Wallet Max Planet Positive Podcast with Investor Gillian Fleming

Join Bhuva Shakti, Founder & CEO at Wallet Max, as she speaks with female investors looking to leverage inclusion and impact without compromising growth of investments.

​This month her guest is Gillian Fleming, a Co-Founder, Director and MD of Mint Ventures, a women-led angel group focused on investing in women-led and diverse teams with an environmental, ethical or social purpose.

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​About Gillian Fleming
Gillian is a Strategic Advisor, Non-Exec Director and Angel Investor for start-up and spin-out companies with a background in sales and marketing for the energy and engineering sector. 

​She has 25 years’ experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem both advising and nurturing early-stage ideas across multiple sectors to successfully transition to company creation and as an experienced venture capitalist. 

​As honorary professor and entrepreneur in residence at the University of Stirling she provides strategic input to the International Business Advisory Board and supports women to consider entrepreneurship as a career. 

​On a mission to make angel investment more accessible to women both founders and potential investors, Gillian is Co-Founder, Director and MD of Mint Ventures (Syndicate) Ltd, a women-led angel group focused on investing in women-led and diverse teams with an environmental, ethical or social purpose. 

​Gillian is an Entrepreneurial Scotland Saltire Fellow, motivational speaker and judges for various accelerator programs and business competitions.

​About Wallet Max
​Wallet Max is an inclusive global community of corporate executives and venture capitalists with a mission to expand fundraising access for high-growth startups in the technology, AI, fintech, and climate sustainability sectors.

With more than 10 investments directly in impact entrepreneurs thus far, Wallet Max’s network of 1,000 innovators and 60 partners regularly meet in person and virtually throughout the year to mutually exchange connections and drive collective action. Wallet Max ecosystem of events and initiatives are prominent during the New York Fintech Week, the New York Tech Week, and the New York Climate Week every year.

Wallet Max's Planet Positive Podcast is a monthly interview with female investors driving impact globally. Aligned with our mission to challenge the status quo, we showcase personal and professional journeys of diverse investors (Angels, VCs, PEs, Family Office, Corporate Venture) looking to leverage inclusion and impact without compromising growth of investments. Supporting sustainable innovations is good for people's wellbeing, planet survival, and financial profits.

Learn more about Wallet Max 2024 success and 2025 global initiatives: https://getwalletmax.com/climate-forward-2025

Transcript

Bhuva Shakti
Hi, everyone.

[00:00:05.06] 
Welcome to the May edition of Wallet Max Planet Positive podcast, as we transition into the summer of 2025 after an unpredictable winter.

I'm Bhuva Shakti, based in New York, and the founder of Wallet Max. We are a global community of startups, investors, and more importantly, executives focused on increasing funding, access for women, and especially in the climate tech, fintech, and AI sectors.

We interview one impact investor every month for our podcast to share their background and what differentiates them from the crowd in terms of prioritizing impact along with profits and planet. We deep dive into their personal and professional journeys and their mission to uplift.

Today, we are speaking with Gillian, an angel investor and a big supporter of diverse teams and initiatives. Gillian is the co-founder, director, and and MD of Mint Ventures, a women-led angel group focused on investing in women-led and diverse teams with an environmental, ethical, or social purpose.

Gillian has 25 years’ experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, both advising and nurturing early-stage ideas across multiple sectors to successfully transition to company creation and as an experienced venture capitalist.

Let me now hand over to Gillian and invite her to say a few words about her background and career path.

Over to you, Gillian.

Gillian Fleming
Thank you very much, Bhuva.

I'm really delighted to be here today and talking on your podcast. Where shall I start then?

Well, way back at the very beginning, my career actually started out in power generation, oil and gas. I actually went through an IPO where one of the companies I was working with, Aggreko were floated on the London Stock Exchange.

So that was my very, very first taste of working with investors and how important it was, what a milestone it was in the company's achievements to have had that form of exit. And then from there, I went to dabble in university commercialization. So I started working with the University of Strathclyde, and where I was really translating research into companies. Anything that was coming out of the research that had a really focused commercial idea, I was supporting and helping them to write their business plan and to ultimately raise investment and also help recruit the team, some of the senior exec teams.

And then one day when I was working with one of these university spin-out companies, I thought to myself, Why am I not investing in this? This is a great opportunity. I'm doing my own due diligence here. I know the team, I know the patents, I understand it inside out, helped support the writing of it, and I think this is a really great opportunity. So I got chatting with a local angel group and they said, You could sign the sophisticated investor form because of all your investment experience.

While I was at the University of Strathclyde, I also helped set up their first ever investment follow on fund. And at that point in time, most universities took a little bit of equity in exchange for all the support and help, but they didn't tend to follow on as the company went through more rounds. So I did sign that paperwork, and I ended up joining an angel group to do my first investment deal. And around that same time, I decided to step away from having the corporate career, the job for life, and making that leap of faith so that I started my own consultancy business. I made my first investment, I started my own consultancy business, and I actually went and did a mini MBA over at Babson College in the States. That really changed my attitude to risk.

When I returned from that, I got chatting with the founders of Women's Enterprise Scotland, and they, at that point, had been looking at a project on women angels throughout the whole of Europe and why there were so few women angels, and what was it that we needed to change?

So what was the feedback and the output of that project?

So we got our heads together and we set up a working group, and on that working group, there were other angel groups and also the very influential Jenny Tooth from the UK Business Angels Association, who has made it her mission to try and bring as many women angel groups into angel investing and individual women into angel investing.

Hence, Mint Ventures was born.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, that's very relatable for me because that's my career path as well. After years in corporate, trying to fundraise in the public capital markets for everyone. We are doing enough due diligence. There is risk in everything. And then we also want to ensure there is inclusion and impact. So why not do it ourselves?

So that's exactly what I did as well.

When you went to your mini MBA, your perception about risk changed.

What's your unique secret sauce?

How do you make your investments?

Do you think that's the pivotal moment in your life that led you here, or is there anything before or after that?

Gillian Fleming
Well, definitely that was fairly pivotal.

Also really being pushed out your comfort zone.

What really resonates and stays with me was get comfortable being uncomfortable. I think the culture of individuals in Scotland is that they never really put themselves in that zone and they're self-depreciating, they put themselves down a lot.

We were being taught a whole new way to approach business and to have these audacious goals in life. And I think that was really the pivotal moment for me. And I've always been a very independent woman, so I've come from a long line of independent women that do challenge and do stand up for themselves. And therefore, I started asking more questions. And why were there so few women angel investors? And why, why wasn't there a group that was really aligned with my values?

When I went out there to try and join one, there wasn't one that was really aligned with my values. And the language that was used was just jargon. So that was really behind a lot of the founding of Mint was to make the language relatable, not to talk in jargon, and to make it a comfortable, friendly, supportive group that women would actually want to feel part of.

It was more about developing a community and a sense of belonging to encourage more women to think about becoming angel investors.

Bhuva Shakti
No, that's perfect, because when you're trying to take the risk, if you have seen someone already doing it, or if you have some a community to lean on, you are much more comfortable, right?

So in terms of shifting into investing, so there are various types of investment vehicles. Why would you think angel investing could be a good start, especially when you want to focus on social, ethical, and environmental investing?

Gillian Fleming
So what I'm seeing, and what we've generally been seeing as a group, is that the biggest gap in the funding is at that super early stage, probably a bit further down the line, the Series A as well. But certainly in the UK, the biggest gap is at the 50,000 to a few hundred thousand. And again, being that first investor, the first professional investor on the cap table, because if we don't fund companies at that early stage, well, we aren't going to have any to scale further down the line, and particularly with a focus on having at least one woman in the leadership team.

We see a lot of women-led companies in the sectors where men are less likely to want to invest. That was really where a lot of the criteria from Mint Ventures came from was understanding that gap at the early stage. We would call that pre-seed, probably. You might call it the same in the States. And that's the area that we decided we really wanted to focus on.

So it was the smaller amount. But what we see is angel groups growing up the food chain all the time, and they're all really driven by return on investment. And what we're saying is, well, that's not so important to us because it's really about helping and supporting and helping to grow those companies that are finding it more difficult to get funding.

Bhuva Shakti
No, you're right.

So the definition of pre-seed and seed changes every day, and it's very different across geographies. The late stage definitely is focused on ROI, but early stage, especially if you're a women-led startup, you are looking for that opportunity or the first break.

You might not have ROI, but then once you have the right founder fit, you're able to scale very quickly. Then as an angel, you're going to also scale with them. Definitely agreed there.

You also specifically mentioned investing in women-led startups, right? Where do you see the opportunities and challenges?

Especially, we spoke a little bit about Scotland, but then how would the big picture in terms of the whole of UK, Europe, US, rest of the world?

Where do you see opportunities and challenges when it comes to investing in women-led startups?

Gillian Fleming
I think it's a challenge globally to have more funding for women founders. I think the figures being quoted at the moment are still three pence in every pound or dollar of funding that goes to all women teams. The figure for mixed teams is around the 10, 12% mark. It's not changed.

I think that's the issue here is that it's not really changed over the last decades. That figure has remained pretty static, which means the decisions are largely being made by men when it comes to venture capital and when it comes to angel investing as well. We want to play our part to try and shift the dial in that. It is baby steps, and we know that it's not going to change hugely.

Well, I know it's not going to change hugely during the rest of my lifetime, but I would like to try and make as much of a difference as I can and educate other women to also help make that difference.

I'm sure you're seeing something really similar in the States, but I know that you have more Women Angels. Your rate of Women Angels is in the 30%, whereas over here, it's only around 14% in the UK. We've still got a really long way to go in terms of that education.

So Mint Ventures is an educational movement as well as being an angel club, an angel group that invests in women-led startups. And by that, what we mean is we want to see at least one woman in the leadership team because we want that diversity of thought around the strategic decision making.

The other criteria that we really focus on is, as you mentioned, we're looking for a social, ethical, or environmental purpose as well. We know that women want to do purpose-led investing. That's why we have chosen to have those criteria, because it's very much aligned with many women and their values.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, no, totally agreed.

The default setting for investments by women is impact and inclusion, which means those factors are out of the way and you're still focused only on the innovation and not trying to talk about anything else.

Also, we do very comprehensive due diligence and risk management, so the ROI is still going to be there. It's not just more like a non-profit.

But like you rightly also said, in the US as well, we typically have less than $2 of every $100 going to women-led startups.

That's the trend for the last decade. It has not changed or moved. It's not gone up. It seems to go down this year, especially in the current political landscape. It's not only just US, but globally, there are so many trade wars and political challenges, macroeconomic issues, and things of that sort.

Because of all this, from the government sector, there are big corporations and private investors who are also shifting their priorities. This is the time we need them more.

So even with so many challenges across various sectors, why do you think still investing in diversity and the planet is important for the long term?

And how do you approach this in the current trend of things?

Gillian Fleming
So we know from our research that investing in diverse teams is likely to have at least 25 % more profitability. We also know that companies with diverse teams are much more likely to survive an economic downturn. And coupled with that is that women-led companies are actually more likely to do more with smaller amounts of money.

Yeah. So they're more capital-efficient. And this is what everybody is looking to do at the moment, because there is so much uncertainty going on, as you said, with the political situation globally. Therefore, they are a better bet.

Investing in diverse companies are actually a better bet at the moment, and it's where people should be looking to focus investing rather than backing all male teams in the science and technology sectors.

I think I mentioned at the beginning that we're really keen to support what we call the underfunded sectors, where women are more likely to start up companies. And that can include anything from retail to food and drink to health, beauty, and well-being, creative industries.

These are the sectors that maybe don't have the higher returns on investment, but they will still have returns on investment. When many people are investing, it's not just about the financial return, it's also about how they can use their expertise to support and help these companies.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, no, definitely.

Especially, this is the time when big corporations and big investors in the major capital private equity space are stepping back. We as angel investors should step in to fill the gap, I think.

Especially, like you said, the economic returns are really good, even in a downturn, and we are more efficient with the capital spend. One quick thing is also when it comes to the planet and environmental purpose-led startups, would you be able to share some examples?

How has success been for you in that sector, in addition to retail, food, and healthcare sector?

Gillian Fleming
Yes. So we've invested in a bone broth company, actually, and that's the food and drink sector.

Our rationale behind that was very much around the organic process, the way that they're making their bone broth. So it's all about their environmental sustainability, the use of an old-fashioned recipe, the fact that there are no additives whatsoever. This is like the bone broth that your granny maybe made when you were a child.

And what I really love about Freya, the company that we've invested in, is that this is a recipe that was developed during lockdown. And they started sharing it with friends, and friends were saying, Why? This is amazing. Why? Why are you not selling this?

And it's now grown into a multimillion pound company. And also, Freya famously put on LinkedIn, Where are all the Women Angels? And we were then tagged, and that's how we ended up investing in the company. And they were really clear from day one that they wanted their shareholder base to reflect their customer base. And we're starting to see that more because if you're selling 50/50 to men and women, why would you not want your shareholders to reflect that as well?

Bhuva Shakti
That's exactly my point also, because if you are building a product or selling a service to a diverse set of customer base, your team and your investors should also reflect the same. So then only there is a synergy.

So bone broth example is a very good example for two reasons. One, your also addressing the food security and health for people, their own body health, as well as the planet health, because using sustainable products and not having additives and things of that sort. I think that's a great example where you have social, ethical, and environmental purpose all in one startup, and then you also have women angels investing in it.

Now, you have a lot of regulations also when it comes to some of the sectors we spoke about. Regulations are, again, on and off. There are regulations in one market, regulations in another market. The next day, they are very different. There are a lot of cross-border trade wars happening.

How do you manage within your your own angel investing, as well as for the portfolio that you invest in, the changing regulations, and how do you advise them?

How do you help navigate your investors and your portfolio companies?

Gillian Fleming
So at the moment, we're obviously having a lot of board meetings with our portfolio companies, especially around the change in tariffs. But because we're living in a world where we need to be so agile now, we're finding that companies are adapting to this much, much quicker than they would have done pre-pandemic.

So we're seeing companies shift their geographical territory quite quickly and easily in terms of if there's an issue with one particular sector of the world and there's going to be tariffs that perhaps make it more difficult to sell there. But then others are just absorbing the costs of that.

So they've got contingency budgets and they're absorbing those costs. And then in terms of legal and regulatory change, we often find that that's a good reason to invest.

So if there's a real change taking place, which can be converted into an opportunity, and a company is poised,ready to help companies support them with that regulatory change.

So for example, we've invested in a company called Transparently, which is a legal tech platform that enables individuals to own their own case notes if they're involved in any legal case.

And so rather than...

I mean, there are companies out there that provide management of case notes, but they're all written from a lawyer perspective rather than the customer perspective. And there was a change in the law, I think it was just last year in the UK, around being able to own your own case notes. So Transparently, are ahead of the curve.

Their whole entire platform is developed around this new legislation coming in. And it means that lawyers themselves are interested in using this platform because it then makes it easier for them to deal with their clients because they have access to the platform in a different way that other platforms do not provide at the moment.

So they've got a USP already.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, I think that's really great.

Staying ahead of the curve, and especially in this age where privacy and data ownership is so critical. Why wouldn't you want to own your case notes and make it more customer friendly instead of reading the fine print and getting confused about it?

That's a great example of handling these regulatory challenges. Also, at one point you mentioned, the pandemic, really, maybe the silver lining was we are able to adjust to supply chain shocks, tariffs, and cross-border challenges very quickly, now, I believe, than before the pandemic, so that could be one of the outcomes where businesses are more resilient and agile these days.

Now, keeping the tariffs and regulations aside, still, we continue to invest and support startups. In terms of emerging trends, what are you excited most about in any sector?

What are some examples of future-looking trends that your company is interested in investing?

Gillian Fleming
So, one of the most exciting, and underfunded, sectors that we are seeing coming up at the moment is the healthy aging and well-being market, particularly in relation to the built environment. And I think toxicity in homes is becoming a big, big challenge with the rise of cancer, the rise of respiratory diseases.

They're now attributing a lot of this as to what the environments we're actually living in are. And we're actually speaking to a company that we're hoping to invest in who have just developed a new furniture glue that does not use formaldehyde, which is in every single furniture glue, I think, around the world at the moment. And not only does it not use formaldehyde, it also uses waste process from the brewing industry to manufacture this glue.

And these are the...

It's a women-led company. And these are the companies that we are starting to see more of coming through the pipelines And these are the type of companies that we'd really like to support more.

The other big area is companies for longer term degenerative diseases like dementia, making homes more friendly for people that have dementia or Parkinson's, and whether that's design of the layout or the way the furniture is and the coloring, we're starting to see a lot more happening with that, even glasses to help and to use for those patients with those conditions.

I would say there's going to be a huge surgence in those sectors in the next year or two, and that's something that we'd really like to support and back.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, You're totally right, especially when you said about the first startup that's helping with both the air quality, the water quality, and also trying to get into the cutting edge. It's very relevant that the innovation may not be a cutting edge, futuristic technology like a quantum or beyond.

It could be just taking care of human health in terms of good air, good water, and removing microplastics from our environment. It's just human health, especially whenever there is a wildfire in Canada, we have foggy, cloudy air, at least for two days in New York City, and all of us are breathing that orange-ish polluted air.

And it may not be very localized in your own community. It could be far away from any location as well.

So the second example that you also gave, I also see a lot of innovations in FemTech, especially.

So it could be Parkinson's or dementia, but the challenge is also not a lot of research or clinical trials have been done in women and their health care, which means the prescription of medications or treatments is not as customized to different types of body types.

That's also an area that I see quite a lot. It's not about just finding a solution for a degenerative disease, but how can we also customize to different types of people, genders, ethnicities, and things of that. Really great things to be optimistic about, especially for human health and women's health care.

Gillian Fleming
Absolutely.

Bhuva Shakti
Those are trends I also see quite a lot in our investments.

In terms of your investment thesis itself, without sharing any confidential or sensitive data, what are some, let's say, top three things that you look for?

Especially some of these are very early stage startups. In your definition, pre-seed, it could be pre-seed or seed in US, depending on the type of traction and check size. So how do you bet on these startups?

When sometimes they could be capital-intensive, we need upfront investments in operations, manufacturing, or whatever that you're trying to build, right?

So what's your investment thesis like keeping the ROI on the side?

Gillian Fleming
Yeah.

And just by the way, I absolutely agree with everything you said there about FemTech, and that is a sector that we are really keen to support as well.

So what do we look for?

Our public criteria are that they're between 50 and 300K raising, or that's the element that Mint could contribute, so they could be raising more. At least one woman in the...

So a gender lens basically on the founding exec team. It's not just the founders, the exec team, and a clear social, ethical, environmental purpose as well. But what we're really looking for once they come through that initial filter is to back the right types of people.

So I think there's commonality with all our portfolio companies that they are led by a visionary team, a credible and visionary team. And we always say to all all our members that you should only invest in a company with a founder that you would like to go and have a cup of coffee with. And we do encourage them to do that as well.

Or dinner, even better dinner.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, founder fit is very important. It's not the idea that scales. Yeah, definitely.

Gillian Fleming
So it's all about building that trust at the early stage, having that conversation with them, and believing that they have the skill sets to take the company to the vision that they are portraying to us.

And also for them to know, and this is really key for us, that where their skill gaps are. So they know that they can't be everything to everyone, but they have to be able to evaluate themselves, do a SWOT analysis on themselves, and understand where their skill gaps are and where they need to bring people in to support them, even if that person is better at doing it than them. And that's always the tricky bit for founders to realize that they can't do it all and that they need to bring, when they have the funds to do so, bring the right people in.

So they've got to be coachable and mentorable for us to invest. And quite often we will go so far down the due diligence route and then realize through working with the teams that we're not aligned. And if we're not aligned, then there is no point in going any further investing because the worst thing you could have is an unaligned investor. With a leadership team going in a totally different direction. And that's usually what causes the most friction around startup boards.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, definitely.

Because sometimes you may have to pivot depending on what you uncover through your journey. But if the founder is very tied to the idea, it's very difficult to get the investment to scale. Especially, it's not about getting the investment from the investor.

Day one of getting the investment is where your journey starts together. You have to really see how you can be part of the extended team.

In one such example as when over here, we have seen quite a lot where the founders, they are very good in their technology or product or the subject matter that they are trying to solve for, but they also are very keen to building their advisory board to complement and accelerate what they are missing.

I think it's very good to make a people-focused investment on the founder, on the the board, on the team, so that you can weather any environment, politically, economically, globally. Now, I've not...

Go ahead. You had a thought?

Gillian Fleming
I was just going to say, and another thing that we're very conscious of at Mint Ventures is that we would not foist a board member. If we make an investment, it doesn't have to necessarily have a board member going along with it.

We're very happy to share board advisors, board observers, and also to parachute in different members to add their expertise at different points of the company's growth. And that doesn't necessarily have to be on their board. It can just be in a background mentoring type support way.

Bhuva Shakti
That's perfect.

And that's why you have the angel club or your community where people can rely on each other and share expertise across various stages. And then potentially in future, they could get in touch for a longer engagement as well, right?

Now, I've heard you are focused on the Scottish startups. There is also an Irish angel group. There is a Northern Irish angel group. There is one, I've not seen a Welsh one yet.

When you have so many independent angel ecosystems, specifically within the UK and Europe, so how do you uniquely position yourself apart from the regional boundaries, are there things you cross-collaborate with other angel groups within your geography?

Gillian Fleming
We work really closely with the other women-led groups across all the regional geographies, and we invest throughout the whole of the UK.

So regionally, there is an opportunity for co-investment deals as well, and we're actually working on a couple at the moment. But what sets us apart and makes us really different is that we are the only angel group in the UK that has CPD accreditation for our training.

So that means that when members sign up, they can sign up as a training member. They don't have to meet any of the existing angel criteria. And then once they've been through the training program, which takes six months, it's an hour a month online, they can then sign the self-certification form because they have been a member of us for six months.

It's one of the ways into angel investing in the UK, and we're the only group that allows them to do that through CPD, which means they will get points for every module, for every module that they complete from Mint Ventures that can support their professional career as well.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, I think that's really great, especially also you may have years long, decades long corporate experience managing global investments or public markets, but then angel investing is slightly and you're putting your own funds in. It's good to educate them.

For six months, they are able to connect with your community, get educated, and a differentiator where you're certifying them also so they know what they are doing ahead of the game, right?

How does all of this fit with your personal mission?

I mean, Mint Ventures and your personal mission, and there are a lot of synergies.

How do you plan to to elaborate your personal journey in addition to growing Mint Ventures?

How are they together aligned?

Gillian Fleming
You mean my own personal investment journey?

Bhuva Shakti
Yes.

Gillian Fleming
I do invest in a lot of the deals that come through Mint Ventures, not every single one of them, because obviously we go through a process, and it's a decision-making process that involves our board, and therefore it's validated at a number of stages along the way.

But in general, my investment portfolio, I would like to invest in diverse teams, and I will continue to do so. I am market agnostic, so for me, it's really all about building a balanced portfolio in the hope that one of them will come really good further down the line.

But where I get the reward from is actually supporting, helping, and making connections. So even companies that we don't invest in, and I really wish we could invest in more of them, and that is a big issue, what happens to those that don't raise investment, we offer free office hour sessions so they can come and discuss their idea with us, even if they don't get through our process.

And we can offer them introductions, signposting, and they might well be that they come back. They're too early, so they come back at a later stage. Sometimes some of our members also volunteer to take on the mentoring of individual companies until they're at the right stage.

But that's the most rewarding bit, to be honest, is the supporting, helping, having that knowledge base and making use of it, because we've all got a knowledge base here in our brains, and being able to use that and help others is the biggest part of angel investing for me.

Bhuva Shakti
Yeah, no, definitely.

I think your personal investment journey and Mint Ventures, they are totally aligned. And that doesn't mean you have to invest in every venture, but also you're always available for any startup that comes through your network.

So we spoke about a differentiator with your community where you have the CPD accreditation for investors to learn more about the journey and then get started, de-risk themselves and their understanding to a little bit. But what differentiates you also from a founder perspective?

There could be so many other opportunities or options for them. What attracts founders or startup to your venture, especially when in early stage, they don't have a lot of traction?

How do you get connected from the founder perspective?

Gillian Fleming
I think, I mean, we've got an online application process, but we know all the accelerator programs in the UK. So we're regularly on judging panels and supporting and helping founders through advice sessions, whether it's on the judging panel or it's on our office hours.

But I think what attracts founders to come to Mint is that they are really aligned with our overall ethos of making angel investment more accessible. And what we do to support founders is that we have a whole section on our website that they can go and use those resources to understand how to get into the mindset of an investor. And it's a huge steep learning curve for them.

So we also have all the legal documents that are available on our website because we want to be as transparent and open and supportive as possible. So even before they approach us, they can go download the legal documents that they'll ultimately sign up to, and they're all written in easy relatable terms.

We've tried to de-legalese all the documents so that they really understand what they're signing up to before they even put all that effort and work into trying to raise angel investments. So it's the accessibility. And I think that's really the relatable accessibility and the understanding of how difficult it is for teams to raise finance.

And also the other thing is that we do not insist that they pitch, and so we leave that over to them. They make the decision if they want to pitch or not. They can just come and have a Q&A with us online. And it's just, we say, a getting to know you session.

And at the moment, there is far too much focus on pitching as being the way to achieving funding.

Actually, I think we need to fix the investment side. We don't need to fix the founders.

I think we need to change how the system works.

And we've just launched a new project, actually, to try this out. It's called Board 180. And what we're doing is we're setting up two pre-investment boards to link together founders with investors and to get that critical feedback to save them having to do 20 pitches to get that feedback, and then open doors for them and save time on both sides.

Because, effectively, it will shorten the due diligence process, and it might also bring new women into investing because we find that many advisors do ultimately become investors. And this would be a way of educating them how they become an angel as well and short-circuiting that entire process and flipping it on its head.

Bhuva Shakti
No, definitely.

I think in both scenarios, both for your investment community as well as for your founding community, I think transparency and trust are two things that stand out.

So trying to be as transparent as possible and building that trust. So it becomes a relationship into an investor founder and an advisor capacity, not necessarily pitching. So pitching can get you practice, not necessarily investments.

And thanks for sharing your Board 180 option also, because the whole goal of trying to pitch is to to get through to the investors to have that first due diligence meeting. But if you are doing it 20 times incorrectly with missing information, then it's not helping you. That's an easy way for founders to also fast track their funding journey.

Thanks for sharing all of that, Gillian. We'll also share it with our community.

I know time is coming up, so I just wanted to check in with you to see if there is anything else you'd like to share with our community of startups, investors, and executives before we wrap up today.

Gillian Fleming
Thanks so much, Bhuva.

I think the final thing that we didn't cover is that we do very much welcome investors that live out with the UK, and we are keen to see more people investing in startups in the UK, so they don't necessarily have to live there. And we work with a tax partner that can facilitate all of that if anyone's interested.

And we will be having sessions on LinkedIn that will advertise around... It's just information sessions around angel investing and the types of companies that we invest in.

Bhuva Shakti
No, that's perfect also because especially now diversifying in and out of US or UK or Europe, globally trying to invest in emerging sectors and markets is also becoming very prominent among a lot of investors, not only angels. I think it's a trend everywhere.

Thanks for also providing the tax and other advisory support because if someone is doing angel investing in a foreign country, they don't have to go through the hassle of figuring out, Okay, how do I handle tax across borders?

That's a real great help from your team, I think. I also attended one of your sessions, so it's really informational for me as well. I learned a lot as well that day.

Thanks so much, Gillian, for taking time. I'm really excited share your expertise with my network as well. Then I look forward to connecting with you whenever you come back to New York next time. Thanks so much.

Gillian Fleming
Thank you.