Sam Simpson

You're seeking that all-important funding to catapult you to the next level.

YET despite how motivated you are and how good your business idea is, you may still struggle to…

▫️ Get funding because of the advance assurance needed
▫️ Afford the production of expensive legal paperwork
▫️ Know-how to find those elusive investors.

Simplifying and accelerating the early-stage investment legal journey, FounderCatalyst is the ONLY affordable fixed price method of funding round legals for start-ups.

WHO WE HELP
Pre-incorporation to start-ups in England & Wales that want expert AND affordable help with SEIS & EIS and the legal process and documentation required to complete their funding journey. 

3 WAYS WE HELP
1. Apply for SEIS & EIS advance assurance
2. Produce all legal funding round paperwork and manage investor engagement
3. Introduce start-ups to possible sources of funding.

Enjoy the relief all of the legal paperwork you need in as little as 30 minutes and your investor engagement managed through the process.  

PROOF WE HELP
✅  Complete fixed price service per funding round just £1,495 +vat
✅  99% success rate for advance assurance
✅  Legal paperwork produced in just 30 minutes.

YOUR NEXT STEP
Haven’t yet got your funding legals sorted and you’re determined to give your start-up the best and most affordable chance of success?

Book a chat at https://calendly.com/sam-fc/meet

Thanks for viewing my profile.

Sam

"Founders seeking to raise equity finance - use this service! It’s simple to use, reliable & secure, & provides unrivalled value for money. You're in complete control of your fundraising process & timescales." Jules & Charlie, Founders, The Nue Co

FREE RESOURCES
Because we’re here to help start-ups, we offer the following for free:

✅  SEIS/EIS advance assurance submission
✅  Customised Term Sheet
✅  Template Forecast Models
✅  Founder Collaboration Agreements

Visit: foundercatalyst.com to find out more and access the freebies.

SPECIALITIES: Start-up, Startup, Start Up Funding, Funding Round, Funding, Investment, Investor, Investor Engagement, Angel Investor, SEIS, EIS

Co-Founder and CCO

Forge Technologies is a digital IT services business focusing on three technology pillars; Future workplace, Cloud optimisation and Network transformation. Forge has no legacy infrastructure that it needs to deliver returns against; no costly office space, external investors or banking covenants and unencumbered from legacy working practices that have to be turned on their head to adapt to new working practices.

Within Forge Technologies, I am responsible for all aspects of commercial and back office services.

The most anticipated day of the year is here – “The Deal 2026” has been released by our friends at Beauhurst.  Hat tip to Henry Whorwood and team

Here are the headline UK funding trends at a glance.

2025 vs 2024:
📉⁠ ⁠Deal numbers down by 7.87%
📈 ⁠Total capital raised up by 3.43% (£800m more deployed)
⬆️ ⁠Average deal size up by 12.6%
🥇⁠ ⁠First-time fundraises up by 23.6%

Overall summary: Fewer deals but more capital per deal and more new companies entering the market.

Stage trends:
👉 ⁠Seed and Venture: Deal counts have softened compared with recent peaks, but remain above pre-2020 levels.
🐢⁠ ⁠Venture: Shows the clearest slowdown in activity.
📈⁠ ⁠Growth: Average deal size dropped (from ~£25.9m to ~£18.6m), indicating more caution in later-stage rounds.
💰Average seed valuation has softened notably, from £2.45m in 2023 to £2.04m in 2025. Though the % drop is not as crazy as growth (down from £27.2m in 2021 to £18.6m in 2025)

Sector trends:
🤖⁠ ⁠AI leads in both number of deals and total capital raised.
☁️⁠ ⁠Cloud computing ranks among the lowest by deal volume and capital raised.

Takeaway:  The fundraising market has become more selective, there are fewer rounds but larger average cheques, more first-time founders raising and strong concentration in AI.

Want to know more? Link in the comments?

Want to know how FounderCatalyst (the most cost effective, fastest growing and highest rated fund raising platform in the UK) can support your funding round?  Drop me a message 👏

Serial Entrepreneur, Board Advisor ▫️ Founder at FounderCatalyst, the ONLY affordable fixed price method of funding round legals for start-ups ▫️ CCO at Forge Technologies

💡 Planning your fundraise for the end of the UK tax year but not sure where to start?  Let’s fix that! 

🚀 Fundraising & S/EIS

I’m excited to be teaming up with Manchester Digital for a live session where I’ll be breaking down how founders can approach fundraising with confidence.

In this practical, no-fluff webinar, I’ll walk you through the full funding landscape - from grants and debt to equity - and help you understand which route is right for your business. I’ll also demystify SEIS and share insider tips to help you get the most out of this powerful scheme.

You’ll learn:
✔️ Funding options: Grants vs Debt vs Equity
✔️ Understanding equity types: Angels, VCs, and Crowdfunding
✔️ The benefits of SEIS for founders and investors
✔️ Advance assurance: why it matters and how to get it
✔️ SEIS myths, secrets, and practical tips
✔️ Live Q&A + useful resources

🗓️ Tuesday, 21 January 2026

🕛 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (UK Time)

💻 Online Webinar

👉 Save your spot now: https://lnkd.in/eJcsti_f

#Fundraising #SEIS #EIS #StartupFunding #FounderCatalyst #StartupWebinar #InvestorReady

On Friday 23rd January at midday, we are starting the first in a series of 6 webinars to kickoff the 2026 fundraising season. You can expect a practical, founder-focused session designed to help you turn early traction into a business investors want to back.

Hosted by myself (FounderCatalyst) and Hatty Fawcett from Focused For Business in this no-fluff hour we’ll go back to basics and help you assess your investor readiness, strengthen your foundations, and avoid the common mistakes that stop founders from raising early-stage capital:

✅ What investors actually look for in early-stage startups
✅ How to position your story and metrics to attract serious investor interest
✅ The most common gaps that derail fundraising (and how to fix them early) 
✅ How SEIS/EIS can make your round more attractive to UK investors, and why it pays to get Advance Assurance in place early

Secure your FREE spot here: https://luma.com/iqm7b745

Very proud that FounderCatalyst supported Saleem Yaqub and the Shoutt team with their recent close of >£500k from SFC Capital and others.

The unique FounderCatalyst model meant that Shoutt paid a fixed fee of just £1,495+vat - less than a third of the price of the (more expensive, lower Trustpilot rated) "market leader".  

Thinking of fundraising?  Lets talk 🤙

Co-Founder @ Shoutt | Freelance smarter with AI

Today we announced our £525k pre-seed round with SFC Capital and angels.

But this didn’t start with a pitch deck or a funding round.

Multiple pivots. And countless hours spent manually checking hundreds of websites and sifting through thousands of opportunities to understand the market and train our models. 

Shoutt is an always-on AI agent that finds and delivers highly relevant gigs to freelancers from across the web. 

Jonathan Eadie and I come from different backgrounds, tech and non-tech, and that combination has turned out to be one of our biggest advantages. Different lenses. Better decisions.

A few key learnings:
• Neither of us could have done this alone. Great companies are built in partnership
• Your first hires matter more than almost anything else (character over CV) 
• Persistence compounds, every failure gets you one step closer

Freelancers deserve independence, freedom, and tools that work for them. Not being reliant on a few big players that extract value, waste time, or flood them with junk.

A huge thanks to everyone who backed us early, challenged us, and believed in us.

We’re excited to continue to push the frontier of applied AI in helping freelancers globally with their independence, success and freedom. 🚀

Full details in comments below.

🚨 Free 60-min Session | Funding Options for Growth

Raising funds but not sure which route makes the most sense right now?

Join me (FounderCatalyst) and the awesome Ciaran Burke from Swoop for a high-impact session on how grants, growth-friendly debt, and equity investment can support your next stage of growth.

You’ll learn:
 ✔️ Which option fits your business right now
 ✔️ Key pros/cons of grants vs debt vs equity
 ✔️ What to prepare before you raise
 ✔️ Live Q&A

👉 Save your spot: https://lnkd.in/eWtmeerh

#Fundraising #StartupFunding #Grants #DebtFinance

🚨 Less than 1 week to go!

If you’re planning to offer equity, make sure your option scheme is set up properly from day one. I’m running a practical session on EMI and unapproved option schemes, with clear steps and real-world guidance.

Join us for:
✔️ Scheme setup
✔️ EMI valuations
✔️ Vesting design
✔️ Compliance essentials
✔️ Live Q&A
👉 Save your place: https://lnkd.in/e3bYKA5H

#EquityIncentives #EMI #StartupEquity #FounderCatalyst #EmployeeOptions

Investing in high growth pre-seed startups. 

Dan heads up investments into new companies at Solid Bond which invests £150k-£500k into UK based pre-seed tech/ tech enabled startups.

Dan Dudley

What makes pre-seed such a difficult stage (and why so much of UK venture waits till seed) is the reality that the founders have to almost do everything.

You often don't have the money to spend it on ramping up tech, the founders have to fundraise, sell, account manage, track cash, find market fit and yes while all those things are easier in a smaller company, it can be so easy to lose pace or focus on making you need to go and close the next round of funding. 

Takes massive energy to do this well.

Pre-seed Investor at Solid Bond | Actively Investing | Finance and Commercial Director |

One of the key fractional hires to get in earlier than later for startups is a good CFO. 

A CFO is not your accountant or bookkeeper. I've seen way too many startups hire £100k+ FD's only to realise pretty soon that that FD also needs a bookkeeper/ management accountant to do the accounts work and all of a sudden you have a massive cost for a small business. 

When your business is still really simple, simple invoicing and costs then you can get by with a decent firm of accountants. 

A good fractional CFO will help you do some of the following:

- Cash flow management
- Financial modeling
- Margin analysis
- Build up your core finance team
- Review banking arrangements
- Support on securing more capital (equity/ debt)
- Prep for DD/ transactions

More businesses could do with a really commercially focused finance mind in as soon as they can afford it. I've seen it add tonnes of value, particually when the business is early enough to avoid painful mistakes later. 

#startups #venturecapital #preseed #fractionalCFO #founders

I'll be the first one to praise the UK for the SEIS and EIS investment schemes. They genuinely do more good than bad, particularly at attracting retail money into early stage companies. 

However, many SEIS rounds will close with the c. £250k limit but that often leaves them undercapitalised to make the progress needed to unlock the next wave of funding. If your £250k round doesn't get to launch and £250k ARR at least then it's easy to fall into this space. 

It leaves a lot of business in this awkward in-between stage. Not having enough runway to get the revenue traction to unlock seed investors, valuation expectation and lack of SEIS now precluding a lot of angels from joining certainly makes closing another round at pre-seed increasingly difficult. 

Makes it so important to plan how you get there with the funding you close at pre-seed. Raising another pre-seed might not be as easy as the 1st time you did it.

Seeing a lot of founders either using or pitching to raise using ASA's as their main instrument. We've even had a few at Solid Bond. that have closed with this as part of their round, so wanted to write a bit to explain when they are best to use. 

ASA is the UK's SAFE, with a couple of small differences.

In short it is a agreement to invest now and purchase equity in the future. It isn't debt, it is a structured agreement to buy equity in the next round, usually at a discount for coming in early. 

If you don't close enough in a priced round within a certain period of time then the investment converts at a pre-determined price for those ASA investors. 

If you are going to preserve S/EIS then HMRC dictates it needs to be issued into shares within 6 months of investment. This is the major issue with them - you cannot use them as a round, it pretty much reduces them essentially to a bridging instrument. You could use them outside of this is you are okay with the "backstop" valuation or the pre-agreed valuation but it isn't usually how people use them. 

I've found the most common use case is to close enough on an ASA to secure enough runway to close out the seed and you literally have to be running both processes at the same time. Can be a great tool if used right but it's important to know when they should be used.

Customer service is going to be one of the biggest disrupted industries because of AI. 

The number of startups we see now who are "AI Receptionist" or "AI Customer Service Agents" has grown loads over the last 6 months. 

The reality is some of their platforms are actually great as well. We will see an explosion of front line agents with high quality integrations to a few core systems in niche verticals. They can just serve their needs and build the workflows for that niche vertical so well. Not convinced they can all raise money but there are some ace bootstrapped businesses in this group that'll form over the next 12-18 months. 

One of Solid Bond.'s portfolio companies, Answer Ai has seen loads of it's retailers realise 90%+ support automation for Shopify ecommerce/ fashion retailers. It's a big market but you can see that AI, with great workflows built around it will literally end most customer service roles as we know them.

#startups #venturecapital #preseed

Having a super deep understanding of your market, the buyers, ICP (well thought through/ proven), budget holders, other systems in use, barriers, indirect competitors/ workarounds etc. adds massive credibility when you're raising money. 

So clear to see when someone knows this and and when they use some McKinsey top down market sizing stat. 

#Startups #Preseed #Founders #VentureCapital

Had a great conversation with one of Solid Bond.'s founders recently about the state of AI in 2026. Same message is what I am hearing across the industry as well.

The foundational models are genuinely good enough now and the issue now sits in the application layer. This has totally changed in the last 12 months and the realisation is that great product is what will drive the next wave of agents and deliver on the automation we thought we'd start to see. 

I am sure they'll be a lot of improvement in models to come with the sheer about of capital going into compute over the next 5 years, but right now for a lot of applications it is the product/ tuning of agents that is a big opportunity.

I'm vibe coding a data platform for Solid Bond. to massively speed up our investment process, deep research and IM writing linking our systems together and I can see when Replit is handing over to "sub-agents" like the "architect" to perform a specialist task and then use that output to continue. 

Building sub-agents and better product is what's needed now, not significant changes to the quality of the models.

Interested to know what some of the best use cases venture funds are seeing for AI in their internal process and what platforms are being used. 

Any insights? 

#venturecapital #startups #preseed #seriesA

Can't wait to try Claude CoWork (always last to come to Windows!!)

This year will be massive for AI chat apps becoming proper workflow tools.

I think we'll see a section in them - similar to how Projects work now - where you can build automations across desktop and cloud apps just by describing what you want in natural language.

This used to be reserved for RPA specialist software and businesses that could afford the implementation. But it's coming to everyone pretty soon.

The barrier to automating repetitive work is dropping. It'll be a precursor to being able to set outcome-based automations where the route to automating it won't be a rigid process.

Feels like this will live in your AI chat apps.

taplio

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