Envestors move up here won’t change that (based on our experience on their ‘warm-up’ tour). Northern money is more ‘careful’ and somewhat more risk averse. Which is why you see more niche players with smaller investment needs.

Some of these do very nicely in their market (Westpoint.ltd.uk is a case in point) but they aren’t as much fun to write about as the rollacoaster rides like spinvox.

And by the way, don’t get too smug in the south, why is it that Huddle are spending all that time in California if everything is rosy in London – is it just the weather ?

Aint that the truth! Anyone who is asking a cash strapped startup to pay to pitch probably is more interested in making a profit from the event than they are in finding the next great investment, and if that is where their focus is, then its unlikely the startups will find the angel they are looking for.

Dragon’s Den has done a lot to promote entrepreneurial attitudes in the UK, but its format has spawned a million little bottom feeders who are all intent on sucking blood from new companies. It’s not so much a case of swimming with sharks as it is taking a bath with a load of piranha fish.

My advice would be that if someone doesn’t think your business idea is strong enough without an entrance fee, then they probably wont take you too seriously.

It remains to be seen if the agencies can give birth to startups as they mature, or if, on the other hand, the presence of large-but-dull agencies sucks up too much of the talent necessary to kick-start a startup culture. I think it’s also possible that there will simply be a different kind of startup culture (e.g. more niche, enterprise-focused) that isn’t trying to be like silicon valley. If London is a pale imitation of the valley, it’d be pretty stupid for Manchester to be a pale imitation of a pale imitation.

In the most respectful manner, that is just plain stereotypical. I’m younger than most startups and I am able something that is more unique that many startups in the US, only thing is US is about competitivity and one unique idea on a concept already milked out is the goal to a couple of million from a really uneducated investor.

It shows that startups that have made an effort to find investors in London will critize Manchester as much as they wish. Manchester is as “startup”-fancy as Sillicon Valley or London, but that’s not what this is about, it is about finding potential and the right place to find the right minds for a business.

I have been doing this for 7 years (since I was 9 years old), so I know this industry fully well and I am one of the youngest developers around the North West who has ran many successful projects.

There’s no harm – I don’t mind proving to you that potential is there, just that opinions from people that just live in one area of Manchester shouldn’t provide useless information about it when they clearly have no clear understanding of it.

Thankyou,
Bilawal Hameed.

That said, there have been some significant successes to come from the city. LateRooms.com was sold to TUI for £120m a few years ago, and Ensembli have been doing some interesting things with semantic RSS searches. Listings site Skiddle.com are growing a phenomenal rate, and the various meet-up groups are introducing entrepreneurs to developer talent. If the whole process can be lubricated with funding, then it wouldn’t surprise me if the industry sees a signifcant start-up emerge from the North West in the next couple of years.

We also gained part of our first round through a pitching session run by the NWBA (North West Business Angels)

Same ideas as the Envestors (who one of our non-execs actual uses a lot) but no payment to pitch as your fee is paid for by gvmnt. That does not reflect on the quality of investors. They were all excellent

That said, as one of the NWBA people put it, the problem with no fee was they spent time prepping start-ups that then never turned up . Small fee ensures they are not time wasting. We obviously weren’t and found the whole process excellent. Our investors weren’t even at the pitching session but were found just from the mail out the NWBA did post event

Sorry this wasn’t supposed to sound like an ad for them but worth checking out

The company I work for has produced a business ratings & listings site, a clothing auction on the consumer side and on the more enterprisey side we’re involved in the productisation of a document management and crm system, and currently re-working a deployed waste logistics system in a productisable way.

There’s a lot of similar work going on by a lot of other small outfits.

Software house wise – it’s got one of the fastest growing Mobile/Telecomms consultancies – Mobica ( related to ex-Teleca staff ). There’s a lot of similar activity going on. The leading Series 60 Twitter client is developed a stones throw from our office for instance.

I think with appropriate financing a lot of smaller ideas, may start to bloom – so Envestors may have got the right idea, and I’m sure even more will follow.