Andy Field: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Crowdfunding Chronicles. We’ve got a bit diff bit of a different one in today’s session. Today’s session is called A View from the UK A CEO’s Journey, and How Borderless Equity Crowdfunding Could Really Make a Difference. And I’m delighted to introduce Abhilasha Dafria, not only a new member of the GECA Steering Committee, but she’s also CEO of UK Equity Crowdfunding Platform Angels Den. So welcome Abhilasha, and thanks for joining us today.

Abhilasha Dafria: Thank you so much for having me, Andy. And finally getting to record this podcast with you.

Andy Field: Yeah it’s great to have you. And I think we can probably get straight into it, Abhilasha. I think I just want to start off by talking and telling everybody a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are today, and how this gave rise to your position with Angels Den. So perhaps if you could maybe outline a few things, really, what first inspired you to enter the finance or the crowdfunding sector more specifically, actually?

Abhilasha Dafria: So [00:01:00] my career really started in India where I was building my first startup, which was also very similar to what Angel Den does in the UK. I was a part of India’s early stage startup ecosystem, which was extremely nascent at that time. There was not much talking about startups and venture capital and, these were all really early nascent terms that the ecosystem was still getting used to.

And just being part of such a nascent ecosystem taught me a lot of, a lot about the challenges and hurdles of small business owners and early stage entrepreneurs. So I set up my first company. The idea was to help early stage companies connect with the right ecosystem enablers and that went to connecting them first. to investors, to potential co- founders, to help them get talent on board and to connect them to the different ecosystem enablers of, in India at that time. Soon enough, I realized that, the capital is very limited to a bunch of people and the ideas are, way too many.

And these are [00:02:00] great ideas from great entrepreneurs with great educational backgrounds. And really smart guys, but they don’t know what is the next step to do. How do we, how do you go about executing your idea? And that’s when I thought that space of ambiguity is what I wanted to capture.

So I built my first startup with the idea of helping early stage companies scale from point A to point B in the shortest time. And, that led me to, understanding the equity crowdfunding, market a little more, in depth. Soon enough, I realized that, the South Asian potential is just too much.

And, South Asia is a very interesting geography to invest in. And I wanted to further democratize, the capital that was coming in, because the supply demand at that point was extremely skewed. So that’s when I started scaling my company to the UK, and to the West. So we had investors from the U S we had investors in Europe, life happened, London became home.

And, that’s when I realized that the equity crowdfunding [00:03:00] market is, it needs to be a little more global than what it is right now. Up until 2020, I did this, and helped early stage Indian companies raise capital from, foreign investors, but then, due to the pandemic, London just became home for me, so I had to roll back on all my activities , and think of having a future here, based out of the UK, and that’s when this opportunity with Angels Den came by, so it was super serendipitous for me.

It was exactly the same business, but a different geography. So the fundamentals of the business were the same. But the dynamics of the geographies were different. And that, that made it a very exciting opportunity for me to jump in because, I could just learn from all the mistakes that I did, when I was building my own company and I could use an established brand to grow.

So that’s how I’m here today.

Andy Field: That’s really, actually, that, yeah, like you say you’re solving, you, when you moved across to the UK, the problem was the same, the ideas and the entrepreneurial ship was, very [00:04:00] much outweighing the opportunities for investment.

And that was something that you obviously did very well at solving, in India and bringing that across to the UK was something that obviously you wanted to do. So that’s interesting. Great.

Abhilasha Dafria: Okay. One of the interesting observations was that there are geographies that have talent and very little capital, and then there are geographies that have capital and very little ideas because the market is too saturated.

It’s about leveling the playing field for everyone.

Andy Field: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Just personally speaking then, before we get on to that sort of chapter in your career where you you joined Angels Den were there any significant milestones in your career, perhaps before you came to the UK, any key projects or achievements that you, that, that happened, perhaps when you were in India, that you’re particularly proud of and that still remains relevant now, you look back to perhaps and apply those to your career, some of the lessons learned, maybe, that you mentioned.

Abhilasha Dafria: It’s very interesting when you’re looking at fundraising for early stage companies, because there is a certain process and a certain [00:05:00] order in the chaos when you’re evaluating companies that are that early in the fundraising journey. And with every company, there’s a new lesson that you learn.

Because every deal is so unique. Every kind of investor is so unique in the, in, in the investment preferences that every time you try to, bring a pattern to it, you realize that the lesson is in treating every company individually with a very open minded approach. And that’s something that I learned over time because there is this human nature of, I’ve seen five of these companies.

The sixth one is going to be the, it’s going to follow the same pattern. And then you realize the sixth one is the outlier is going to give you all the returns. And so it’s just about. stepping back and saying that, I don’t know anything and let me just approach this with a very open minded attitude and see where this goes.

So that’s my biggest learning fundraising for companies in India. In terms of accolades, we have all our accolades and achievements and all the awards that you get, but I think [00:06:00] the biggest, the most rewarding feeling of being an early stage equity investor or fundraising for companies is the fact that, some of these companies that you have identified so early on they grow to become such impactful companies that, the it’s a very rewarding feeling to see something that you supported at a very early stage actually supporting the ecosystem at this point, and I see many of my companies in India doing so well, and that’s a great feeling.

Andy Field: Oh, that’s great. And I’m sure that happens in the UK now.

Abhilasha Dafria: Sometimes I’m in the tube and I look at an advertisement from one of our portfolio companies and I’ll nudge whoever’s sitting next to me. And I’ll tell them, look, we invested in that company.

Andy Field: Yeah, that’s a good feeling. I bet. Yeah, definitely. So you’re the CEO of Angels Den currently. Was it 2019 you joined the business?

Abhilasha Dafria: 21.

Andy Field: 21. Okay. So just Going back to those sort of early days, obviously pre pandemic which is probably going to feature in the answer to the question I’m about [00:07:00] to ask you is can you give me an overview of those early days and perhaps some of the initial challenges that you faced when you joined Angels Den?

Abhilasha Dafria: So when I came into this role in the July of 21, my vision with the company was to move away from being an archaic investment platform into something more 360 degree alternate finance. In my experience dealing with entrepreneurs across geographies and across sectors and of different shapes and sizes, I realized that not every Startup has the architecture to raise equity capital, and sometimes it’s just about that education to the founder, that there is a cheaper and a faster way to access capital than knock the doors of investors.

And I realized that the UK probably is one of the geographies that has least of of this knowledge or information out there in a more curated manner. So what I wanted to do was build Angel’s Den as the one stop shop for any financial [00:08:00] needs of early stage companies, whether these are SMEs or startups, or, small businesses, it could be brick and mortar businesses, B2B businesses, just anything.

So taking away the glory from equity funding and explaining this to entrepreneurs that, you know, there is a market out there where you can get access to capital quite quickly without diluting your shares. So this was the biggest challenge that I had faced and it was something that I wanted to execute.

When I came in and something that we did over the last three years. So that sort of whole awareness piece that there is an alternative was building that whole piece and make it like a one stop shop because Entrepreneurs do not know where to go. What is the right financial instrument for them given their trading history, given their circumstances where, what should they ask for?

Andy Field: Yeah. Yeah. And there needs to be like one place that gives them that information and also connects them to the right lender or the right investor, right? And that’s something that we are [00:09:00] looking to build. Yeah, and being able to achieve that is obviously pivotal to the success of your business.

Are there any, is there any particular strategy that you can pinpoint that, that perhaps is absolutely critical to making that happen? Making that awareness piece happen? Is it, is that something that’s still in progress?

Abhilasha Dafria: It’s still in progress, but I would I, I do think that we, there’s a lot of progress that we have made on this journey as well because again lending for early stage companies is not the easiest market because, there’s only little trading history.

There’s only so much size that the company has, and it makes it a little. tough for lenders to invest in companies at that stage. But what’s really beautiful is the fact that the financial industry is also evolving as rapidly as the technological landscape is. And, so they are the lenders and investors, both with higher risk appetite now who have different metrices that they would use to invest in early stage companies, whether it’s in form of a debt [00:10:00] instrument or or equity.

And it’s about bridging that gap and bringing everyone together on one platform. So they have the right data points as well to, to judge correctly. What is the company they want to, not

Andy Field: Yeah. And make that informed decision almost. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so there’ll have been lots of challenges that you’ve overcome in where you are now.

Yeah, are there any that spring to mind in particular challenges that you’ve had to overcome and perhaps any lessons you’ve learned doing that, more recently in your career path to date? Is there anything that you could share from that respect?

Abhilasha Dafria: I think one of the interesting learnings for me as an entrepreneur, almost in this role and also for maybe fellow entrepreneurs would be the fact that the equity market is so cyclical that they could be, you could be raising funds in a bull market and you have no idea when the market will revive again.

for you to raise your next round. So it’s so important to [00:11:00] time the market. And bear in mind that every time it’s easy for you to raise funds, there’s going to be, the dry years coming, not just months. And then you have to prepare your spending. And your expenditure and your cash flow due to accommodate for those months as well.

And that’s something I realized with Angels Den that, just pegging on the equity market would not be enough for us. And, We need to figure out how to hedge our own revenue sources. So just raising capital through equity could be a great year in 2021, but then just could absolutely crash in the next year.

And so how do we de risk ourselves by finding more ways of, getting revenue into the company. And that’s why, the whole hybrid model of dilutive and non dilutive works so beautifully for companies. That’s, I think that’s been my biggest lesson that to understand that the market is extremely volatile in early stage and that you have to time it when you’re looking at your own fund raise or in our case, revenues.

Andy Field: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Okay, thank you for [00:12:00] that. So just moving on to the sector in general, how would you say that the UK equity crowdfunding sector has evolved since you started in the UK? So your company’s role and an influence in this sort of evolution of the sector and speaking on behalf of your business, what so what would you say is the company’s vision for the future?

of equity crowdfunding? How, how does it involve, for example, the enablement of international deal flow? This borderless scenario, the truly borderless scenario that we talk about, certainly with GECA. How does, how do you see the future taking that into account?

Abhilasha Dafria: I think the future is borderless for technology companies and therefore the opportunity to invest in these companies early on should be as borderless.

I, I respect the jurisdictions and the local frameworks that equity companies need to work within. But I can also appreciate the amount of opportunity and the Capital pool that it would unlock for early stage companies. If equity [00:13:00] crowdfunding could truly be global.

So I see the UK market headed there because UK as a market, if you look at it there’s so much of important export happening that, it’s really, it’s an, it’s international trade and ties are really strengthening year on year. And so I see. This happening for the equity crowdfunding market as well.

It’s a matter of time and it’s about getting frameworks, right? That’s where I see the UK market heading in the next couple of years.

Andy Field: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, I suppose the technology we all know is there to implement this kind of solution, but there are other things that obviously that it needs a bit more work for us to be able to get there.

But of course, that’s what GECA are there for. Do you have any upcoming projects or initiatives, either, centered around that or not actually that you’re particularly excited about as CEO of Angels Den?

Abhilasha Dafria: I’m really excited about seeing the non dilutive landscape. Pick up in the UK.

And the whole hybrid investing model for early stage companies. [00:14:00] That’s one. I’m really excited about a partnership with Dacxi Chain and GECA. Just to understand how we can bring, UK investors and at the same time take UK companies to the Middle East. To Australia to South Asia to the U.S. How do we open up these borders and these geographies? At a click of a button. And that’s something that Dacxi and GECA are really advocating for and looks really exciting for us.

Andy Field: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point actually, because we talked about the benefits of borderless equity crowdfunding for the early stage companies, but it’s also, there are also benefits for investors out there, there are obviously there are obvious benefits really the pool of investment opportunities just grows considerably once, once we achieve that vision.

So thank you so much for that. So we’re actually, we’re running out of time for today’s episode, Abhilasha, and I’m sure we’ll get you back on and have a chat about a few other bits and, that we could talk about connected to the [00:15:00] industry. But I’ve really enjoyed hearing about, and I’m sure our listeners have enjoyed hearing your background thoughts on the industry.

But before we go, we can’t end without asking for a little bit of advice. for aspiring leaders in the equity crowdfunding industry. So just a couple of questions around that if that’s okay with you. What would be, could you think of a key lesson that you’ve learned as a leader in the industry aside from obviously some of the the planning ones that you mentioned earlier?

Abhilasha Dafria: Relationship is key, being authentic, building trust, that’s something that is very integral to our roles as, leaders in the equity crowdfunding space. And, when you’re connecting X to Y, sometimes you don’t make the revenue out of that connection in that moment, and you make it years later.

It’s important to build on those relationships and build it with. Tremendous trust. That’s something that investors always fall back on a goodwill, reputation and, just clear communication and trust.

Andy Field: And I suppose that’s good advice for any sort of aspiring [00:16:00] entrepreneurs or professionals in the sector, not just in the sector, actually just generally.

Final point. You’re clearly incredibly busy. How do you maintain that sort of healthy work life balance? Have you got any personal habits, routines that help you stay focused, productive, that give you that work life balance?

Abhilasha Dafria: I’m terrible with my work life balance, but my work is my life and my life is my work and that’s almost toxic to say that but I really enjoy doing what I do because that’s the only thing I’ve done for the last since I started my career.

So I absolutely enjoy my work. And I think when you just enjoy doing what you’re doing you, you don’t realize where work ends and life begins. begins and you seem to be okay with it. So unless, there’s somebody else complaining, I think I can keep my day going on.

Andy Field: Brilliant. That’s great. Thank you so much. Once again, Abhilasha for joining us today, really interesting, really insightful. We’ll definitely get you back on listen out for the next episode, which will be coming soon of the ‘Crowdfunding Chronicles’ the GECA podcast. We’ll be coming on very soon with the next episode [00:17:00] and we look forward to catching you then.

Thanks very much. Bye bye.

Abhilasha Dafria: Bye.