Sam Simpson

FounderCatalyst

FounderCatalyst is an exciting and disruptive play into the UK legal tech sector, underpinned by our superb technology platform. 

Our mission is to create all of your funding legal paperwork quickly and professionally, with no compromise on quality, at a fixed low price.  

Our aim is to make your fundraising legal journey as simple as possible, whilst managing investor engagement, putting you back in control.

My role in FounderCatalyst is to ensure that our platform and customer service is exemplary, to build industry partnerships and to own and execute our service roadmap.

Founder

Forge Technologies Ltd

Forge Technologies is a digital IT services business focusing on three technology pillars; Future workplace, Cloud optimisation and Network transformation. Forge has no legacy infrastructure that it needs to deliver returns against; no costly office space, external investors or banking covenants and unencumbered from legacy working practices that have to be turned on their head to adapt to new working practices.

Within Forge Technologies, I am responsible for all aspects of commercial and back office services.

Co-Founder and CCO

University of Bristol

Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre (QTEC) is a world-leading incubator for quantum-based technology innovators, its vision is to educate and create the quantum entrepreneurs of the future. I'm mentoring two fantastic entrepreneurs as they develop their businesses.

Visiting Fellow and Mentor

Various Companies

Providing ongoing advice and support to the founders of incredible investees

Angel Investor and Board Advisor

Roc Technologies

I co-founded the business and successfully established the project and professional services delivery functions along with all back-office functions. This included finance, HR, IT, legal and corporate governance & compliance and vendor partnerships & accreditations.

Roc was recognised by the Financial Times as the 17th fastest growing company in Europe in 2017, and was the fastest growing IT Services business in the UK in 2016 according to the Sunday Times Tech Track.

Following a strategic review, I led a corporate finance process which resulted in a leveraged MBO and the acquisition of an IT Services business. At the time Roc had more than 200 people and run rate revenues of £25m. I subsequently exited my shareholding and Directorship as a part of this process.  The exit process was recognised by Business Magazine Thames Valley as Mid-Range Deal of the Year at the Annual Thames Valley Deals Awards 2018, held at the Madejski Stadium in Reading on the 19th April 2018 and subsequently as Tech Deal of the Year 2018 at the Thames Valley Tech Awards.

Founding Director

Daisy Group PLC

During my short period of employment at Daisy I was responsible for stabilising the Professional Services elements of the business following the acquisition of 2e2's managed services business. I also developed a repeatable process for integrating acquisitions.

Director of Project Services

Consolidated five disparate Project Services team into a single consistent directorate. Responsible for more than 150 staff across multiple disciplines and a portfolio of 500+ projects with a value in excess of £200m.
I also supported the sale of the company’s business units and assets to Daisy and O2.

Accountable for all delivery operations including management of a team of 90 technical engineers, consultants, project managers and PMO staff. My team delivered in excess of £110 million of customer solutions per annum.

Operations Director, Unified Communications Business Unit

Delivery of the company’s largest and most complex programme for a high security UK government client. Recruited and led a team of more than 60 technical and project management professionals. Successfully delivered the programme to time and budget.

Technical & Delivery Director

Prime Business Solutions

Management of pre-sales technical support and post sales delivery for IT infrastructure solutions based on Microsoft and Citrix.

Server and Client Line of Business Director

Evotree Limited

Evotree was an early cloud computing and Microsoft/Citrix Integrator startup. I established and managed all technical and operational delivery capability. The company achieved revenues of £1m in the first 6 months and was subsequently integrated into Prime Business Solutions.

Co-Founder and COO

Technical development, management and support in the Education and Insurance sectors.

Various Network and IT Operations Management Roles

You're seeking that all-important funding to catapult you to the next level.

YET despite how motivated you are and how good your business idea is, you may still struggle to…

▫️ Get funding because of the advance assurance needed
▫️ Afford the production of expensive legal paperwork
▫️ Know-how to find those elusive investors.

Simplifying and accelerating the early-stage investment legal journey, FounderCatalyst is the ONLY affordable fixed price method of funding round legals for start-ups.

WHO WE HELP
Pre-incorporation to start-ups in England & Wales that want expert AND affordable help with SEIS & EIS and the legal process and documentation required to complete their funding journey. 

3 WAYS WE HELP
1. Apply for SEIS & EIS advance assurance
2. Produce all legal funding round paperwork and manage investor engagement
3. Introduce start-ups to possible sources of funding.

Enjoy the relief all of the legal paperwork you need in as little as 30 minutes and your investor engagement managed through the process.  

PROOF WE HELP
✅  Complete fixed price service per funding round just £1,495 +vat
✅  99% success rate for advance assurance
✅  Legal paperwork produced in just 30 minutes.

YOUR NEXT STEP
Haven’t yet got your funding legals sorted and you’re determined to give your start-up the best and most affordable chance of success?

Book a chat at https://calendly.com/sam-fc/meet

Thanks for viewing my profile.

Sam

"Founders seeking to raise equity finance - use this service! It’s simple to use, reliable & secure, & provides unrivalled value for money. You're in complete control of your fundraising process & timescales." Jules & Charlie, Founders, The Nue Co

FREE RESOURCES
Because we’re here to help start-ups, we offer the following for free:

✅  SEIS/EIS advance assurance submission
✅  Customised Term Sheet
✅  Template Forecast Models
✅  Founder Collaboration Agreements

Visit: foundercatalyst.com to find out more and access the freebies.

SPECIALITIES: Start-up, Startup, Start Up Funding, Funding Round, Funding, Investment, Investor, Investor Engagement, Angel Investor, SEIS, EIS

This afternoon has been a great reminder of why I love doing what I do at FounderCatalyst.  3x back to back founder calls:

🚚 A founder with an amazing app in the foodie space.  As a passionate home cook, this chat really made me want to get out in the outdoor kitchen this weekend to cook up a feast.

💰 Telling a founder with an amazing luxury brand who thought that she was out of time for SEIS that she's still eligible - her reaction was a treat 👏

🎣 Hooking a customer from a competitor out of the blue always a treat too 🫢

Being a founder is a rollercoaster, but this has been a great end to the week 🎉

Serial Entrepreneur, Board Advisor ▫️ Founder at FounderCatalyst, the ONLY affordable fixed price method of funding round legals for start-ups ▫️ CCO at Forge Technologies

⏳ 48 hours to go - I’m looking forward to joining forces with Ivan Hoo for a live, practical breakdown of one of the biggest early-stage challenges: setting and defending your pre-seed valuation.

Whether you're raising your first round or preparing for investor conversations, this session will give you the frameworks and confidence you need.

Here’s what FounderCatalyst and Hubble will be covering:

✔️ The core principles behind pre-seed valuations — and how equity, control and fundraising strategy really fit together
✔️ The key valuation methodologies founders should understand (and when each actually applies)
✔️ An investor’s perspective on how valuations are assessed in the real world
And from Ivan Hoo (Fractional CFO & Startup Advisor at Hubble):
✔️ A deep dive into the Venture Capital Method (VCM) & comparables
✔️ Practical tactics for negotiating with investors
✔️ A live Q&A to tackle your specific valuation questions

🗓️ 3 December 2025

🕛 12:00 PM (UK Time)

💻 Free to join

👉 Save your spot: https://lnkd.in/eyESfp6x
Hope to see you there!

#StartupValuations #FundraisingTips #FounderCatalyst  #StartupWebinar #InvestorReady  #StartupJourney

👥 Building a Winning Startup Team

Equity, Legal Structures & Advisory Boards
A strong startup team goes far beyond just great people—it’s about setting the right structure, incentives, and agreements from day one.

In this practical session, Sam FounderCatalyst will be covering how to allocate equity and use share schemes effectively, while Patricia Wing (SuLe) will break down the legal and governance must-haves for co-founders, advisors, and NEDs.

What you’ll learn:
✅ How to structure equity for co-founders and advisors
✅ SEIS, share options & funding round considerations
✅ Vesting agreements, legal protections & more
🎤 Plus live Q&A—bring your questions!

📅 09/12/25 @ 12PM (Zoom)

Register here for free:

Open article: Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: How to Attract, Keep, and Reward your Co-Founders, Advisors, NEDs and Employees. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. by us06web.zoom.us

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: How to Attract, Keep, and Reward your Co-Founders, Advisors, NEDs and Employees. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

⏰ 6 days to go!

Next week I’ll be hosting a free live session taking you behind the scenes of what really happens after you’ve defined your funding round — from inviting investors to signing, closing, and completing your raise on the FounderCatalyst platform. 🚀

I’ll also cover the key post-close steps that keep your company and investors aligned, compliant, and ready for growth.

Here’s what we’ll go through:
✅ Inviting & managing investors
✅ Signing and completing your round
✅ Closing actions on FounderCatalyst
✅ Post-close compliance essentials
✅ Live Q&A

🗓️ 17/11/25 | 12:00PM (BST)

💻 Free to attend — final spots available!

👉 Save your place here https://lnkd.in/e35Pkfwk 

#FounderCatalyst #Webinar #StartupFunding #SEIS #EIS #Fundraising #StartupJourney #AngelInvesting

Open article: Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: From investor invites to closing the round: What happens next on FounderCatalyst platform. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. by us06web.zoom.us

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: From investor invites to closing the round: What happens next on FounderCatalyst platform. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Solid Bond.

Finance and Commercial Director

My role is to provide finance support to a portfolio of businesses. the level of support and the type of support needed varies significantly from business to business. 

Typical Responsibilities:

- Business Planning/ Budgeting
- BI Implementation/ Management Accounts
- Attended and presented financials at board meetings
- Power BI report writing
- Tax Planning/ Liaising with Tax Professionals
- Lead on Software Implementation 
- Liaising with External Accountants
- Investment Appraisals/ Due Diligence
- Preparing investment paperwork with lawyers
- Staff management of transactional finance team

Finance Manager

Safran

Main purpose of the role is to help control the direct purchases for over a £110m spend and to business partner with the purchasing department. 

- Set the budget for direct purchases for all products, budgeting for a spend of over £110m
- Monitor and work with budget holders to control the expenditure on 4 purchasing cost centres and carriage in costs
- Present the monthly KPI pack to the Purchasing director and to senior management occasionally
- Calculate and monitor the purchasing overhead absorption rate (purchasing fee) and explain any over/under recovery
- Provide detailed and complex variance analysis on gross margins for the wider cost of production team. 
- Complete balance sheet reconciliations. 
- Provide detailed analysis of the GRNI account in working through credit notes owed by suppliers. 
- Calculate and post amendments to stock to value at actual cost at the year end.  
- Led and successfully delivered the annual standard costing by coordinating the work of 3 other accountants.

Management Accountant (Supply Chain Controller)

- Finance lead responsible for reviewing the industrial/ operational performance of one of the business operations. 
- Prepare budgets and quarterly forecasts with budget holders.  
- Set the annual labour budget for 300+ employees. 
- Close out month end in a tight 2.5 day deadline. 
- Prepare journals for accruals, prepayments and ad hoc movements of cost. 
- Identify potential risk and opportunities and flag these to senior management.
- Cost control of site general/ travel expenses, over £15m per year. 
- Developed detailed reports on general/ travel expenses and to coordinate the delivery of a £2m expense reduction challenge set by group. 
- Use of SAP and Hyperion accounting systems (loading budgeted hourly rates, purchasing fees and expenses and forecast data into both). 
- Utilised strong Excel skills to automate many tasks savings over 2 hours at month end and simplify tasks during the month. 
- Involved in headcount reporting and standardising headcount reports between HR and finance to present consistent figures to senior management. 
- Business partner with the sheet metal/ components operation of the business.
- Audit support both internal and external. 
- Standard setting and material validations.
- Deliver the annual costing run to re-set standards for the new year. 
- Conduct frequent cost centre reviews with over 10 budget holders. 
- Work effectively with French counter parts.

Management Accountant (Industrial Controller)

Fujitsu

Worked as the finance lead for over 20 cost centres/ budget holders managing a cost base of over £20m per year.

Responsibilities included:
- Accurate creation of monthly management accounts
- Preparation of monthly journals
- Process and post accruals and prepayments on a monthly basis
- Managing the month end process
- Performing ad hoc analysis to provide information to the Finance Business Partner
- Created detailed business review packs for operational managers in their business reviews
- Provided detailed utilisation reports and variance analysis
- Prepare annual budgets and quarterly forecasts
- Perform a variance analysis between quarterly forecasts with commentary to the Finance Business Partner
    - Examples include:
        - Impact of new day rates on the forecast
        - Impact of changing rules of how group property costs are applied

- Conduct quarterly forecast reviews with operational managers and remove errors from the forecast
- Use of accounting packages such as Oracle and Hyperion Financial Management
- Developed excellent Excel skills

Finance Graduate - Cost Accounting

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Lead Teacher at the Missionary Training Centre. Oversees the training for the English department consisting of 8 members of staff, while still maintaining all the responsibilities of an MTC Teacher. 

- Responsible for setting and managing the departments work schedule
- Participate in an interview panel for new teachers in the English department. 
- Delivers tailored training on the curriculum to staff on a bi-weekly basis
- Analyse effectiveness of teaching and offer training to improve quality of teaching.

Lead Teacher

Teacher at the Missionary Training Centre. Deliver a 2 week training programme to groups of 6-10 students in preparation for a 2 year, or 18 month, voluntary mission. 

- Deliver tailored training on core teaching skills to groups of 6-10 students
- Create specific personal development plans with students.
- Communicate clearly with team members on students progression 
- Employed time management skills in adhering to a fixed schedule 
- Utilised Microsoft Office in creating classroom learning materials

MTC teacher

University of Surrey Careers Service

Temporary campaign to produce university employability statistics by gathering information from recent graduates. This campaign contributed the University being ranked 6th best in the UK. 

- Developed a professional telephone manner through the calling of graduates
- Employed attention to detail while recording vital information
- Maintained an accurate database of potential leads
- Coordinated daily workload with colleagues to maximise results
- Analysed results which identified certain leads to target resulting in increased results.

Data Collector

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Worked in a voluntary role as an assistant to a leader of a local religious organisation.

- Prepared agenda's for weekly meetings and recorded action points
- Employed Microsoft Office skills in preparing visual materials for audiences
- Maintained an accurate database of membership information
- Managed the local leaders schedule
- Coordinated interviews with individuals and management
- Developed strong communication skills in coordinating with members of the organisation

Administrative Assistant

Was a full-time voluntary missionary/ official representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Scotland, Northern and the Republic of Ireland. Responsible for finding and teaching individuals wanting to learn about the organisation.

- Consistently worked 10-11 hour days to achieve targets
- Managed a team of 30 volunteers and set and reviewed their targets on a weekly basis
- Created PDP's with members of the team and periodically followed up with their progress 
- Developed a training programme which resulted in the doubling of new leads within the team
- Produced statistical reports for management using Excel
- Advanced interpersonal skills by training individuals on a 1 on 1 basis

International Volunteer

Vodafone

Placed in the busiest store in the region as a sales assistant in a high street telecommunications company.

- Employed communication skills in responding to customer queries, complaints and then, resolving customer concerns.
- Demonstrated leadership skills managing the shop floor and assigning work to team members 
- Developed an ability to manage time working with customers with limited time
- Converted new leads into customers
- Implemented staff training to increase effectiveness as a sales assistant

Sales Assistant

Looking for and working with high growth starts ups. We invest in and give active support to great founders to help grow and scale their businesses. 

Dan is the Finance and Commercial Director at Solid Bond Capital, where he provides finance leadership to the Solid Bond portfolio, works with founders through investment rounds and processes, leads on the finance support given to the portfolio companies and evaluates businesses pitching for investment taking them through from first pitch, investment, and post investment support. He is a chartered management accountant and graduated with a 1st class honours degree from the university of Salford. Following graduation Dan qualified in industry working with several businesses in accounting/ finance business partnering roles focused on financial and operational reporting/ performance improvement prior to joining Solid Bond Capital in 2019.

Dan Dudley

One of the checks investors are doing when you are pitching to raise #preseed is how do the founders fit into team. 

I've seen massive overlap in founders or a co-founder that clearly has no massive value add but owns a chunk of equity. It just starts to work against you.

And the sad thing is hardly anyone will ever feedback that that is the issue. Definitely worth looking at that heavily before going out to raise. 

#preseed #startups #venturecapital #founders

Pre-seed Investor at Solid Bond | Actively Investing | Finance and Commercial Director |

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