A GROUP of ‘Angel Investors’ has secured more than £1million for start-ups in the York area in less than a year.

York Angels is a CIC that aims to support and invest in York-based and York-releated start-ups.

The group was launched in April and founded by venture capitalist Sam Hields, who went to Huntingdon School and was an operations manager across Uber, launching it across the UK.

Last week, Sam spoke for two hours on the group’s experiences at the York Business Festival, which was held at York St John University in association with the York Press.

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Sam covered the lifecycle of a typical “venture case” investment for a startup that is targeting a large market opportunity with a scalable product. It covered inception and pre-seed/angel funding through Series A,B,C, etc rounds and to exit with an IPO or buyout.

Sam said afterwards: “I tried to make the point that the ambitious big outcome is necessary because for investors they take a portfolio view whereby a big “homerun” investment is required to cover the losses of the failed startups they invest into and also generate a good multiple on the investors portfolio (at least 3x). So founders have to think bigger and be more ambitious to attract high quality investors.

“I compared the typical investment mantra of “don’t lose money” with the venture capital perspective which is less concerned with the downside of a given investment but rather obsessed with the upside.

“I illustrated this with the fact that everyone remembers Uber but nobody really remembers Sidecar, Juno, Chariot, etc.

“It only requires one big winner in a portfolio for a VC to hit good performance. This is important for founders to remember when they’re pitching their startups to investors.”

Sam continued: “We were really trying to make sure that both founders and investors were understanding the importance of thinking bigger and bolder about what they want to invest into and build. “If York is to step up as a home of more startup activity then it needs more startups that push for bigger outcomes otherwise it will never compare to the likes of Oxford, Cambridge or London. Culturally we need to shift it up a few gears.”

Sam added of York Angels: “We never charge startups a penny to ensure we have aligned and impartial incentives.

“We have not been launched even a year yet but we have secured over £1m for startups we have supported both through our own angel investors members but also through introductions via our network to institutional venture capital funds we co-invest with.”