Raising Seed & Series A: Accelerate your Growth

The Mayor’s International Business Programme, together with our partners KPMG, Taylor Wessing and Wilson Sonsini, are inviting you to an in-depth discussion on fundraising, covering the fundraising landscape, as we head towards 2021, for companies who are looking to raise Seed or Series A funding.

The event will cover topics such as:

💸 The fundraising landscape as 2020 draws to a close

💸 What should you keep in mind when preparing to raise funds

💸 The do's and don’ts of fundraising

💸 The US perspective

💸 Learnings from the frontline

💸 What are investors looking for?

High-level Agenda:

• 2.55pm: Session opens
• 3.00pm: Welcome and introduction
• 3:02pm: Overview of the fundraising landscape
• 3.10pm: Fundraising discussion and panel Q&A
• 3.50pm: Networking & peer-to-peer discussion
• 4.05pm: Fireside chat with Jason Foster, Founder of Ori Biotech
• 4.20pm: Meet the investors
• 4.30pm Breakout sessions
• 5:00pm: Wrap-up and event closes

The 'Meet the Investors' session will comprise a reverse pitching session by investors, as well as smaller group discussions in breakout rooms. Investors involved include:

👉 Richard Bolton: Investment Manager at Octopus Development Capital

👉 Angela Chou: Investor at Felix Capital

👉 Kieran Borrett: Corporate Development at Play and Play

About the Speakers:

▪️ Stacy Kim, Wilson Sonsini: Stacy Kim is a leading American cross-border technology lawyer, strategic business advisor, and a co-founding partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's London office. Leveraging her unique experience as a trusted advisor to high-growth U.S., U.K. and other European companies and as an in-house advisor at a fast paced U.S. technology company, Stacy uses her legal insight, business acumen, professional network, and industry expertise to resolve problems before they arise. She has a particular focus supporting companies with their fundraising, corporate reorganization, and commercial expansion.

▪️ Alexandra Richardson, Taylor Wessing: Alexandra specialises in M&A and venture capital transactions, primarily in intellectual property-rich industries. She advises institutional, corporate, and individual investors and the companies they invest in on a wide range of corporate matters, from startup through to exit. This includes venture capital and growth capital investments, debt financings, and M&A. Alexandra primarily works with clients from the technology, media & communicators sector, including software, fintech, digital media and digital health companies, often on an international basis.

▪️ Daniel Waters, KPMG: Dan is Head of IT Services Sector Coverage at KPMG - Corporate Finance M&A, TMT and has over 10 years of experience in corporate finance and M&A, helping companies secure investment to fund their growth, as well as closing M&A transactions. He has covered the TMT sector across his career and now leads our M&A IT Services sector.

About our Partners:

▪️ KPMG: The KPMG Emerging Giants team is dedicated to helping ambitious startups and scaleups grow. They exist to meet and build relationships with ambitious and innovative businesses and, over the past five years, have met thousands of them. They take the time to understand growth plans and, in return, provide industry insight, specialist advice and make introductions to contacts in the startup and scaleup ecosystem.

▪️ Taylor Wessing: Taylor Wessing is a global law firm that serves the world's most innovative people and businesses. Deeply embedded within their sectors, they work closely together with their clients to crack complex problems, enabling ideas and aspirations to thrive. Their venture capital team is recognised as one of the strongest in Europe, advising clients across all stages of their lifecycle from "cradle to liquidity". They see all sides of the investment dialogue enabling us to understand and focus on the commercial drivers and drive efficiency in managing transactions.

▪️ Wilson Sonsini: Wilson Sonsini’s US expansion practice assists startups, scaleups, and other high-growth companies through their US life cycle - launch, expansion, fundraising, partnerships, M&A, and IPO - and helps facilitate access to their global network of capital providers, corporates, and advisors. The team includes attorneys who have provided advice on US matters to hundreds of non-US startup and growth-stage technology companies, including clients based in the UK, Canada, Israel, other EMEA countries; South and Central America; and Greater Asia.