Discover new investment opportunities with qualified startups at Raise Pitch Nights
If you are interested in exploring angel investing, grab a coffee and watch our recent workshop on demystifying angel investing:
The new financial year brings exciting opportunities for individuals to diversify their investment portfolio and have a transformative impact on local startups with a global vision. The startup ecosystem across the island of Ireland both North and South, while vibrant and disruptive, requires early-stage backing to accelerate their growth and reach greater impact worldwide.
While angel investment is on the up in the regions outside London by 21%*, Northern Ireland still has the lowest uptake of angel investing and getting SEIS and EIS tax relief across all of the UK.
Introduced to support the growth of innovative startups, SEIS & EIS offers angel investors 30 - 50% of their investment into early stage startups back. Investors can also receive capital gains tax relief on any profits they make from the sale of their shares.
While it’s no surprise that investing in startups carries a certain level of risk, the opportunity to make a significant financial return along with the related tax benefits make it an inviting proposition for those hoping to diversify their investment portfolio. In a world of uncertainty technology, in particular SaaS (software as a service), remains one of the most resilient and sustainable business models. Technology startups across Northern Ireland need your support.
Raise Pitch Nights are the only public startup-investor connection events in Northern Ireland. Connecting startups with investors and advisors to accelerate their growth, the recent Sunset Pitch Night presented 5 investment-ready tech startups showcase their innovative solutions to almost 100 investors locally and across the globe.
The pitching founders are disrupting their respective industries using cutting edge technology and scalable solutions to solve real-world problems. From AI-driven video summaries to sensors saving lives in the agricultural industry - and everything in between - attendees were given a flavour of the opportunity presented by early involvement in emerging startups from the island of Ireland in the health and fitness, cybersecurity, creative, agritech and deeptech industries.
Raise’s Sunset Pitch Night fell on ‘World Pay It Forward Day’ and pitching companies sought support beyond just money, pitching for mentorship, connections and board advisors. They were able to tap into the expertise in the room where successful investors, advisors and entrepreneurs paid it forward with their experience.
Startups from the night said:
“You guys put on a great night last night, with some brilliant people in the audience. We've had a very hectic day today so far - there's been a string of enquiries and meetings set up since last night so I'm so far very happy with how things went.”
Angel Investors who attended said:
“We really enjoyed the pitch night, and it was great to see it attended so well – it certainly showed there’s a need for what you guys are doing at Raise Ventures.”
Raise are excited to announce the next pitch night event where investors can explore the opportunity angel investing offers. Whether you’re looking for your next angel investment or want to get a flavour of early-stage startups across Ireland at the beginning of your angel journey, Raise Pitch Nights offer a welcoming environment to all investors, new and aspiring. Your support at this pivotal early stage could be transformative for local startups.
You are invited to join both our Angel Investment Workshop on Thursday 4th May and the Summer Pitch Night on Thursday 22nd June. The Pitch Night will showcase a new group of promising startup founders and their innovative solutions. Sign up for free tickets below.
Raise extends their thanks to partners HSBC UK in delivering the event. HSBC are are supporting high growth tech start-ups from the earliest stage to build their network, grow and scale from Northern Ireland right across the globe.
*British Business Bank Nations and Regions Tracker
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About Raise
Raise Ventures are a commercial startup accelerator supporting early-stage Irish, Northern Irish and UK tech companies. Raise nurtures high potential, disruptive scalable ideas to create global enterprises through its Accelerator programme, supporting two startup cohorts each year in the Spring and Autumn. Created for founders, by founders, Raise prides itself on being a companion to founders on the journey of entrepreneurship. For more information, visit www.raisestartups.co.uk
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