Tech investment

Navigating the investment landscape as a tech startup can be a big challenge for budding entrepreneurs. For investors, evaluating start-ups is often considered more of an art than a pure science. Read our guide for 15 things investors think about when assessing a tech startup.

Our guide on pitching to investors covers the three main things to consider before you pitch: presenting yourself, presenting your product and the research you'll need to do beforehand.  

A well-researched business plan can help protect against running out of cash, not having the right team in place and poor marketing, all of which feature on the top 10 reason new businesses fail. Find out more in our guide to why business plans are still necessary.

A pitch deck is a must-have tool when you’re fundraising for your startup.

Essentially a brief presentation in which you provide an overview of your company to investors, if done well, it will capture their interest, get a conversation going, and set you on the path to gaining investment for your business.

In our guide, which includes a video, we give some key tips and break down the various components of creating a pitch deck.

It can be tricky to figure out how much a company is worth, especially if you’re a startup with little or no historical data to benchmark against. While there's no single formula to calculate a valuation, it’s possible to determine a value that both makes sense to you and is reasonable to investors. 

Take a look at our guide to valuing a tech startup for more information.

Intellectual Property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, involving thought, creativity and intellectual effort. Once created, IP ownership is little different from owning other types of more tangible property, in that it can be bought or sold or even used as security against a debt.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) such as patents, trademarks and copyright exist to enable you to assert and protect your ownership of that property. They also provide the legal basis from which to take action against someone else who infringes your IPRs by stealing or misusing them.

Find out more in our guide on intellectual property for tech startups.

We have a dedicated technology venture investments team (TVI) who look to invest in Welsh tech startups.

Meet the team

The Development Bank is a minority investor - this means that we will always hold less than 50% of the company’s equity (usually significantly less than 50%). 

As a long term patient capital investor, we can invest multiple rounds in the same company from pre-seed, seed to Series A. Follow on investment is dependent on a company reaching the milestones identified at the time of investment.  

We invest through pre-seed, seed to Series A - supporting proof of concept through to scale up.  Typically investing between £100,000 to £350K for seed and in excess of £5 million in more mature businesses.

We are sector agnostic and like diversity. For us its more about the quality of the proposition than the sector.

We have a growing portfolio of tech companies across a breadth of sectors from Life Sciences, FinTech, DeepTech, Enterprise Software, MedTech,  Semi-Conductors & SaaS.

You can find out more in our portfolio section earlier on this page.

When we invest, we will have investor rights which are intended to protect our position by giving us a say on a number of important decisions.  These consent rights are normal for any equity transaction.

Post investment, we will attend board meeting as board observer, and we may appoint a non-executive director. All NEDs have a fiduciary and legal responsibility to act in the company's best interests and to represent all shareholders. The NED is appointed by the Board and any fee will be agreed between the company and the individual.

We provide flexible finance options dependent on the company’s requirements. Typical early-stage companies are equity based; however we do offer loans and equity investments for more established businesses and follow-on funding rounds. This flexible approach allows us to support your business through various stages of growth.

Yes. We offer seed finance investment (equity) to technology start-ups, university spin-outs, and IP-rich companies. This helps them commercialise their products and technologies, turning innovative ideas into market-ready solutions. Our goal is to support visionary entrepreneurs at the earliest stages, providing the crucial funding needed to jumpstart their journey.

We would always recommend that management and founders have their own independent legal and corporate finance advice to represent their interests. 

Our investment documentation is based on accepted industry standards through the British Venture Capital Association but will be tailored to a particular transaction where appropriate.