Cambridge ink-jet company secures funding through Angels@Essex

With their patented Powerdrop™ performance coating, Archipelago can paint almost any surface. Archipelago’s technology enables industries to greatly reduce their use of chemicals and paints through targeted treatment. The resulting coatings are super light and accurate and are applied with minimal wastage.

Initial goals

We first heard about Angels@Essex through a recommendation at a pitch event at St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge. We were looking to raise 1 million pounds and although we already had a lead investor putting up £330k we knew we needed to find other investors.

Working with the team

Our first sessions with William and Nitin were excellent. The coaching we had with them was invaluable and they were very helpful in getting our story and pitch right.

Our pitch changed during the Angels@Essex process as we made our presentation more compelling and easier to follow. We had already spoken to other organisations but the help from the Angels@Essex team was useful for when it came to finetuning the pitch. We found it was so important to get reactions from people outside our team to make our presentation appealing to investors.

We went around the rounds a few times and William and Nitin took a lot of time to give feedback on the presentation. We came to an agreement on what the presentation would look like before it went onto the platform and once we had worked that out, the uploading process went smoothly as it was very easy to get the information onto the platform.

What we achieved

We’ve been having several conversations with different investors, both individuals willing to invest and current shareholders. We’re looking to close our current funding round in June this year and funding received will enable us to scale up and start providing products in small numbers. In two and a half years’ time, we anticipate a further funding round to ramp up the volumes we can produce.

The Angels@Essex team helped us get further towards our 1 million pounds goal. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them; they are a really helpful team and we had a really good experience. Archipelago have raised £796,000 and are valued at £10m.

Find out more

Angels@Essex is an invitation-only investment platform that links angel investors to entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, allowing new disruptive technologies to flourish.