Find Invest Grow

Get £1,000 to start your business

Posted by James King at 2:00 06/11/09

Launching today, FIG has started the winter funding drive.

10 budding entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch for investment to a panel of active investors (our FIGureheads) who are looking to mentor and fund student and recent graduates’ start-up businesses.

Find Invest Grow is going to be awarding small grants to the companies pitching. That is on top of any investment offered by our FIGureheads!

One young entrepreneur will be awarded a £1000 grant to invest in their young business/ idea.

FIG is also giving the university with the most complete business proposals submitted a Spine Strength fitness machine for their gym.  Spine Strength is a FIG seed company that raised £70,000 investment using the FIG process.  Founded by Doug Higgins an Imperial graduate, he designed and built the £5,700 machine that mimics the rugby scrum and is now working with the Matt Hampson Trust.  The first machine is already on the Christmas list of many UK rugby clubs (including the England Rugby team itself!) and is sparking interest from Formula 1 and NFL.   If Doug can do it, so can you.   You can see a case study on SpineStrength here and a video of the prototype here.

Entry Process

Simply click on the banner and fill in your profile details.  You will need to put your ideas through the online viability test, so enter all the fields when prompted to outline your business proposal.  Proposals that are over 80% complete will be considered for this funding drive.  We are looking for real business ideas so please set aside some time to complete the proposal process thoroughly.  FIG staff will be on hand to give feedback.

The deadline for this cycle of funding is January the 18th, 2010.  20 – 30 potential seed companies will then be invited to our Workshop event on the 28th January.  These workshops will be a chance to meet the FIG team and some of our Strategic Partners that will be on hand to give you support.  We will also help you build on your proposals, explain proper pitching techniques and discuss the process of raising investment at the pitch to investor event.  Out of those 20 – 30 potential seed companies, 10 are invited to the Pitch to Investor event on the 8th February.

The Pitch to Investor event will take place in London, in the second week of February.  This is your chance to pitch to a group of our FIGureheads for investment.  This is the first of many funding cycles, and those not chosen for this round will be considered for future rounds.

View all entries