Gillian Fleming: democratising angel investing (pic: Terry Murden)
Interview: Gillian Fleming, CEO, Mint Ventures
An angel investment group led by women to help other women is not a new idea, but there is plenty of fresh thinking behind Mint Ventures which debuted last week and is already starting to turn heads. For starters, it wants to engage with those who are keen to support growing female-led businesses but have only modest sums to invest.
“We want to democratise angel investing and make it more accessible to women from all walks of life,” says the group’s co-founder and CEO Gillian Fleming. “You don’t have to be super wealthy to be an angel investor – our minimum investment ticket size per person is £2,000.”
If that is enough to whet the appetite of would-be company backers, they might also be tempted by the offer to be trained in the art of angel investment. Mint Ventures will provide support and training for its members on areas such as tax benefits, due diligence, strategic leadership and board governance skills for scaling start-up companies.
This education and mentoring role has drawn particular support from the wider angel community. Jenny Tooth CEO of the UK Business Angels Association, said its research has shown that key barriers for women are lack of access to knowledge and peer experience on angel investing.
So will men have a role in Mint Ventures?
“We are not excluding men,” says Fleming. “In fact we will be bringing a man with incredible investment experience on to our board.”
However, the group is clearly and deliberately women-led. A need to bring more women into the sector has been acknowledged by Paul Atkinson, partner and founder of Par Equity, one of Scotland’s established business angel groups, who has been among those helping Mint Ventures get off the ground.
It has been operating quietly under the radar for some months, with the Scottish Tech Army helping to ensure its systems were properly in place, and last week Fleming hosted a public launch event in Edinburgh to a guest list that included Malcolm Buchanan, Scotland chairman of RBS, and Willie Watt, chairman of the Scottish National Investment Bank.
Mint Ventures joins groups such as Investing Women in the battle to bridge a continuing gap in support for female-led businesses.
“For too long women have been under-represented and under-funded when it comes to early-stage equity investment,” says Fleming. “We are on a mission to change that through our educational programme to support more women to become angel investors and invest in diverse companies with purpose.”
Research shows that women start their businesses with 53% less capital than men, ask for 30% less funding and consequently are often hugely under-capitalised from the outset, with only 14% of all capital raised going to women-led businesses. Fewer than 15% of the UK’s business angels are women.
“Throughout my career I have almost always been the only woman around the board table and it is difficult to have your voice heard,” says Fleming.
‘There are so many opportunities out there not getting on that first step of the ladder, often women led’
“In the current start-up ecosystem it is the same opportunities that are winning all the awards, securing places on accelerator programmes and raising investment. There are so many more opportunities out there not getting on that first step of the ladder, often women led.”
She admits to being “a bit of a thrill seeker”, having bungee jumped and taken a bobsleigh down the Olympic course in Italy, but her attitude to business risk changed during a Saltire Fellowship at Babson College in the US in 2017. After two decades working in the tech eco-system “helping to develop, support and mentor” teams and ideas into companies she wanted to get more involved at the sharp end of investing.
Fleming says her own sense of adventure partly explains why she enjoys the role and is looking forward to how it develops. “Offering advice and helping people on their journey gives you a buzz,” she says.
She was introduced to Lynne Cadenhead at Women’s Enterprise Scotland whose research was key to getting Mint Ventures established. “It was a meeting of minds and the timing was right,” says Fleming. The pair were joined by WES CEO Carolyn Currie as founding directors.
A point of differentiation will be its target markets. While other investment groups tend to focus on the tech and life science sectors, Mint will look at companies seeking funds in the £50,000 to £250,000 range in under-represented sectors such as food and drink, the creative industries and retail that may be more interesting to women. They should also demonstrate a social, ethical or environmental purpose, and – crucially – there has to be a woman in the leadership team, “part of the decision-making process, not just providing gender balance”, says Fleming.
Mint Ventures currently has 20 members who are likely to invest in four or five companies each year, up to about £1m in total, and the first is about to be announced, a platform for translation services.
Retail is an interesting choice, given its problems, but she says digital retail offers some big opportunities, and because they are scaleable she sees them as more investable.
“We are speaking to a couple of retail start ups who are getting their digital strategies spot on from day one,” she says. “They may not provide 10 times returns, but we see companies not being backed that have potential.”
PERSONAL CHECKLIST
Occupation: Investment strategist
Birthplace: Dundee, grew up in Oban
Age: Undeclared
Education: Dunblane High, Edinburgh Napier University (Business Studies), Babson College
Career highlights: Aggreko (marketing), Howden (marketing), advising on commercialisation at University of Strathclyde and University of West of Scotland
What did you want to be when you were younger?
I wanted to join MI5. I liked the idea of undercover work combined with travel.
Is there anyone you would consider a key influence on your life?
My grandmother. She encouraged me to see the world and be my own person (and not marry too early).
What makes you angry?
Bad manners.
How do you relax?
Horse riding.
If you could invite three people, living or dead, to a fantasy dinner party who would you choose?
The Queen… she has been a leader for more years than most individuals and through so many eras and I’d love to know what makes her tick.
Sigmund Freud… always interested in his theories. He was also a bit of a misogynist and I’d like to put him right.
Richard Branson… I know he’s a popular choice, but we could talk about our early experience as entrepreneurs. He sold comics to his friends. I sold bred guinea pigs and sold them to my classmates.
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