Pre-meeting criteria

Customer Focus

Management Team

Is your team, driven, coachable, and willing to cede some control and decision-making authority to outside investors? We want to see an established credible team within a UK registered and operated business.

Market size and growth rate

Is your target market large and growing? Can your chosen segment(s) enable the creation of a sizeable business? We want to see a realistic market greater than £100m.

While the dynamics of each investment will vary, Oxford Venture Angels typically evaluate early-stage investment opportunities according to the following broad criteria:

Do you have an identifiable market segment? Is there a demonstrable and significant demand for your proposed solution? We have a preference for B2B companies. We want to see science and engineering-based tools or technology, ideally that are proprietary and IP-rich.

P I T C H D E C K M U S T - H A V E S

Have you identified all potential competitors? Do you understand your company’s differentiation points? What barriers to entry will help your company to maintain a competitive advantage? We want to see clear differentiation from competitors, ideally driven by defensible Intellectual Property.

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Competition

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Sales strategy

Can your chosen segment(s) enable the creation of a sizeable business? We understand that sales may take some time in deeptech and healthcare verticals.

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Profit potential

Can you demonstrate how high margins (15%+) and consistent cash flow growth will be achieved?

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Capital requirements

Do you require between £250k and £1.5m to finance growth activities, including product development, recruiting key staff, launching sales and marketing activity?

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Financial projections

Have you developed reasonable financial projections - including an income statement, cash flow and balance sheet and supporting spreadsheets - based on logical, realistic assumptions?

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Exit strategy

Do you have a clear exit strategy that will enable angel investors to generate a return of at least ten times their initial investment within five to seven years, or five times their investment in two to three years?

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Have you developed a comprehensive business plan that articulates your key business strategies for how you will grow your venture?

Business plan

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Sector Focus

Oxford Venture Angels focus on early-stage companies with a focus on technology. Sectors of interest include (but are not exclusive to) Deeptech, Cyber Security, Defence Tech, Health Tech, Biotech, and Spacetech. Each investment opportunity that gets introduced to us will be reviewed by OVA’s advisory panel, made up of world-renowned experts in their respective sectors, to determine suitability, before being offered an opportunity to pitch to OVA members.

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