Sam Simpson

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

Co-Founder and CCO

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.

The most anticipated day of the year is here – “The Deal 2026” has been released by our friends at Beauhurst.  Hat tip to Henry Whorwood and team

Here are the headline UK funding trends at a glance.

2025 vs 2024:
📉⁠ ⁠Deal numbers down by 7.87%
📈 ⁠Total capital raised up by 3.43% (£800m more deployed)
⬆️ ⁠Average deal size up by 12.6%
🥇⁠ ⁠First-time fundraises up by 23.6%

Overall summary: Fewer deals but more capital per deal and more new companies entering the market.

Stage trends:
👉 ⁠Seed and Venture: Deal counts have softened compared with recent peaks, but remain above pre-2020 levels.
🐢⁠ ⁠Venture: Shows the clearest slowdown in activity.
📈⁠ ⁠Growth: Average deal size dropped (from ~£25.9m to ~£18.6m), indicating more caution in later-stage rounds.
💰Average seed valuation has softened notably, from £2.45m in 2023 to £2.04m in 2025. Though the % drop is not as crazy as growth (down from £27.2m in 2021 to £18.6m in 2025)

Sector trends:
🤖⁠ ⁠AI leads in both number of deals and total capital raised.
☁️⁠ ⁠Cloud computing ranks among the lowest by deal volume and capital raised.

Takeaway:  The fundraising market has become more selective, there are fewer rounds but larger average cheques, more first-time founders raising and strong concentration in AI.

Want to know more? Link in the comments?

Want to know how FounderCatalyst (the most cost effective, fastest growing and highest rated fund raising platform in the UK) can support your funding round?  Drop me a message 👏

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

💡 Planning your fundraise for the end of the UK tax year but not sure where to start?  Let’s fix that! 

🚀 Fundraising & S/EIS

I’m excited to be teaming up with Manchester Digital for a live session where I’ll be breaking down how founders can approach fundraising with confidence.

In this practical, no-fluff webinar, I’ll walk you through the full funding landscape - from grants and debt to equity - and help you understand which route is right for your business. I’ll also demystify SEIS and share insider tips to help you get the most out of this powerful scheme.

You’ll learn:
✔️ Funding options: Grants vs Debt vs Equity
✔️ Understanding equity types: Angels, VCs, and Crowdfunding
✔️ The benefits of SEIS for founders and investors
✔️ Advance assurance: why it matters and how to get it
✔️ SEIS myths, secrets, and practical tips
✔️ Live Q&A + useful resources

🗓️ Tuesday, 21 January 2026

🕛 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (UK Time)

💻 Online Webinar

👉 Save your spot now: https://lnkd.in/eJcsti_f

#Fundraising #SEIS #EIS #StartupFunding #FounderCatalyst #StartupWebinar #InvestorReady

On Friday 23rd January at midday, we are starting the first in a series of 6 webinars to kickoff the 2026 fundraising season. You can expect a practical, founder-focused session designed to help you turn early traction into a business investors want to back.

Hosted by myself (FounderCatalyst) and Hatty Fawcett from Focused For Business in this no-fluff hour we’ll go back to basics and help you assess your investor readiness, strengthen your foundations, and avoid the common mistakes that stop founders from raising early-stage capital:

✅ What investors actually look for in early-stage startups
✅ How to position your story and metrics to attract serious investor interest
✅ The most common gaps that derail fundraising (and how to fix them early) 
✅ How SEIS/EIS can make your round more attractive to UK investors, and why it pays to get Advance Assurance in place early

Secure your FREE spot here: https://luma.com/iqm7b745

Very proud that FounderCatalyst supported Saleem Yaqub and the Shoutt team with their recent close of >£500k from SFC Capital and others.

The unique FounderCatalyst model meant that Shoutt paid a fixed fee of just £1,495+vat - less than a third of the price of the (more expensive, lower Trustpilot rated) "market leader".  

Thinking of fundraising?  Lets talk 🤙

Co-Founder @ Shoutt | Freelance smarter with AI

Today we announced our £525k pre-seed round with SFC Capital and angels.

But this didn’t start with a pitch deck or a funding round.

Multiple pivots. And countless hours spent manually checking hundreds of websites and sifting through thousands of opportunities to understand the market and train our models. 

Shoutt is an always-on AI agent that finds and delivers highly relevant gigs to freelancers from across the web. 

Jonathan Eadie and I come from different backgrounds, tech and non-tech, and that combination has turned out to be one of our biggest advantages. Different lenses. Better decisions.

A few key learnings:
• Neither of us could have done this alone. Great companies are built in partnership
• Your first hires matter more than almost anything else (character over CV) 
• Persistence compounds, every failure gets you one step closer

Freelancers deserve independence, freedom, and tools that work for them. Not being reliant on a few big players that extract value, waste time, or flood them with junk.

A huge thanks to everyone who backed us early, challenged us, and believed in us.

We’re excited to continue to push the frontier of applied AI in helping freelancers globally with their independence, success and freedom. 🚀

Full details in comments below.

🚨 Free 60-min Session | Funding Options for Growth

Raising funds but not sure which route makes the most sense right now?

Join me (FounderCatalyst) and the awesome Ciaran Burke from Swoop for a high-impact session on how grants, growth-friendly debt, and equity investment can support your next stage of growth.

You’ll learn:
 ✔️ Which option fits your business right now
 ✔️ Key pros/cons of grants vs debt vs equity
 ✔️ What to prepare before you raise
 ✔️ Live Q&A

👉 Save your spot: https://lnkd.in/eWtmeerh

#Fundraising #StartupFunding #Grants #DebtFinance

🚨 Less than 1 week to go!

If you’re planning to offer equity, make sure your option scheme is set up properly from day one. I’m running a practical session on EMI and unapproved option schemes, with clear steps and real-world guidance.

Join us for:
✔️ Scheme setup
✔️ EMI valuations
✔️ Vesting design
✔️ Compliance essentials
✔️ Live Q&A
👉 Save your place: https://lnkd.in/e3bYKA5H

#EquityIncentives #EMI #StartupEquity #FounderCatalyst #EmployeeOptions

Stephen Gibbens

Accountant for Early Stage Technology Companies

I am the founder of Accountech, the Accountant for Early Stage Technology Companies.

We are the unique combination of a freelance Finance Director and finance department plus an external accountant that exclusively works with impact driven early stage technology companies from either the life sciences/medical device or climate tech sectors.

Since the business was formed in 2002, we have worked with over 90 technology companies in Scotland. We offer a friendly hands-on service that allows early stage technology companies to outsource the finance function and know that it is in safe hands. We are experts in our niche of early stage technology companies with expertise in financial projections, EIS work and R&D tax credits. 

We only work with a limited number of clients at a time and take on a small number of early stage clients each year so that we are able to give you the level of attention that you need and the consistency of the same experienced staff working on the client year after year.

At Accountech, your success is our success.

Our clients range from pre revenue companies starting off to more established companies that have raised investment from angel syndicates or V/C's.

What they have in common is that they are all expanding and have a business model with a ground breaking product that has a substantial potential market and have either raised investment or are looking to raise investment.
Clients typically have a technology endorsed by a history of either Innovate UK or SMART grants.
Our preference is for clients that "do good" , such as addressing climate change or curing disease.

As well as financial projections, EIS work and R&D tax credit claims, we also prepare monthly/quarterly management accounts and cash flow forecasts to carefully monitor the company's "runway", and also provide advice on all finance issues that you may come across in addition to traditional yearend statutory reporting.
We have the relevant experience and knowledge to provide solutions quickly, yet in a cost effective way.

Prior to forming Accountech, I was finance director of a technology company so I have first-hand experience of what our clients experience.

Within the Accountech community, we are able to put you in touch with other clients who have already faced the issues that you are facing.

Please have a look at my LinkedIn recommendations and posts for more on what you can expect as an Accountech client (I love posting about our clients' successes) and at our website which has recently been updated:

www.accountechsolutions.co.uk

Director

I have always resisted posting personal details about other family members on LinkedIn especially about my wife Alison who is a very private person and hates to be the centre of attention such as being in The Scotsman  but there comes a time when you have to try everything.

I have used LinkedIn to raise the profile of our clients and of charities that I support to great effect.

Now I use it because all that matters is to bring our children’s Mum, the best treat giver, poop scooper, dog walker,belly rubber (from a 60th birthday card she opened before she disappeared on Monday), my soulmate home.

I want to thank everyone who has sent messages of support and especially our friends who have dropped everything to walk the streets of Edinburgh in the cold, wet and dark the last two evenings.

Please share and help bring Alison home.

Open article: Police appeal to find woman reported missing in Edinburgh by scotsman.com

Police appeal to find woman reported missing in Edinburgh

Open article: Stephen's fundraiser for Scottish Action for Mental Health by justgiving.com

Stephen's fundraiser for Scottish Action for Mental Health

My first night hosting the Edinburgh meetup of People Planet Pint on my own tonight and thanks very much to everyone who supported me especially our favourite financial modelling expert Tom Hillmann, CFA who was there from the start to help me out.

Later on my co host Constanza Moreno-Sánchez O. and overall PPP supremo Adam Bastock were there to relieve me so it wasn’t that tough a shift in the end.

What is really encouraging me this year is the overlap between different networking groups and between Edinburgh and Glasgow that is happening now - amongst our attendees tonight we had:

Dave Hughes from Founders Meetup - Glasgow

Arielle Vetro from Venture Café Edinburgh

Katie Paterson from the best netwalking group anywhere, the Outsiders 

I feel that if we can just get these different groups working together we can really get something special going!

I’m looking forward to Venture Cafe’s next event next Thursday 22 January and to the next Outsiders walk at Water of Leith Visitor Centre on Friday 30 January (dogs welcome too!). Look forward to following up on some chats from tonight at both of those.

The next People Planet Pint is on the third Thursday of the month at The Innis & Gunn Brewing Company Ltd  pub on Lothian Road as always so Thursday 19 February.

Links in the comments for the sign ups to all of these events.

Thanks to the approx 40 People who came along tonight to get Edinburgh’s People Planet Pint off to a great start in 2026 and we’ll look forward to seeing you again soon!

I always find People Planet Pint the perfect pick me up for all the woes of the world. 
Coming along really cheers me up when you see what everyone else is doing to make the world a better place.

Together we can sort it all out 🙂

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My first time at Venture Café Edinburgh tonight.✨

If you love connecting with inspirational, mission-driven people (and enjoy whisky with your tech 🥃), this was definitely the place to be.

A highlight for me was Claudia’s Fireside Chat with Ken Macnamara from Trogenix and Holly Butler from Dxcover which really showed the potential of Scotland's Life Sciences sector. 

We finished the formal part of the evening with Sepi Golzari-Munro giving a fantastic recital of Burns' poems📜 , turning it into my first ever Tech Burns Night.

But it was the networking that really made the event. 🤝

I don’t think that I have ever been in a room with so many people that I genuinely wanted to speak to - some that I have known for years, some who only knew me from LinkedIn, and a few that I have been meaning to connect or reconnect with for ages - some new connections that I'd wanted to meet, some whom I hadn't seen for far too long.

We even managed to convene the unofficial Springsteen Superfans Subcommittee of the startup scene - 70+ Bruce concerts between us 🎸🎤
(Dave Hughes Mark Zwinderman)

One line from Ken particularly hit home for me on this night in particular:

“Everything is here.
 We just need to talk about it more.
 And talk to each other more.” 

That is exactly what Venture Café makes possible and why it is such an important addition to the tech ecosystem. 💡

Huge thanks to Claudia Cavalluzzo, Arielle Vetro, and team for putting on another brilliant event.

An evening with some of my favourite people supporting a really worthwhile charity, The Eric Liddell Community  

An amazing meal at The Caledonian Edinburgh  and some truly inspiring talks and videos which only made me more convinced that we need to invest more to support the ground breaking research in life sciences that is happening in Scotland.

Thank you to John MacMillan MBE and team for all that you do and to the Princess Royal for supporting this and many other worthwhile charities.

Photos with my colleagues, friends and partners in what we aim to achieve who accompanied me last night:

Evelyn Temple 
Lisa Thomson 
Dave Hughes 
Caro Melendez

Link in the comments to the Eric Liddell Community website to find out more about what they do and how you can support them.

🍻People Planet Pint is back for the first time in 2026 this Thursday in Edinburgh.

🗓 Thursday 15 January 2026
📍 The Innis & Gunn Brewing Company Ltd, Lothian Road (opposite the Filmhouse)
🕕 From 6:15pm
🎟 Sign up here:
https://lnkd.in/eQZGZncd

Started at COP26 by Adam Bastock, this humble pub chat has grown into a global movement over the last 4 years:

Here is what 2025 looked like:

🌍 883 meet ups, over 70 per month , across the country and overseas

👥 18,000+ registrations

🍺 6,000+ free drinks (thanks to our sponsor Krystal!)

And since the start:

💬 Over 25,000 people have attended a PPP 


What is People Planet Pint?

It is all about bringing together like-minded folk to talk about sustainability - no panels, no pitches, just purposeful chats over pints.

Whether you are:

🌱 A founder of your own business

🌍 Working in climate

❓ Or just curious about what you can do (and what everyone else is doing) to make a positive difference, you will be very welcome.

I promise that you will leave feeling much more hopeful about the year ahead.

📅 Can't make it this week?

We will be at the Innis & Gunn Brewery Taproom on Lothian Road every third Thursday of the month from now on:

15 January ✅
19 February 🗓
19 March 🗓

Founder Adam can't be in 70 places at once so we have a doppelgänger for when he's not there.

However, this Thursday, to get 2026 off to a great start, we are super privileged and should have the real thing there later on, once Adam makes it through from Glasgow.

👇
So don’t just stand there like a cardboard cutout - come along, grab a drink with Constanza Moreno-Sánchez O. and me and the People Planet Pint collective and have some real person to person conversations that could spark real change.

And as ever, for the first 10 people there, the first drink is on Krystal.

Cheers and Happy New Year! 🍻

A trip from Edinburgh to Dundee on the Ember electric bus again this weekend but this time for leisure rather than business reasons.
It really is the most comfortable and climate friendly way to travel, especially when the weather in Scotland in January is as wild as it was yesterday.

But Scottish football has also overlapped into my work interest of R&D tax credits recently even though I had never envisaged that a tax relief available to our innovative tech start up clients could also be so extensively used by football clubs.

I have been following with interest Paul Rosser, Dan Neidle, the Times and the Courier's investigations of Dundee United's disputed R&D tax credit claims (see Comments for an article from Dan's Tax Policy Associates website summarising if you missed it).

But I have noticed that Paul occasionally refers to Dundee United as "Dundee" so this was an opportunity to remind him (with photographic evidence) that these are two different clubs.

In fact, the walk between the two stadiums, Dens Park and Tannadice is actually the shortest between any two professional football clubs in the UK as I experienced when I passed United’s ground en route to see Heart of Midlothian FC play Dundee (not Dundee United).

As a Hearts fan, this season so far is reminding me of a few universal truths that apply to business as well as football:

⚽ You do not have to be the biggest to come out on top

⚽ The right team, with the right leadership, can overcome just about anything

⚽ Your supporters, your crowd, can make all the difference

And as Craig Gordon, Hearts 43 year old "Scotland's Number 1" goalkeeper showed, experience still has a huge part to play when the going gets tough!

Who knows how the Scottish football season will end this year but it is certainly the most open and exciting in my memory and let's hope that is it is one where there is fair play in all aspects.

May the best team win and win fair and square - in football and business.

📚 It is always a joy to receive a new book in the post but especially so when there is a section about me and Accountech in it! 🙂

Huge thanks to John Lamerton for including us again in his latest book Retention First 🙏

John's previous book The False Exit also featured a few pages about the Accountech flywheel... at this rate, John reckons that I will soon be able to help out doing book signings for him 😄

One of the best parts of being in John’s One Per Cent Club is seeing early drafts of these books, giving feedback, and getting a front-row seat to the writing process. It is the next best thing to writing your own and a real insight into the writing process and how much work is involved before you get to the final product.

✍️ Writing a book is definitely still on my bucket list... but it is tricky to balance with my other goal for this year of starting to work more reasonable hours. 

And my wife reckons that  “life of an accountant” might not be much of a page-turner - “today, I tapped on my calculator” 😂

But with over 1,000 books logged on Goodreads, plus 23 years running Accountech (and 5 years, "walking in our clients' shoes" at a tech startup before that), not to mention supporting nearly 100 tech companies… I reckon that there must be quite a bit of material to tap into.

And more and more of my network are published authors too so I'm not short of role models for inspiration 👇

A few I’ve read, met, or been inspired by:
BARBARA Henderson | Andrew Craig | Bob Burg | Tracy Irwin | Dr Sarah Taylor 🟠 | James Lizars FCCA | Rebecca Bonnington | Ashley Leeds | Matt Winning | Alex Dang | Mark Beaumont | Kate Raworth

And via One Per Cent Club Zoom calls:
Gerald Ratner | Neville Wright | Ben Hunt-Davis MBE

And from book festivals last year:
Jen Stout | Mike Berners-Lee

📖 Any other authors in my network that I have missed?

💬 And for anyone else: do you secretly want to write a book one day, but keep wondering when you will find the time?

👀 Keep an eye out for more posts from me on Retention First as its publication date of 26 February approaches.

It is packed with insights that really align with how I think about clients, retention, and building long-term relationships as reflected in our Accountech company values:

✅ Treat every client as if they were our only client
→ We don’t overstretch ourselves and focus strictly on the right clients who are the right fit for our business and expertise.

✅ Act as a member of our clients’ team
 → Giving clients access to senior staff who are there for the long term and whom they can get to know, like, and trust.

✅ Work with purpose-driven clients
 → So we spend our time supporting those genuinely leaving the world better than they found it.

This was an interesting exercise in speed reading 📚

For all my book loving LinkedIn connections, how did you do?

Once you get in the flow, it was only right at the end that I was struggling but I reckon that comes from training your mind up by reading a lot.

Wealth Management and Tax Planning for Entrepreneurs. Helping business owners feel confident, positive and relaxed about their financial future.

This is amazing!

Can you read it to the end?  ⬇️

Congratulations to our Accountech client, Clyde Hydrogen Systems, on completing their first fully integrated prototype 👏 - a major leap forward in green hydrogen innovation.

At Accountech, we are proud to support some of Scotland’s most exciting startups from the very beginning. 

With Clyde Hydrogen, that has meant being hands-on from day one:
helping with SEIS/EIS 💸, R&D tax credit claims 🧪, financial modelling 📊,management accounts, statutory accounts and grant submissions 📄.

🔬 As someone who follows Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) Research + Invention Agency), whom Clyde Hydrogen founder Mark Symes also works for , and a regular listener to the founder of Clyde Hydrogen investor Ecotricity, Dale Vince’s ZeroCarbonista podcast each week 🎧, this one is of particular interest to me.

💡 ARIA’s support for initiatives like Venture Café Edinburgh whose third event I’ll be attending next Thursday (22 Jan) shows how Scotland’s startup ecosystem is really evolving into something special now.

🤝 Clyde Hydrogen’s backers also include Zinc, who support another Accountech client SolarSub. 
Like us, they are committed to impact and focusing on the health of people and the planet.

🌍 Scotland’s tech sector is buzzing right now and we are just getting started.

📖 Full story in The Scotsman:

Open article: Milestone breakthrough for Scots hydrogen energy pioneer on staggering journey by scotsman.com

Milestone breakthrough for Scots hydrogen energy pioneer on staggering journey

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