Talking to an Angel for Start-Up Investment Tips

Award-winning angel investor, New Zealand-born technology entrepreneur Dale Murray talks to British publication Director magazine about the best path to take in order to secure start-up investment or to fund the crucial next stage of growth.

Murray holds non-executive director roles for UK Trade & Investment, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and investment firm Sussex Place Ventures. Awarded the CBE last year for services to business, she also serves on David Cameron’s Business Taskforce, with a mission to cut the red tape of EU regulation hampering the growth of UK businesses on the continent.

Murray begins by saying that entrepreneurs often forget the goal is not to achieve funding, but to create a demonstrably better product or service, that is able to be manufactured or produced in a cost-effective way and a that it is a product people want to buy.

“The best way of validating your idea is building a prototype and selling it,” Murray says.

“The angel investment model doesn’t work without an exit,” she explains. “I get my entrepreneurs to write a statement of intent from the outset – do they want to grow the company to a certain size and then sell it for a certain amount? Is £5m enough, or £15m or £20m? Then, once a quarter – or every six months in the early days – have ‘Exit’ on the agenda at your board meetings.”

Murray co-founded Omega Logic, which co-launched mobile phone top-ups in Britain. She built her business to £450m of gross revenue within five years.

She is an ambassador at the International Festival for Business held in Liverpool through June and July.

Murray lives in London.

Original article by Chris Maxwell, Director, March 2014.