is Venture Giant?

A: We are a team of innovative entrepreneurs, angel investors and IT professionals who have all been in the position of either requiring investment capital or wanting to find quality investment to invest in. As a result, we created Venture Giant to fill this void in the market and help make the process much easier, faster and more professional.

Q: Is Venture Giant regulated by any Financial Institution?

A: Venture Giant is not regulated by the FSA as it is not a commission collecting service, nor do we provide any type of advice or recommendations on any of the entrepreneur proposals. As a result, we do not fall within FSA regulations. Each angel investor is required to attest to being a self accredited "sophisticated investor" as well as other certification requirements which furthers places the responsibility on the angel investor to understand the risks associated with typical early-stage high risk investments.

Q: Where is Venture Giant based?

A: We are based in Central London, Paddington, UK and it is not a mailbox!

Q: I have more questions, how should I contact you?

A: We have a live support function located on most pages. Alternatively please email us at entrepreneur @ venturegiant.com