A clearer pre-seed raise for EmberX

Nick knew the product he was building. EmberX gives businesses a way to influence traffic into their stores; for users, as Nick puts it, “it is essentially like Pokémon Go, but in the real world.” He had funded the company himself and was considering a raise of around £800,000. What he did not have, “to be honest,” was “any knowledge or awareness of how to do it.”

Where he started

Nick initially wanted to position the company as a seed-stage business. Based on the product and proof available at the time, pre-seed was a better description of where EmberX stood. He also wanted to understand how angel investment and venture capital worked in practice, what investors would expect, and how to prepare while continuing to build the company.

Nick’s background is in finance, but raising for his own company was new. “We were looking for someone to hold our hand on this, because we knew the product. We sort of knew the market. We didn’t know how to bring those two together and find financing.”

Why he chose us

We were one of three or four people who approached Nick on LinkedIn offering fundraising help. The others, he felt, never really engaged with the business: “They really didn’t understand it and they didn’t take the time to actually understand it or ask the questions.” Some treated it as “a volume game,” which to him looked like “they were just trying to get fees rather than actually legitimately help.”

Asked whether it was Diana or her background that convinced him: “No, it was definitely you. I mean, I can look at your background. It doesn’t mean that you can actually deliver.”

How we helped

We worked with Nick to define the round as a pre-seed raise and build a plan around the company’s current stage. Our discussions covered how early-stage investment works, what angels and venture investors tend to look for, and what EmberX still needed to prove.

The conversations also changed how EmberX was presented. “Originally, we were positioning EmberX much more towards a user, and I realized that that was actually the wrong way around. We should be positioning it towards the businesses. I wouldn’t have seen that if I hadn’t had the conversations I had with you.”

We then sharpened the pitch deck so it explained the company more clearly and covered what an investor would expect to see. Throughout, Nick had someone to talk to about the choices, questions and setbacks of raising, which he calls “almost therapy.”

“Utopia Pitch is commercially focused, strategically driven and seems to be directed towards outcome as opposed to just the process.”Nick Bloomfield

Where EmberX is now

EmberX is still raising, but Nick says “we’re in a much better position than we were previously.” He now understands “what angels are looking for, what pre-seed is, what seed is. Before this, I didn’t understand any of this.” He has a clearer business-focused story, a more relevant pitch deck and a plan for what comes next.