How Baltic Ventures is driving success for regional founders using SeedLegals
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For this new entrepreneur, raising funding was a step into the unknown. SeedLegals helped guide Tom and his team through the process and close a £80k round in four months, saving My Road To Wembley thousands in legal fees.
The elevator pitch 🚀
My Road To Wembley is home of the “Road to Wembley Challenge”, incentivising communities across the country to attend every round of the tournament from their doorstep team to the final at Wembley.
In essence the platform is a database of football teams invited to the FA Cup. Its mission is to rebalance the football economy and spread vital revenue across the English football pyramid.
The company was created when its founder Tom Nicolson wondered: “Wouldn’t it be incredible to see smaller grounds packed to the rafters, bringing more revenue to grassroots football?” It launched in 2021.
The challenge: Closing a round of funding with no prior experience 🤔
When founder Tom Nicolson began work on his round-hopping lockdown project, he didn’t initially expect to raise money and grow it as a business.
“I always knew there was potential in the idea,” says Tom. “I just didn’t think I’d be looking to raise funding to launch it as a business so soon.”
So when it came to fundraising, Tom faced a challenge.
“I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know what documents I needed to get things set up legally. And I was worried that investors would think I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Thankfully, this didn’t stop one investor from giving him a helping hand.
“One of my early investors highly recommended using SeedLegals,” says Tom. “So I looked into it, thought the fees seemed more than reasonable, gave it a go and wow – it was just fantastic! Everything was so clear and intuitive, I was able to do a lot by myself. And at times when I needed a hand, the support team was just excellent.”
How SeedLegals helped 🌱
1. SEIS setup
The UK government offers a range of financial support to help startups get off the ground, including the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) which offers tax relief to investors.
“I knew registering for SEIS would be important if I wanted to get investors on board,” says Tom. “But I didn’t have a clue how to get approved.”
Fortunately, our online platform makes it easy to set up SEIS – even for those who’ve never done it before, and our reputation in this area is unparalleled.
100% of all SEIS applications made through SeedLegals have been successful. In contrast, just 49% of DIY applications get approved.
“One of the great things about SeedLegals is that it covers everything a startup needs to raise funding. All the documents are there. So it was really just a case of selecting the SEIS template and answering a few questions to generate the forms. The SeedLegals experts then go through the application in depth to guide you through. With their help, I was able to get SEIS approved in just 15 days!”
Like the rest of the platform, the process follows simple, intuitive steps, with experts on hand to help you where you need, and to thoroughly check your application and help make sure it is foolproof before it goes off to HMRC.
“I think we were confident that our application had a good chance of being approved, given SeedLegals’ record. But we still celebrated when we found out!”
2. A dedicated Investment Expert to guide you through the process
The SeedLegals platform is so simple and intuitive to use that you can choose the level of service you need based on your experience.
“The software is just brilliant and really easy to use,” says Tom. “It takes you through everything step-by-step.”
But we also consider our human support team a crucial part of the service. So every customer gets their own Investment Expert. They’re on hand to answer any questions and they have a wealth of data to help you understand the terms and their implications for your business, investor comments, and what are standard and non-standard requests.
“Being new to fundraising, I did have a few questions. So it was reassuring to have Jemima, my Investment Expert, on hand to help. I was quite surprised how available they were, to be honest! It was really reassuring. The combination of automation and the human element was just fantastic.”
3. Expertise and experience with first time rounds
Most startup founders are doing it for the first time. So most have also never applied for SEIS Advanced Assurance, or raised investment before. That’s where our expertise becomes valuable.
“It was evident that the SeedLegals team knew what they were doing with the funding round,” says Tom. “That was incredibly reassuring.”
As a result of our expertise, 30-50% of all SEIS investment has been raised through SeedLegals – so we truly are experts in first time rounds.
We have the data to back up what terms are standard, what to do when you receive non-standard requests, and how to communicate with your investors and get things moving. Our transparent pricing model with unlimited support means you can ask all those little questions to make sure you are 100% comfortable with all the terms, without costly back and forth between lawyers over minor details.
The impact: Getting ready to kick things off next season ⚽
My Road To Wembley closed its £80k round in just four months, thanks to SeedLegals.
“We’re up and running!” says Tom. “We’ve got big plans to grow, so we’re going to get research and development going to make sure our platform’s even better for next season.”
And there’s a big opportunity ahead of them – nearly half the UK population are football fans, according to the Premier League.
“Millions of people tune in to watch the later stages of the Cup, but there’s huge support for the smaller clubs who compete in the earlier rounds too. One of our big goals is to step up our following to reach these people and encourage a new generation of roundhoppers to grow year on year.”
My Road to Wembley is designed to help clubs connect with their local communities and boost their attendances.
Tom has a clear vision, and even now he’s thinking much further ahead than next season.
“We’re likely to do another pre-seed round before our full seed round next year,” says Tom. “If things go well, we’ll be looking to raise our Series A with the help of SeedLegals in 2024.”
Check out their website here 👉 https://www.myroadtowembley.com/
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