FAQs
Who is VenturePath for?
Ambitious founders / co-founders of high-growth tech businesses in the UK who want to fast track to venture-backed success (Series A/B) and an efficient learning curve. Companies must be post-seed, having achieved £1m revenue (or raised at least a £500k seed round).
What does it cost to be a VenturePath Member?
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Two levels of membership, Growth and Growth+Investment.
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Membership is priced at £2,500 pa.
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Growth+Investment Membership is at the same price point as Growth Membership, plus an additional (contingent) success fee on funds raised. This level of membership includes an additional 16 events available each year, and 1:1 investor proposition and documentation support, with proactive investment outreach and support.
Can I just get access to the VenturePath Investors?
VenturePath is a community that supports the growth goals of its member companies, and breaks the traditional approach of investment being a disruptive and distracting transaction, instead replacing it with a relationship driven model for members. As such, only members can receive the warm introductions to the engaged VC community at Venturepath.
If you just require immediate 1:1 investment support, please contact our founding partners at www.WhiteHorseCapital.co.uk
What events are available to VenturePath members?
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Each year VenturePath hosts around 50 events. 34 for Growth Members and an additional 16 for Growth+Investment Members.
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The events include fortnightly ScaleUp Masterclasses (90 mins, interactive clinic format) covering 12 key growth topics, quarterly Growth Diagnostic sessions about how your business is tracking against peers and competitors and helping to map the path with appropriate signposting to support along the way, Bi-monthly ScaleUp Support Showcases to help understand different types of support available from the VenturePath community at different stages of your growth plan.
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Growth+Investment Membership includes all of the above, plus
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Quarterly invites to “our flagship “Deals, Debates & Discussion” VC industry event, produced for VenturePath’s VC Network. The event includes key topics, recent exits and other success stories discussed on a panel by the dealmakers and funders behind these deals, with participation from the exited entrepreneurs themselves.
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A pitch session of investor-ready VenturePath members, and VC networking. Trade body BVCA and scaleup data monitor Beauhurst are the regular co-presenters of these sessions.
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Bi-Monthly Sector spotlights, a roundtable breakfast session where 3-4 VCs discuss Sector trends and relevant scaleups present informally.
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Then we run 4 of our VC investor readiness sprints each year (members would only need to attend 1), these cover VC Investor Readiness, document deep dives and include our VC Voices sessions, where leading VCs share their experience of the relevant growth topics, helping members understand what good looks like. This is 24 hours (across 6 weeks, assume 1 morning per week) of live, hosted talks and interactive Q&A in a small cohort format, and the output is an investor-ready proposition market tested with friendly VCs.
Is VenturePath successful? Does it work?
VenturePath is a new initiative, from a proven team / group of founding partners. The team have advised over 1,000 tech companies, helped 60+ tech scaleups to raise £500m+ (average of £5.5m). We’ve delivered 3,500 hours of growth training exclusively to founders and made over 5,000 introductions to scaleup experts. We’ve been commissioned by Big4 consultancies, Corporates (IBM, Microsoft, NatWest), EU, international and UK Government (incl DCMS, Department of International Trade, Knowledge Transfer Network, Innovate UK, Arts Council England and Nesta) to deliver business growth training and investment readiness / introductions to high growth early stage tech companies. We won the Great British Entrepreneur’s Champion Award for this support.
Who is involved in VenturePath?
The VenturePath Members are all Funded Founders building high growth tech businesses with £1m+ revenue. Wanting to reduce the learning curve and scale through trusted referrals and shared learning rather than trial and error.
The VenturePath ScaleUp Experts are all proven, tried and tested scaleup consultants and advisors, vouched for by fellow scaleup founders in the community.
The VenturePath VCs are the most active UK tech investors
The VenturePath Partners are the leading industry organisations across investment, government & policy, and fellow communities across entrepreneurialism, tech, startups and the BAME community.
The VenturePath team work exclusively to help grow and fund tech businesses, every one of them with an entrepreneurial background, and 20+ businesses created/funded/exited between them.
Are there any other costs to being a VenturePath member?
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All the growth training (100+ hours), business growth events (34 + 16 pa), 2 tickets to the annual celebration of success event and the peer to peer community app are included in the Growth Membership fee.
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For clarity, the first 10-50 hours of access to the ScaleUp Experts is also available with no extra charge, however, if you decide to engage with a ScaleUp Expert beyond this, that will be subject to commercial terms agreed between you and them. Some of our Strategic Partners may invite you to participate in other activities which may be subject to additional charges, to be pre-agreed between you.
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Additional investor activities (the additional 16 VC focussed events, investor readiness training, investment document support, and investor outreach/negotiation) are included within the Growth+Investment Membership fee, with the additional contingent success fee when the fundraise occurs.
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The contingent success fee is 5% up to £10m raise. After that, it reduces and can be discussed with you directly.
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Additional fees may be charged to cover the costs of private lunches/dinners.
What is the format of VenturePath Content?
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Events and training is delivered both in-person (currently in London) and virtually. Information on all training and events can be found within our app.
Are there any sector specialisms?
We are focussed on tech / tech enabled scaleups. That covers many sectors. The 1,000 companies we have previously worked with are drawn from across the tech universe. Some of our Scaleup Experts have sector specialisms, whilst others are sector agnostic. The leadership learning offered is targeted at tech scaleups, and the network of VCs we work with are on the whole looking to invest in tech enabled scaleups. Where additional sector specialism / domain knowledge is needed, utilise the ScaleUp Experts and the 1:1 investor introduction service.
Are there particular business models VenturePath is suited to?
We would assess this fully on application to avoid an over broad definition preventing high growth businesses from joining VenturePath. For many tech businesses, SaaS is a typical revenue model. For marketplaces, we assess unit economics, current growth and scale potential. For other business models, we are happy to consider on individual assessment. VenturePath is not suited to solely agency or consultancy business models. We accept that some businesses may be pivoting from these business models as they begin to scale, and if so, we would focus our assessment on the future direction of the business, and any complementarity with the legacy business.
Who from a member company can participate in VenturePath activities?
Any 2 founders / cofounders / shareholding senior management team members can participate in events, training, peer to peer communication channels.
How do I join VenturePath?
Please message us through the Apply Form, and we will send you more details on how to apply, and upon completion of a short questionnaire, you would be in the application process and subject to a business assessment and response within 10 days. If accepted, a full onboarding pack including calendar of events, and details on how best to access the community, as well as VenturePath Members private platform logins would follow.
How do I get referred in to VenturePath?
You can apply directly through this website. You can also get a “fast-track referral” from any of our Partners, or our ScaleUp Experts, or another Funded Founder member that you know.