Client: Obu Invest 

Industry: Fintech, Investment, Startup, Scaleup 

Services: Advisory, Due Diligence, Consultancy, Strategy 

Challenge: 

Obu Invest has been a voice of challenge and change within the early-stage investment sector. Campaigning for SEIS reform and bringing about a real shift in gender balance on investment syndicates, OBU puts female founders and angels firmly in the spotlight. As part of onboarding potential founders onto their unique FCA regulated platform Obu required a stringent and robust challenge due diligence process. 

Challenge Quote: “Like us, Obu Invest is a startup helping other startups thrive. It’s a fast paced environment dynamic environment in which stakeholder demands changed and evolved continuously.  The challenge then is to design a process that gives confidence and assurance to key partners, regulators and investors in a consistent and as far possible, transparent way, blended with the flexibility required to adapt to fast changing demand. The critical factor then was to identify flexible alternatives to traditional metrics to ensure that female founded companies are able to access the support they need in an equitable way.” 

Solution: 

Industry best practice: Colab-8 was able to pull together elements from industry leading due diligence processes across the UK, Europe and USA to produce a format that gave robustness and transparency/assurance.  In so doing, Colab-8 sought to develop a process that would give current and future investors confidence in the companies and assurance around the accuracy of research conducted. 

A Blended framework: Colab-8 identified a series of qualitative and quantitative measures that give equal opportunity to founders form non-traditional backgrounds looking at lived experience, traction and impact as well as education, financials and business models. 

Real World Language: Founders are advised of the process and measures in a real world way, removing the smoke and mirrors often associated with financial jargon. 

Constructive Dashboards: Both those pass and fail initial due diligence are presented with a clear dashboard highlighting areas of strength and concern within the value proposition. Where possible mitigations are suggested and ongoing coaching and mentoring provided. 

AI Integration: In order to assess for bias and to ensure a consistent application of the framework, AI technology was introduced to provide an added layer of assurance around the analysis. This allowed for the process to be quickened through faster market analysis, scenario testing and competitor analysis. 

The Colab-8 Effect: 

The due diligence process has been seen as a key strength of Obu Invest, attracting praise from both sides of the investor founder relationship. Business accepted onto the platform have been successful in fundraising over £1.5m in 12 months demonstrating strong alignment to the market demand from the investment side. Ongoing reviews, particularly around AI integration will continue.



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Discover more about how Colab-8 is pioneering new approaches to early-stage due diligence, working with investors to meet their requirements around risk, impact and financial return.