Finding investors with the right sort of interests or preferences can be a lengthy and uncertain process – whether searching through personal networks, online data sources, web searching or by using conventional search engines.
Investor Search is unique because it allows users to search the websites of the 300 venture capital and private equity firms operating in the UK – eliminating the chance of finding irrelevant information. The majority of these sites include information on the investment portfolios or preferences of each fund. This means users of Investor Search only need to type in what they are looking for and the site finds any matching content within seconds. For example, search for ‘precision engineering’ and it will seek funders that have published web information matching those terms. It could be applied to any business sector, as well as being a useful resource for professionals in the finance community itself.
The site is completely free to use and requires no registration or log-in.
The site was created by UMIP (The University of Manchester Intellectual Property). Head of market development at UMIP, Mark Thompson said: “The idea for the website came from the problems we continually face seeking funding for our technology start-ups at the University. There are a lot of funders out there, but finding a match for our very varied funding opportunities takes a lot of time and effort. We thought this would help find the ‘needle in the haystack’ more quickly”.
“Like any search engine, the success you get very much depends on what you are looking for or how you look for it but our internal trials have been very encouraging, the search engine revealing potential funders for some of our projects that we previously didn’t know about. It is just like have having a Google tool but with much of the irrelevant content on the rest of the web left behind. There are plans for a USA version to be launched shortly as well as other parts of the world.”
Companies interested in sponsoring the site can contact Mark Thompson at UMIP on 0161 306 3047.
Investor Search can be accessed by logging on to www.investorsearch.info
