I was happy to read last week that former Young Guns runner-up, my-wardrobe.com, a UK online retailer of designer fashion, was able to secure funding of $9m from Balderton Capital to enable overseas expansion.
(As an aside, we are sponsoring Young Guns for the fourth time this year and I am very excited to be judging and selecting the finalists in a couple of weeks, with the winner being announced in September. Would be good to get another great achiever in the fashion sector...)
Another exciting piece of news from last week was hearing that a client of mine, who has recently launched her own label, has been asked to show at London Fashion Week in September. Needless to say I will be wearing the couple of pieces I ordered from her last collection with pride…
I was also pleasantly surprised to secure a meeting with a banker for a prospective client looking for Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) funding. I have heard many controversial views on this scheme from contacts, including the extensive information required and the risk averseness of the banks. In fact I have recently read that lending to small and medium-sized businesses under the government backed EFG scheme fell by 23% in the six months from £472m (April to September 2010) to £365m (September 2009 to March 2010).
The Chancellor announced that the current EFG scheme will be extended by £200m until March 2011, in his emergency Budget last month. However many are calling for the coalition government to revisit the terms of the scheme to provide greater incentives to lenders. My past experience of the scheme is that organised, complete and realistic business plans and forecasts are crucial to be able to even secure a first meeting with a bank. Fingers crossed for the introduction I have recently made.
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