Techcelerate Financial Support

Manoj

Updated on 2020-02-10

All tech companies start with an idea. As the idea starts to formulate and founders, co-founders and early team members start to come together, a company is formed and registered to provide a legal framework. As soon as the company is incorporated, you now have a legal obligation to prepare and file annual accounts and other documents demanded by the Companies House, as well as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). As you take on investors, your fiduciary responsibilities increase. You may now start to seek the expertise of an accountancy firm to keep the health of financials of the business in check.

Please note that Partner Services listed below are provided directly by our Partners and the respective contractual agreements would be between you and them, and Techcelerate does not accept any liability arising from such. However, we retain the right to intervene and resolve disputes where possible.

1. Accountancy Services – Stay on the right side of HMRC

We have partnered with two accountancy firms to help you get the best possible financial advice including assistance in preparing management and financial accounts.

1.1 SQK Accountancy Services

Chris Vickers SQK Acountancy Setup by Chris Vickers in 2015, a qualified accountant, SQK Accountancy is an accountancy firm ideally suited for tech companies in the earliest stages of their journeys.

Chris is a no-nonsense chap and able to quickly understand and resolve your accounting problem.

Among the Techcelerate Tech Companies that use the services of Chris and SQK Accountancy Services is enee.io. David Smith, CEO of enee.io says

“SQK have been great to work with. They have removed the headache of making sure we are meeting out legal financial obligations and assist us in our everyday accounting. Would highly recommend to other early stage start-ups.”

Some of the areas Chris can help you with:

Setting up the company – Registering the company at Companies House and HMRC including VAT registration.
Starting a business – Preparing and filing Directors tax returns, VAT returns, Annual accounts and providing Payroll services.
Running a tech company – Annual accounts and bookkeeping, payroll and PAYE returns, VAT returns, cash flow optimisation and tax advice.

If you have not yet appointed an accountant, do get in touch with Manoj for an introduction to Chris.

1.2 Crowe (Manchester)

Michael Jayson Crowe Manchester Led by Michael Jayson, whom I have known since 2009, Crowe, is a top 10 global accountancy firm with offices in Manchester and many other cities in the UK and across the world. Techcelerate is glad to partner with Michael and his team for the second time.

Once your business is up and running and revenues are above £20k, Crowe might be better suited for you, as your accounting needs become complex. However, if your business is well capitalised and you expect rapid growth, then Crowe could be an invaluable partner for your business.

There is no limit to the level of accountancy and finance support they can provide, as can be expected from a world-class financial team.

As Michael would say:

“At Crowe, how we do business is as important as what we do. We provide a first class service that is considered value for money through building lasting relationships with our clients and delivering quality in everything we do.”

Among the Techcelerate Tech Companies that use the services of Crowe are MakeUrMove and Malinko. Andrew Threlfall, CEO of Malinko says:

We had started to outgrow our previous accountants as our business grew and became more complex. We wanted to work with a practice that could advise us on a more strategic basis. Crowe are able to help with our regular accounting needs and can call on other offices or colleagues if we have more specialised requirements or questions. I feel we have a partner that can support us going forward.

1.3 London (vacancy)

We are now looking for a London accountancy firm to join us to help us support our Southern tech companies such as Talent36T (trading as Aira).

2. R&D Tax Credits

As you start developing your product, you will incur Research and Development costs, of which, a portion can be claimed back through the UK HMRC Tax system. To do this effectively, you need to either learn or tap into the right expertise. Both our accountancy partners, SQK Accountancy and Crowe can help you in this regard. Additionally, we have partnered with Lumo Tax who specialises in R&D Tax Claims.

2.1 Lumo Tax

Joe Routledge Lumo Tax Joe Routledge of Lumo Tax partnered with us recently to help you understand R&D Tax Credit system set up by the HMRC, and how best to claim your entitlement as well as find ways to maximise the claim.

Lumo has helped over 200 companies with 250 claims recovering over £15 million in tax relief over the past 10 years.

According to Lumo,

“From starting an R&D Tax claim to receiving money in your bank, this can be completed in as little as 6 weeks. On average, 33 pence for each £1 spent is considered as qualifying costs. With each claim different to the next we are here to help you along the way.”

2.2 RDVault

RDVault, a Techcelerate Tech Company offers a novel Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product, which allows you to claim R&D Tax Credits by simply connecting with your Xero account.

It then allows you to select the claimable expenses and write the narrative for the Claim. The report produced by RDVault needs to be submitted with your Tax Claim. This could be done by you using Xero Tax (Instafile before acquisition – however, only available via your accountant for new customers) or using your accountant.

We have negotiated a discount rate for Techcelerate Tech Companies. Please contact Manoj for further information.

3. Grant Funding

InnovateUK invests circa £500 million annually to help the UK stay on the cutting edge of technology by helping innovative companies take advantage of free money, i.e. grant funding.

I have been an assessor of InnovateUK grant funding applications on behalf of InnovateUK since 2011. I have assessed applications close to £200 million since then, with the largest being circa £30 million and the smallest perhaps under £25k. In the beginning, it was rare to see an application from the North of England, but now, there is significant awareness of these grants.

However, as the awareness has increased, so has the number of companies applying for them. In order to win, you do not just need to have great technological innovation, but you also need to demonstrate the art of writing.

3.1 Tatton Consulting

We’ve recently partnered with Mark Clayton and his team at Tatton Consulting to help you improve your chance of winning InnovateUK grant funding. They are able to advise you on the suitability, as well as identify the most appropriate competitions for you.

Working with you, they would be able to write a winning application. To date, Tatton has secured £40 million in grant funding for UK companies.

They can also assist with applications for other grants as well, e.g. European Space Agency.

Do get in touch with Manoj for an introduction to Mark and his team.

3.2 Manoj Ranaweera

Manoj Ranaweera Techcelerate

As mentioned before I have been an assessor for InnovateUK. Whilst I am good at reviewing applications, my skills do not stretch to writing that winning application as demonstrated by Mark and his team.

However, I am available for hire for a small fee where Techcelerate Companies wish me to review their applications and/or provide guidance.

I have declared my interest in you to InnovateUK and will declare “conflict of interest” if I am ever presented with your application for assessment. So far, I only had to reject assessing one application due to “conflict of interest”.

3.3 AWS and GCP Credits – Hosting and support

As we build Techcelerate Market Place, we will be able to save you money when subscribing to vital services. Today we are able to provide:

$5k + $5k of Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits
$3k Google Cloud Platform (GCP) credits

4. Techcelerate Specialists – Strengthening your Team

Techcelerate Specialists are ideal in filling skill gaps in your company when getting ready for investment, as well as when there is a need to achieve a rapid growth boost post-investment. They are ideal to take on mini projects and help you in your quest to build a £100m turnover tech company.

4.1. David Bailey

David Bailey Techcelerate Specialist CFO

I have known David Bailey since 2008 when both of our companies at the time (mine, edocr.com and David’s MovieStorm) got selected as two of the hottest 20 tech companies of UK and toured San Francisco.

David is good at fixing hard problems for tech businesses. David previously led Flix Innovations (Chairman), Crystel Umbrella (CFO) and MovieStorm (CEO).

David has extensive experience in commercialisation of computer games, animation, film, television and music.

David is ideal for part-time CFO role for rapidly growing technology companies. Once your revenues are north of £100k, it’s best to start engaging with a part-time CFO, starting with one day a month and then increase as the company reach £1m ARR.

5. Capital – Fundraising

Techcelerate is evolving in stages and we expect to be in a position to raise the capital needed by Techcelerate companies in the near future.

5.1 Deal News and Deal Lite – Tech Investment News of UK Tech Companies

In order for Techcelerate to help our Tech Companies, we need to have a good understanding of the UK Tech Investment landscape. We started collecting investment data of UK tech companies in June 2018. So far we have collected deals worth in

2018 – over £5 billion
2019 – over £13 billion

Each week, we share the deals we collected via a newsletter. If you wish to receive deal alerts in your inbox weekly, subscribe to our Deal News for £5.32/month.

We’ve also created a web application called Deal Lite (Crunchbase for the UK). It now needs populating of data.

5.2 SEIS and EIS – Techcelerate Angel Network

Having achieved our first milestone on 13th Jan 2020 when we on-boarded our 25th tech company, we’ve started developing our Angel Network. We are very much interested in bringing Tech CEOs of mature companies into our angel network, who can not only provide the initial capital our companies need but also the mentoring, coaching as well as business development help.

5.3 Venture Capital & Debt Finance

We will continue to build stronger relationships with Venture Capitalists, Debt Funders and the Private Equity to be in a position to help our companies as they grow. Our role is to increase the quality of our companies and de-risk it for funders.

5.4 SeedLegals – Ideal place to manage your fundraising

SeedLegals icon In addition to partnering with accountancy (SQK and Crowe) and legal (Brabners and Arron & Partners) partners, we have also partnered with SeedLegals to make fundraising a little bit easier for you.

Most of Techcelerate Companies are already benefiting from SeedLegals. If you have not yet trialled SeedLegals, Techcelerate has a special offer where we can extend your 30-day trial to 90 days.

5.5. Crowdfunding

In addition to taking a punt (check out: Punt Investor theory), our blog and social media channels are available at your disposal to promote your campaign. We recently helped our Partner, Nova overfund their campaign.

In summary, Techcelerate is evolving month by month. As we evolve, I hope that Techcelerate would be in a stronger position to help you with all your financial needs. If you wish for a particular service and it’s not listed above, please bring it to my (Manoj’s) attention. Thank you.