Hatty Fawcett, Founder of Focused For Business, is on a mission to make it faster and fairer for start-up founders and business owners to raise equity investment, particularly when they are doing so for the first or second time.

Reports show that gender, ethnicity and geographical location can all be barriers to accessing funding, with less funding going to female founders, ethnically diverse founders and startups based outside of London. Hatty and the team at Focused For Business believe investment should be available to everyone, and that the process shouldn’t be over complicated or unnecessarily time consuming. 

Hatty, has a strong track record in supporting start-ups and raising investment. She has worked in three startups, raised equity investment for her former business (a marketplace) and also managed some of the investments Kelly Hoppen made when she appeared on the TV show “Dragons Den”. This experience gives Hatty a unique perspective when it comes to raising investment and the ability to see funding from both sides of “the fence”.

Hatty and the Focused For Business team run the Funding Accelerator programme which has raised over £22 million for businesses that have graduated from the programme, over £10 million of which was raised in the last 12 months.

Hatty’s unique perspective on start-up funding, and the work she does to level the playing field when it comes to raising equity investment, has resulted in her being a finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards in 2023, and being recognised as Adviser of the Year 2022 by Enterprise Nation.