Member Article

Tees Valley Businesses Prepare to Pitch

Next week sees the culmination of months of hard work as the first cohort of the Tees Valley Business Hub Pitch Perfect programme deliver their presentations to potential investors.

Pitch Perfect – Access to Finance is a programme that has been delivered by Tees Valley Business Hub (TVBH) in association with Grow Tees Valley over the summer, to enable Tees Valley-based businesses to confidently and effectively pitch their businesses to investors. Over the next two years of running the programme, TVBH hopes to use Pitch Perfect to raise £2 million of finance, create 100 jobs and support 60 high growth companies, all in the Tees Valley.

The pioneering cohort consist of seven businesses with high growth potential, representing a spectrum of sectors from soft drinks, to SaaS, to hydrogen technology. Over the past few months, TVBH has worked closely with each business owner, in collaboration with other specialists in disciplines including presentation skills, finance and law, to fully equip and ready these businesses to pitch to investors. The pitch is the final challenge after months of hard work, and businesses will be pitching to a panel of guest investors, hoping to gain investment and funding to continue growing their companies.

To make things even more challenging , the businesses will be pitching digitally and all teaching and learning has also been completed online. Luckily, renowned local actor Craig Conway was on hand to give them some presenting tips. “Craig was able to help me identify what I needed to do to better present Odyssea to potential investors and gave me some advice on techniques to relax and centre myself to deliver the presentation,” says Peter Holdsworth, owner of Odyssea App.

The cohort are excited at the prospect of finally being able to put all their learning into action. “It has been so enjoyable to focus on how to deliver [my pitch],” Mags Bradshaw, Pitch Perfect participant and Managing Director of My Marketing Button says. “I’ve learnt so much, including what investors look for, and how to extract the key points from my business that will support me in the future.”

Pitch Day next week will be an exciting opportunity for the seven Pitch Perfect businesses as well as continued investment in the Tees Valley.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chris Beevers .