⚡ How this Start-Up is Changing the Client Onboarding and Due Diligence Game

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the start-up world
📰 The biggest news stories in the start-up world
🧐 How this Start-Up is changing the client onboarding and due diligence game
🥂 How to get the event to come to you!
⏰ A tool that enables you to outsource all of your time consuming tasks to AI

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link taking you through to pick up tickets to our final 2024 Start-Up Social in Cardiff, get yourself in the room with 150+ founders for a fun, social night!

Happy hustling,
Rich

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🕸 Block Dojo are accepting applications for their AI and Web3 Venture Builder programme, with successful applicants receiving a £10,000 investment. You can apply here.

🧑‍💻 TechStars are accepting applications for their ‘Anywhere’ Accelerator, you can apply here.

🥾 Start-Up Bootcamp are running their Energy and Climate accelerator with successful applicants receiving a €25,000 investment. You can apply here.

🦌 Antler are accepting applications to their next cohort, with successful applicants receiving £100,000 investment

🏃‍♂️ Growth Manager, Runna
🖱 Head of Product, Klink
🎥 Content Creator, Loctax

🐫 Is European FinTech over its hump? Sifted

😤 Y Combinator is being criticised after it backed an AI Start-Up that admits it cloned a different AI Start-Up TechCrunch

💰 Facebook said it paid content creator $2bn this year TechCrunch

🧑‍⚖️ Amazon faces UK lawsuit pressure after ‘humiliating’ frozen funds UKTN

Validient: Changing the Client Onboarding and Due Diligence Game

Validient is an innovative client onboarding and business intelligence platform that enhances the due diligence process for regulated firms. In an era of increasing global sanctions and money laundering concerns, understanding corporate ownership structures and associated risks has become critical. Validient merges open-source data with official company data, providing a comprehensive view of the businesses that firms wish to engage with. Their platform includes essential tools for conducting effective anti-money laundering (AML) checks, ensuring that companies can make informed decisions when onboarding clients.

Finding Co-Founders: Building a Team through Shared Goals

Validient was born out of a tech accelerator in 2020, where the founding team, initially unknown to each other, came together with a shared vision: to create a SaaS company that positively impacts the world. Collaborating on various small projects allowed them to form a strong partnership, ultimately leading to the launch of Validient to address significant market needs.

Getting Initial Customers: Trust and Relationship Building

Securing the first customers for Validient proved to be a significant challenge. While interest in the platform was high, building trust was crucial for an early-stage company. The first customers were acquired through cold outreach—emailing and calling potential clients—coupled with efforts to develop genuine relationships. The Founder, Ieuan, emphasises the continued relevance of cold calling in standing out amidst the growing trend of AI-driven sales communications.

Scaling Beyond Initial Customers: Networking and Sales Outreach

To expand beyond their first customers, Validient leveraged the network they built through initial engagements to gain introductions to more firms that would benefit from their services. They developed a sophisticated sales outreach function that operates in the background, but increasingly effective cold calling has become a vital strategy in reaching potential clients.

Lessons Learned: Focused MVP and Market Traction

Reflecting on the early stages of Validient, the founder shared valuable lessons for future endeavors:

• Build Smaller: Focus on a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that addresses a key pain point effectively, ensuring all features are relevant and used.

• Gain Traction Quickly: Introduce a product to market swiftly to establish stickiness, which allows for future enhancements.

• Build Carefully: Prioritise developments that are strictly driven by industry needs.

Funding the Start-Up: Convertible Loans and Equity Rounds

Validient has successfully raised funds through two rounds of investment: a convertible loan and an equity round. Ieuan found that convertible loans serve as a beneficial funding method for early-stage companies, allowing them to secure funds while protecting equity in the long run.

Finding Investors: Utilising Accelerator Connections

The founding team initially connected with their first investors through the accelerator program where they met. The due diligence process involved regular meetings as the business developed over a period of 15 months. The second funding round also included participation from the Development Bank of Wales. Ieuan notes that raising funds often feels like a second full-time job, highlighting the importance of active involvement from all co-founders in the fundraising process.

Biggest Challenge: Establishing Trust in a Traditional Market

One of the most significant challenges Validient faced was establishing itself in the legal technology sector, particularly among law firms that are traditionally conservative and resistant to change. Building trust with these heavily regulated industries has been an ongoing hurdle, but Validient has now become a well-recognised player in legal tech.

Biggest Lesson: Understanding Customer Priorities

A key lesson learned throughout the journey is that potential customers often prioritise their existing workload over a new software solution. The founder found that customer attention is often directed elsewhere, which can lead to longer sales cycles. Recognising this allows for better understanding of customer priorities and can reshape the approach to sales discussions.

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Every Industry has that prestigious event that everyone wants to attend. However, they normally come with a pretty hefty price tag. For Percival, that event was London Fashion Week.

Knowing that everyone was going to be in London that week to check out all the latest releases in the world of high fashion, they knew they had to take advantage of this vast traffic of potential customers. However, they also knew that they couldn’t afford to do an official London Fashion Week show.

So, what did they do? Well, they used their store as a hub and held a runway show in the street out the front. They had vans driving over the runway, people walking passed the models and the world going crazy around them. But, it worked! They managed to draw huge crowds around the store, with people videoing it and posting it everywhere!

If you know a crowd of prospective customers is going to be somewhere, how can you capitalise on that traffic like this?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our innovator community have recommended.

SemblianAI enables you to outsource your time consuming tasks to AI. Discover the most impactful post-meeting actions and generate deliverables tailored specifically to you.

Next week I’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up, as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.

P.S. Connect with me on LinkedIn…