National Business Angels Network

National Business Angels Network is a non-profit organisation, sponsored by major financial institutions and the high street banks, and supported by the Department of Trade and Industry. Its role is to source risk capital for small and medium businesses from private investors (or ‘business angels’) in return for shares in the business.

Business Angels are usually well-off individuals (though they sometimes work in syndicates) with spare capital to put into your company. The average investment is between £25,000 and £1 million, but by their very nature are discreet and elusive people. Estimates suggest however that there are 18,000 Business Angels in the UK actively looking to make investments, investing around £500 million a year in around 3,500 businesses; that’s considerably more than venture capital funds. They are angels because they could be the answer to your prayers, and NBAN is a sort of financial dating agency to get the two parties together. The matchmaking is done by NBAN Associates, a nation-wide network of experts (including Business Link and accountants). They are the lynch pin and screen applications via Bestmatch.co.uk, the secure site which interested parties can access and login to through the NBAC site home page once they have registered.

Though the site has a strange order (About Associates comes after the Registration page), there is plenty of information about the NBAN set up, who the Associates are, how much the service costs and the benefits. There are plenty of sobering statistics too for potential investors about the percentage of company failures, though a possible 50 per cent return on your investment might sugar the pill.
SPECIAL FEATURES Links include all the sponsoring banks and companies, the DTI website and LIFFOE (the London Futures Exchange) and AIM at the Stock Exchange.
Bulletin is a monthly list of investment opportunities sent to investors registered with NBAN, with free advertising in The Daily Telegraph, and a list of local programmes organised by Associates.
BestMatch is the online matchmaking service, available by registration only, which puts investors together with companies looking for investment. Application to become an investor, investee or Associate can be made online. There is a 30 minutes time out security measure.
About Associates offers a local search facility by postcode and speciality, or alphabetically. You can view the details of a particular expert and then select them.