Suss Ventures has supported six investment deals with a combined value of £680,000 in under half a year. Our in-house investor matching service, overseen by our Head of Investment Projects, Laurence Grant, here at Sussex Innovation brings together the South East’s most innovative and sustainable start-ups and high net worth individuals to accelerate the growth of high potential businesses.

We’re incredibly proud of the Suss Ventures team for exceeding our investment targets in our first year and securing press coverage for funded businesses in Start-ups Magazine, Bdaily and national publications, including the Daily Express – a huge achievement worth celebrating! It’s testament to the Suss Ventures team’s collaborative approach, connecting impact-driven fundraisers and investors to provide a seamless investment experience.

Laurence Grant, Head of Investment Projects at Sussex Innovation, said: “From the seed of an idea, through to securing over £600,000 for six worthy start-ups, I’m pleased to say that founding Suss Ventures has been a major success. In a very short time, Jamila, Emma and I have proven the demand is out there for investors seeking purpose-driven profit from deserving, innovative founders and their scale-up ideas. I am extremely proud of the strong brand, culture, and level of productivity that has been generated over the past year, and I’m excited by the potential for Suss Ventures to become the UK’s most recognisable name for purpose-orientated investments.”

Nigel Lambe, CEO of Sussex Innovation, added: “Suss Ventures has exceeded our investment targets over the past year and I couldn’t be more proud of its progress. Having an in-house investor matching service provides our clients with funding and guidance on their investment journeys to help their businesses scale up and have a greater impact, which is core to what we do here at Sussex Innovation.”

‘SUSSess’ Stories:

Some of the first cohort of businesses to raise investment through Suss Ventures include:

Hozah is the ultimate champion for zero-touch parking payments which allows drivers to make automatic payments for their parking. Suss Ventures has helped raise a six-figure sum alongside a multi-million investment drive which marks a huge milestone for Hozah. The zero-effort payment system eliminates the worry of parking fines and is completely cashless, automated and secure. David Fowle, Managing Director of Hozah, Sussex alumnus and a resident of Sussex Innovation in Croydon, said: “We’re proud of our relationship with Suss Ventures. We look forward to using these funds to help our customer avoid parking fines, frustrating apps and tickets.”

Prsnt is the tech start-up that aims to reshape the gifting marketplace, by creating a peer-to-peer gift exchange platform to leverage the ‘feel good’ factor of giving and receiving gifts. The app enables users to send and receive gifts to their friends and family from their favourite high-street brands instantly, alongside a personalised greeting message. Prsnt have raised £180,000 through Suss Ventures which will be used to streamline the app after its successful beta testing, and to grow its user base as part of ongoing business and technological development. Omid Moallemi, Co-founder of Prsnt, said: “When the lockdown hit a lot of the VCs were saying they’re just backing their existing portfolios, but people were very receptive to our idea. It was great having the Suss Ventures team to guide us through the journey and we developed a good amount of trust which is very important to us.”

EHAB is the total weather-risk management platform that helps construction companies reduce the cost of their weather risk. Suss Ventures helped them to secure £150,000 investment to streamline their weather ledger, the platform that helps construction companies to identify and plan for weather-related risks using decades’ worth of weather data. Josh Graham, Founder of EHAB, said: “Seeking investment was a very tough journey, taking six months… A genuine compliment to Suss Ventures was that it was the easiest part of our investment round when we were looking for another investor to work with.”

FaultFixers is the ground-breaking property management SaaS product that helps users report location specific issues in just 30 seconds to service providers so they can be more productive, more mobile and save money. FaultFixers have successfully raised a joint investment deal of £100,000 out of a total £150,000 round through Suss Ventures, supporting the £270,000 grant they received from Innovate UK which will help to deliver a readily available platform on a self-service basis. Tom O’Neill, Founder of FaultFixers, said: “Fundraising through Suss Ventures was pretty simple, straightforward and relatively quick, especially during the current circumstances. Laurence has been great at doing introductions where I’ve needed him to ‘shake the tree’, so to speak.”

Want to get involved? Here’s how…

Join the Suss Ventures network by completing the ‘seeking investment’ form on the Suss Ventures website. As a fundraiser you’ll be able to:

– Be selected to pitch at our quarterly pitch events;
– Benefit from support from our fundraiser community on our exclusive Slack channel;
– Share your achievements with our network and via our social channels;
– Network with our pool of active investors.

For investors the process is simple. Hit ‘access deals’ on the website to be screened and access an exclusive deal-flow of companies in high-growth sectors. As an active investor, you’ll be able to:

– Connect with purpose-driven fundraisers and benefit from consistent support with finding your next investment project;
– Join us at our invite only pitch days and quarterly investor meetings;
– Receive regular updates from our team, including who our newest members are;
– Benefit from our referral scheme which gives you 1% of any deal you bring to us.

Sign up to join the Suss Ventures.