News

A Northern Ireland start-up which appeared on TV’s Dragons’ Den earlier this year has successfully closed a £350,000 funding round with local business angels to bring its innovative new insulated cable clip to market. Gray’s Clip, run by Lisburn-based co-founders Davy and Julie Gray, secured £250,000 of investment from a group of nine private investors through the Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN) and a further £100,000 from Co-Fund NI, part of Invest Northern Ireland’s Access to Finance portfolio. The company’s product, ViperClip, is a fully insulated cable clip which works with its specially designed battery powered stapler to secure 110v to 240v electrical cables to wooden joists and structures. Both of these products were created and designed by electrician Davy, who knew there was a need for a faster, easier and safer way to secure electrical cables to joists without having to hammer in individual clips. Davy and Julie appeared on the BBC’s popular Dragons’ Den show in March this year and received offers of investment from four of the Dragons, initially accepting an offer from Deborah Meaden.

Economic impact of COVID-19 leading to investments in early-stage businesses being delayed, stalled or abandoned In order to stimulate growth and employment, HBAN proposes temporarily increasing EII tax relief to 60% HBAN’S proposal to Dept of Finance also calls for annual amount eligible for tax relief to be increased from €250k to €1m Angel network argues current administration of EII Scheme is not fit for purpose and proposes significant changes in order to incentivise investments Some investors still waiting for tax certificates two years after application

HBAN (Halo Business Angel Network), has announced that the last 12 months has seen HBAN angels celebrate exits of up to 10X their initial investments. Since August 2019, Irish start-ups Finovation, Decawave, Payslip and Iconic Translation Machines have provided investors with an opportunity to make significant returns on their investments.

All-Island HBAN Director John Phelan joined Newstalk Business Breakfast Monday June 22nd to discuss how HBAN has adapted to continue pitching throughout COVID-19. He also offered important insights and advice for Irish start-ups and discussed HBAN's plans for the future.

HBAN  today announces the continuation of its pitching events to all-time-high numbers of investors.

Network urges more high net worth individuals to consider becoming angel investors

The Boatyard Distillery said today that it has successfully closed a £634,000 investment round through the Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN) from private investors and Co-Fund II. It also announced that it has started producing a new range of hand sanitiser in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

HOW we go about our every day lives has changed considerably in the last few weeks. While some businesses have unfortunately had to close their doors and many others have furloughed staff, pitches by start-ups to business angel investors are still going ahead remotely.

Life science software company Overwatch has closed a significant funding round that will accelerate product development and enable the company to grow its existing customer portfolio across both Europe and the USA.