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Courting the business success stories of tomorrow

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Leading Thames Valley law firm B P Collins has thrown its weight behind a new venture designed to help entrepreneurs get their business ideas off the ground.

Launched last month (October) microFunding is a web-based marketplace which aims to put inventors in touch both with managers who have the proven skills and experience to help drive a project forward; and with business angels who have the funding and motivation to turn ideas into reality.

David Stanning, corporate and commercial partner at Gerrards Cross-based B P Collins, is closely involved with the project.

“Often on programmes such as Dragon’s Den, we see people who have great inventions but no business plan and no real idea of whether or not the product could become a commercial success,” he said.

“All entrepreneurs recognise that the chances of success are quite limited, but where the microFunding project helps is by acting as a filtration process to test the commercial viability of ideas and set some early business objectives to help determine whether or not they are likely to succeed.”

The project is the brainchild of Maidenhead-based Chris Clegg (formerly Thames Valley regional director of Beer and Partners) and B P Collins has teamed up with six other organisations to provide support.

Stanning and his legal colleagues will be focusing on helping entrepreneurs ensure all the necessary legal paperwork is in order, such as heads of agreement between founding partners, proof of concept documentation, investment agreements between inventors and investors, assignment of intellectual property rights etc.

“We have invested a great deal of time in this project because we believe it is important to support the entrepreneurial community and work with people such as investors,” added Stanning. “We all hope that it will encourage inventors to come forward with their concepts and use microFunding to discover whether their project has a real chance of success.”

A three-part process helps identify the winners from the also-rans. Entrepreneurs first have to submit their idea to the microFunding team for analysis and, if it passes that hurdle, they will be invited to take it forward to the proof of concept stage.

This includes testing the commercial viability, investigating the potential marketplace in more depth, and looking at key components such as ownership of intellectual property rights.

To help fund the cost of this second stage process, the microFunding team makes introductions to business angels for funding up to £25,000 and to a project manager to oversee progress.

If, after this, the idea gets the green light, then the investors are invited to invest further to take the project to market or, if they are unwilling to do so, the opportunity may be opened up to others.

Being involved in early stage businesses is something which Stanning feels particularly strongly about. He believes in the mentoring concept to help people at a time when they are so focused on their business that they lack the time or the spare capital to pay for professional advice.

“Our track record shows we have clients today who we supported in the early days of their business. As they have become successful they have stayed with us because they valued the support and the relationship at a time when they really needed it,” he added.

“We’re showing a real willingness to help people in a practical way in circumstances where they can’t afford to pay at this stage for professional advice and I’m hoping that will pay off in the long term.”