Preparing for investment readiness
Thinking about raising investment? Before you start speaking to investors, make sure your business is truly investment ready.
Securing funding is about far more than having a great idea. Investors want to see evidence that your business is prepared for growth, understands its market, and has the foundations in place to scale. This practical session will help you understand what it takes to become investment ready—and how to avoid the common mistakes that can hold founders back.
Join Sean Mullaney, Founder & CEO of SeaPoint, Will Bryant, Founder of Start Scale & Succeed, and Laura Brentnall, Director of Rights & Access at True North Data Governance & Compliance (TNDGC), as they share insights from decades of experience building, scaling, advising and governing high-growth startups.
In this session, you'll learn:
How to assess whether your business is genuinely ready to raise investment.
What investors expect to see before they commit to backing your startup.
The key steps to prepare your business before approaching investors.
Why strong governance and compliance foundations matter to investors—and how to get them right.
Sean Mullaney has built and scaled technology businesses at the highest level. Before founding SeaPoint—the financial home for startups—he served as CTO at Algolia, European CIO at Stripe, led engineering at Zalando, and helped develop Google X's first commercial drone delivery system. A serial founder, Sequoia Scout and active angel investor, Sean has also advised both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England on digital currency design.
Will Bryant has helped more than 1,500 founders across 75 countries become investor ready through his advisory practice, Impact Change. His career spans institutional investing at Wells Fargo Asset Management, scaling CAKE Technologies through its acquisition by American Express, and leadership roles at both American Express and Fresha. Today, he continues to advise founders, serves as a non-executive director, mentors with The King's Trust and coaches founders on Foundervine's The Foundry 2.0 accelerator.
Laura Brentnall helps organisations build the governance and compliance foundations that underpin investment readiness and sustainable growth. As Director of Rights & Access at True North Data Governance & Compliance (TNDGC), she advises businesses on data governance, information rights, and regulatory compliance, helping them reduce risk, improve operational maturity, and strengthen stakeholder confidence. Drawing on extensive experience in information governance, Laura brings a practical perspective on how robust governance can become a competitive advantage for organisations preparing to scale, attract investment, and navigate increasing regulatory scrutiny.
Whether you're preparing for your first funding round or want to understand what separates fundable startups from the rest, this session will give you practical guidance from three experts who have sat on all sides of the investment table.