Paul Grant has been running workshops, webinars and masterclasses for more than a decade at the British Library's Business & IP Centre, principally focusing on funding and growing a business.

About Paul’s funding events

One of the biggest hurdles of early stage companies is fundraising. Entrepreneurs looking for investment often face difficulty when navigating their way through the many funding options available without giving away too much control of their company. Paul has spent many years demystifying the funding game for entrepreneurs so that they can take the right decisions when it comes to launching and growing their businesses.

What’s covered?

Paul delivers online and in-person coaching, events and courses that break down the steps to getting funded into straightforward, practical actions.

As part of the British Library's new Reset. Restart programme, Paul runs a free monthly session on Your Funding Options which helps entrepreneurs discover routes to capital that they may not have heard of before, and decide on the best approaches for their business. Included in the session is advice on the latest government loans and support initiatives, and how to take advantage of angel investment and crowdfunding.

Paul’s half-day anchor workshop, How to Attract the Right Investors, walks entrepreneurs through the whole process of securing equity investment through crowdfunding, angel investors and venture capital.

Attendees leave with a simple, step-by-step plan for funding their business, as well as proven pitching templates and strategies. The workshop includes an interactive session with a top angel investor who shares insider information on the way he makes investments.

Paul also delivers regular online events to give entrepreneurs the best chances of raising the capital they need. His Fast Growth Series covers four key areas:

• How to create a pitch deck to secure investment offers
• How to create an executive summary to get investor meetings
• How to create a financial model to gain investor commitment
• How to raise equity capital through crowdfunding

The series also includes several free question and answer sessions with top angel investors, debt-financing experts and legal professionals.

Paul is a regular presenter on the British Library's Innovating for Growth programme, a free European Regional Development Fund initiative designed to help small businesses that are looking to grow.

Who are these events for?

All Paul’s events are designed to support early-stage entrepreneurs who are struggling to figure out which route to take to fund and grow their business, and who are seeking clarity, direction and a clear set of practical steps towards securing investment.

Paul’s How to Attract the Right Investors workshop is ideal for ambitious entrepreneurs who are either in the start-up phase and are unsure of where or how to raise the capital to launch, or are already trading but need more capital to reach profitability and scale.

The Fast Growth online series is designed for entrepreneurs who are keen to secure equity funding as quickly as possible and includes special events on crowdfunding and agile funding which are increasingly popular ways for business owners to finance their growth.

What can attendees expect?

Attendees can expect pacy and highly interactive sessions packed with valuable content and practical guidance. All events include follow-up information and support, as well as road-tested formulas and templates for attracting investment that have been validated by hundreds of investors. Paul’s aim is for everyone attending his events to leave with clarity and confidence about securing the right investment, so they are free to spend more time on their business.

"Paul is one of those advisors that is talking from experience rather than from a textbook. These events will save most people a fortune." - Managing Director at Arated.com Corp. Ltd. More testimonials.

About Paul Grant

Paul Grant is founder of The Funding Game which offers practical guidance, support, tools, events and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs seeking capital for their startup and scale-up ventures. Paul is an experienced entrepreneur and was founder of a London-based company for seven years which was funded through equity and debt finance. The company offered London-wide catering to the corporate and retail markets. Paul then worked with BA Capital and Capital Partners Private Equity Ltd. where he built a network of over 500 business angels, while coaching entrepreneurs individually and in groups on all aspects of funding and growing their early-stage businesses.

Paul has been featured in The Guardian and in several industry blogs and podcasts, and has run mentoring sessions for the British Library's Business & IP Centre, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Cass Business School, City University, London South Bank University, the Impact Hub network, Innovation Warehouse, Google Campus, Rainmaking Loft, The Princes Trust, The Business Funding Show, Big Venture Fund and many other incubators, innovation hubs, accelerators and organisational partners in and around London. He also provides pitch training for entrepreneurs delivering successful pitches on BBC’s Dragon’s Den. Paul’s passion is playing a part in helping other entrepreneurs enjoy the game of launching and running their own successful businesses.

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn.

Visit the BIPC's workshops and events page to view all upcoming workshops, webinars and events.

Catherine, founder and CEO of Ossa Organic took part in our Innovating for Growth: Scale-ups programme earlier this year, so we wanted to find out more about how she leads her company and what it involves...

Ossa Organic is a food business on a mission to inspire people to change the way we eat, from choosing fast and convenient to nourishing ourselves for optimal gut health and wellness.

Our first product to market was organic and traditional bone broth, which was also the first to hit UK supermarket shelves in 2015. As a business we are focused on tradition not trend, and a lot of mine and the teams’ time is spent in educating and inspiring people to move away from 0% fat diet culture and processed foods, and instead to use ancient nutrition as a way to heal themselves and feel well. A great example of this was our Bone Broth Bar held in January of this year, where we held a pop up for three weeks in the iconic Selfridges food hall in Central London, serving hot cups of chicken, beef and vegan broths and chatting to customers about gut health and these nourishing traditions.

I joined the Innovating for Growth programme, just before the pandemic hit and the world as we knew came to a halt. During this time the programme was an exceptional form of support and motivation and reminded me of the many vital practices for entrepreneurs, which help us to refocus and reprioritise our working lives:

• To plan and think strategy in a quickly changing landscape
• To visualise my goals
• To be creative
• To collaborate
• To make time to rest

All of these now make up my primary focuses in a working week as I continually learn to be more kind and patient with myself and remember my favourite mantra, ‘You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.’

My week

My weeks are always different as I do keep a routine, but am someone who thrives in a dynamic and varied environment. I spend every day working to grow and build Ossa but make my family and my children a priority as well as myself.

Self care

I am sure there are many female entrepreneurs who are mothers that understand if you are not giving time to yourself, you will ultimately fail. Self-care gives you more energy and ultimately it is this positivity and motivation that you can gift back to your family and your business.

Once I have completed my maternity leave, I will resume my weekly routine which includes:

• yoga three – five days per week before the house wakes up (a rare moment for stillness and inward reflection)
• I also practice meditation and do a 10 minute breath work session or journey most days. This helps me still my mind and some of my best ideas for the business or moments of clarity to make better decisions, come in this time. I always keep a notebook close by to jot down any ideas that spring to mind.
• I rest and recalibrate by using the sauna two times a week for 20 minutes, which promotes detoxification, gut health and digestion and gives me time to detox from the digital, putting myself in a space where it is literally impossible to check Instagram or emails.

I am a mother of three and have just welcomed our third child into the world, so I am currently on maternity leave. At such a pivotal time in a woman’s life, I have been so proud to take time out and realise what we have created in Ossa Organic.

Through my pregnancy, labour and birth (which took place at home) I sipped on bone broth and remembered how it all began. Ossa was born when I was pregnant with my first son and in search for an all-natural and organic source of nutrients for my body and found an elixir in bone broth. Hailed for millennia as “liquid gold", bone broth is rich in the nutrients from slow cooked bones including collagen, gelatin, glycine and amino acids to help seal the gut, strengthen immunity and much more. It was then I realised that there was nothing readily available and that it was time to share an alternative away from processed fast foods and bring these ancient nourishing traditions to supermarket shelves. Now, five years after launching, as a new mother I am able to enjoy the product that my body really needs during this pivotal time of rest and recovery.

Living my own brand

It has been so powerful for me to live my own brand over the lifetime of the business. I started looking into ancestral nutrition as a way of life seven years ago when I was pregnant with our first child. Ossa Organic was born five years ago, and since then, my team and I have worked weekly to inspire others to make their gut health a priority and to learn about bone broth and natural, organic and traditional foods. We share more on our blog.

My team and I have become experts at working remotely, considering the current times. We work on two team meetings a week which can be one – two hours long. We spend time looking at our micro and macro goals and then give each team member dedicated tasks.

As a female entrepreneur and a mom, the power of a strong team behind me is everything. To have trust and support from people who understand and grasp your business, gives me strength as a CEO and allows me to focus more on what I want to achieve for the business.

I work five days a week and start very early, as I am an early bird. I like to finish work by 15.30 to be able to collect the children, and on days this is not possible, I know I can make this time when I need to. This is vitally important to me.

I also spend a portion of time each week reading, researching, and discovering new ideas and trends in the way of health, mindfulness and biohacking. All these areas relate to Ossa and help keep me at the cutting edge and inspired.

I am most recently very interested in regenerative farming and soil health as all this links to the microbiome. Having left a corporate job where I was a Partner in a large firm in the City of London, I have spent two years out of that world and immersed in my own business where I have had the pleasure of being able to design my own life. The power of having control over how you work, allows you to create a life that suits your best interests. I believe this way of living has made me more productive and more inspired in both business and everyday life.