Serkan Ferah 🌈

Native

Revolutionising audience engagement and growth for brands and communities using gamification.

Founder

PitchSpace

Saving investment readiness professionals and founders up to 4 weeks in fundraising by automating their pitches. CONTACT FOR WHITELABEL

APARI

Apari is a start-up that makes tax doable for self-employed using technology.

Advisor

Fit for Work

Fit for Work app improves Health, Safety and Wellbeing of workers on site. The app is helping companies to adapt to the threat of COVID-19 and the changing landscape that it creates.

Advisor, Brand & Marketing

Serkan Ferah

I am a branding and pitching expert helping you create an attractive business.

- I've been involved in over 50 start-up investment and crowdfunding campaigns and advised over 70 companies in pitch production at accelerators.

- 98% of the businesses I have worked with have secured funding and achieved sustainable growth, and more than half of the crowdfunding campaigns I have been involved with have beaten their targets for funds raised.

- My client portfolio is dominated by technology start-ups that I've helped with their branding, pitching, design and marketing communication strategies both in the UK and the US.

- I've worked with brands like Aston Martin, Maserati and Abarth in their global brand licensing projects.

Branding & Pitching Expert

TribeFirst

TribeFirst is a marketing communications agency that specialises in startups and growth companies looking to raise money.

Creative Advisor

OokiApp

Ooki is an upcoming fintech start-up with an aim to solve the fragmentation issue of consumer fintech bringing all currency accounts and transactions together, automating financial decisions and educating people in personal finance.

As an advisor, I am helping Damon, the founder, and the team with branding and marketing strategy as well as differentiating the product through its look and feel.

Advisor - Branding & Marketing

Beyzacases for ASTON MARTIN, MASERATI and ABARTH

Beyzacases was the global licensee of established brands in luxury mobile accessory market.
-	Project management and new project development
-	Development of marketing plans, expansion strategy and communication models
-	Determining the work assignments of whole project team and follow up 
-	Design of presentations and making presentations to licensors and board members
-	Stakeholders relationship management (licensors, manufacturers and buyers)
-	Delivery of market research reports and monthly sales reports to board

Marketing & Business Development Consultant

Bamgaga

A company selling kids & moms products in A & A+ segment both in digital and physical store.
- development of business model and preparation of business plan
- development of marketing plan and strategy
- management of product and brand portfolio
- management of relationships with brands and product providers
- design of visual communication strategy
- setting content strategy for web and social media
- development of content plan and marketing calendar
- management of design team and social media team

Business Development & Marketing Management Contractor

Catodon Yachts

Catadon Yachts was a luxury yacht brand owned by a large group operating in maritime.
-	Design & Development of brand, strategy and business plan
-	Stakeholders relationship management (agency, contractors and buyers) 
-	Budgeting and development of projects
-	Team management and determining the work loads
-	Development of sales channels

Business & Brand Consultant

Founder @ Native | Gamified Audience Engagement | Join the Waitlist

Building Gamification APIs and Services with a vision to create the most powerful plug-and-play technology for consumer habit formation.

Our mission from the start has been to enable people to communicate effectively and build meaningful relationships in business.

We launched our automated pitch builder in July 2021 as a gateway product for startups and now working on our actual product that will change the future of economic relationships using gamification.

👉 Gained 1800+ organic users as of March 2023

👉 Have been generating revenue since Dec'22

👉 98% organic growth, @2.5 CAC and 10% average MoM growth rate

👉 Partnered with Virgin Startups, Swoop Funding, Digital Catapult and BlockDojo

FundingHero

Simplifying the startup fundraising process for technology startups

Connected Places Catapult

Providing programme mentorship for cohort members as a CFO and investment advice to raise external funding to scale up.

HS2 Accelerator Programmme Mentor: CFO & Funding Expert

FoAM Accelerator Programmme Mentor: CFO & Funding Expert

The Startup Fundraising MBA

Proud Author ✍️ of The Startup Fundraising MBA and creator of The 6 Pillars of Fundraising showing founders how to secure millions in funding from Idea stage to Series A. Available via Amazon.com

Author The Startup Fundraising MBA

Founder + Lightning

Creating and delivering the scale up strategy for ucreate to achieve their mission to build tech founders ideas into successful businesses, quicker, better, stronger.

CFO & Board advisor

Growthpreneur

Financial expertise guiding your scale up business success www.growthpreneur.co.uk

CFO & Founder

Aspiring Point Group

BrewBroker

Fourpure Brewing Co.

- Responsible for managing the commercial aspects at Fourpure. Covering areas such as pricing 
  strategy, cost control & optimisation, owner of contract services, investment appraisal, managing 
  planning for operations and general business guidance. 
- Providing M&A advisory and due diligence expertise
- Member of Senior Leadership team directing the business strategy and operations.

Commercial Director

Responsible for growing, developing and managing the finance function with FOURPURE BREWING whilst on its exciting journey with an absolutely brilliant team of people. Inspired by adventure.....

Finance Director

Six Degrees Group

Group Finance Director

Head of Finance Managed Data Services

Head of Commercial Pricing

I was recruited into an extremely fast paced and time constrained environment in a new position made to oversee the management accounts, forecasting and budgeting production. 

My immediate objective was to stabilise, motivate and develop the finance team following a very difficult merger (the business doubled to £55m T/O). 

I was required to review the complex business model for all current accounting practices and make the team work smarter, provide more accurate, relevant information and develop the bespoke IT system to deliver better reporting outputs.

Chief Accountant

With 2 exits & over 20 acquisitions I'm an experienced CFO, Angel investor & Founder of Tech platform FundingHero.co.uk 

My focus is on helping Tech Startups raising funding from Initial Seed to Series A. 

My Angel investments are into a Venture Builder & Studio which has a portfolio of over 20+ startups and most recently into a data driven AI matchmaking platform for early stage venture funds.

I provide advice for advisor equity to early stage companies, my value & experience helps founders;

- Stop them burning huge sums of money by avoiding hugely costly mistakes early on.
- Define a powerful commercial strategy that lets then get to revenue quickly and be more investable
- Create realistic financial models that make sense and get founders funded
- Help them understand how to build a company towards an exit with a real strategic focus 
  
My platform & consultancy FundingHero.co.uk focuses on simplifying the startup fundraising process. 

My career has been focused on delivering shareholder value in high growth platforms. 

Founder + Lightning:	Successfully raising £2.4m in Angel & Venture debt for growth
Fourpure Brewing Co:. 	Exit to Multi national trade, rapid growth & high exit revenue multiple.
Six Degrees Group. 	Buy & Build, 15 acquisitions. Sold to PE, double digit EBITDA exit. 

I enjoy playing a strategic role in the business towards engineering an exit whilst being very hands on running the day to day to ensure the team is aligned and all working towards creating a highly scalable & valuable business. 

My strengths are in financial modelling & commercial strategy, coupled with understanding the reality of how businesses operate and scale. This enables me to quickly show a range of scenarios so founders can make informed decisions to execute their businesses plans successfully.   

Over 20+ years experience covering;

- Fundraising equity & debt
- Strategic exits to PE & Trade 
- Execute high organic growth strategies
- 20+ Acquisitions & mergers from DD to Integration
- IT systems design & Integration
- Finance function build & centralisation
- Business restructuring
- Financial modelling & analysis

Jim Shirley

🚨 Before You Pitch to a Single VC… Ask Yourself One Question

“Am I actually raising the right type of money?”

I see this every week…

A brilliant founder and early traction but stuck in a 6–12 month grind because they chased VCs before they understood what VCs are built to fund.

And the cost isn’t just frustration.

It’s lost time, lost momentum, and missed opportunities to grow while you were stuck in inbox purgatory.

Here’s the reality nobody tells founders early enough:

💡 VCs don’t fund just potential. 

They are looking for the best of the best of the best 😎

They are looking for that select few that sit in the 0.5% of companies they chose to back. 

If your stage, revenue model, team, market size or traction don’t match the VC template, it doesn’t matter how good the pitch deck looks.
You're simply in the wrong queue. 😩

But once you understand the VC mindset, what they prioritise, how they filter deals, and what signals matter,  the whole fundraising journey becomes 10x clearer and the type of money suitable for you.

That’s exactly why we’re running this session 👇

📢 Inside the VC Mindset: Raising Smarter, Raising Bigger

Free webinar — still time to register

📅 Wednesday 26 November 2025
⏰ 12.30pm – 1.30pm
🎤 Speakers:
• Jim Shirley, FundingHero  
• Lewis Stringer, British Business Bank
• Hannah Tapsell Chapman - Mercia Ventures, Mercia Ventures
🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eWAVtDqS

We’ll break down:

👉 How VCs assess a deal in the first 3 minutes
👉 What they look for that angels may not
👉 The real signals behind traction and team
👉 How due diligence actually works at the institutional level
👉 What founders must do 3–6 months BEFORE raising

If you’re building something innovation-led and raising £500k–£3m, you cannot afford to guess this stuff.

Spend one hour now 🎯
Save six months later. 💪

#Startups #Founders #fundraising #venture capital #vc #tech

Author ✍️ The Startup Fundraising MBA | Helping Founders Successfully Fundraise & Scale | Founder FundingHero.co.uk

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Serkan Ferah 🌈

Jim Shirley

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taplio

The Battle

Serkan Ferah 🌈

Jim Shirley

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jim Shirley's LinkedIn Performance

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