Start-up to Scale-up with Channel 4 Ventures: Empowering Underrepresented Entrepreneurs with Tom Adeyoola

Your Dream Business

In the third episode of the Channel 4 Ventures series, I interview Tom Adeyoola, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Extended Ventures. We discuss his journey through the creative industries and his experiences in raising investments for his startup, Metail, where he secured £25 million. Our conversation delves into the challenges underrepresented founders face in sourcing investment, the emotional nature of early-stage funding decisions, and the importance of expanding the funnel to include diverse founders. This episode is ideal for course creators, membership owners, coaches, and anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of business investments.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Challenges for Underrepresented Founders: Tom Adeyula discusses the unique struggles faced by underrepresented founders when sourcing investment and emphasizes the need for greater inclusivity in the funding process.

• Emotional Nature of Early-Stage Funding: The conversation highlights how emotional factors often play a role in early-stage funding decisions, shedding light on the complexities that entrepreneurs face when seeking investment.

• The Importance of Diversity in Business: Expanding the investment funnel to include diverse founders is key to creating more opportunities and fostering innovation in the business world. Tom emphasises the value of supporting a broader range of entrepreneurs.

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LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Connect with Tom on Linkedin Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript

Teresa: Hello, and welcome back to this special series of the Your Dream Business podcast, where we are teaming up with Charmful Ventures I'm bringing you some phenomenal business owners [00:01:00] talking all about not only how did they create their businesses, but also what experience they've had in getting investment for their own businesses and the journey that they've gone on. Today, I am interviewing Tom. Tom is an experienced entrepreneur, executive and board director across the creative industry companies, private and public. He grew his fashion technology startup, Metail, to exit raising 25 million pounds. Tom is also the co founder of Extended Ventures, which uses insights to improve access to finance and outcomes for underrepresentative founders, and now sits on various boards. Boards, including Channel four and leading independent schools, St. Paul's. He's actively involved in investing and policy co-authoring a labor startup review. Can I be completely honest? I felt so stupid talking to Tom. This guy is so smart, right? And he. Like [00:02:00] the stuff he's done, you know how some people are just serial entrepreneurs. That's what I got from him. I'm just looking at my notes and I literally have written fingers in many pies. He has done so much stuff. He's involved with so many things. He has been in non profit. He sits on steering boards. He is a massive expert in this space. And, and I was like, I don't know that I was intimidated by him because he's such a nice guy, and the conversation was great. And I have to say, if I'm being completely honest, this whole series that I'm doing is feeling very intimidating because it is an industry in an area that I don't understand enough about, and I feel like I'm getting serious imposter syndrome of like, who am I to bring this to you because I don't understand it well enough. However, I think sometimes when it comes to, and I've told you guys this before, like if I'm interviewing someone on a subject, I don't know, I become even better at [00:03:00] interviewing them because I am like, okay, no, explain this to me. And now I need, yeah. Like I really kind of delve deep because I'm coming from a place of, I don't know what you're talking about, or. I need to understand this. So I hope that's the way it's going across, not, Therese doesn't know what she's talking about. But Tom was so smart, he's such a nice guy, but it really was Like I said, he's, he's super smart. I felt a little bit intimidated by what he knows, the experience he's had. And sometimes I fail like my little teeny tiny business over here is like laughable to what he might be doing, but you know, there's scale in everything. Like, and I'm sure Tom would look at someone who runs a multi billion pound company and think the same. So, you know, different people doing different things. But one thing that was super fascinating was we talked about how people go into business when their family doesn't come from an entrepreneurial background. His didn't, obviously mine didn't either. We talked about how he has two sides of him. So [00:04:00] interestingly, he went to Cambridge because he got a scholarship, but he does not fit in the white wealthy man box. And that was super interesting for him. And he said a couple of things in the interview where. Because he went to Cambridge, people almost saw him as a white, wealthy man, which is really, really interesting. I've written here again, he was so smart and fascinating. And we talked about the fact that I assumed investment came from smart people who looked at facts, and it's not an emotional thing or a connection thing. But that's exactly what he said it was. He said a lot of investment comes from connection and emotion, which is why there are very few people in underrepresented societies that are white. getting investment because the people who have got the money to invest are becoming connected with someone who is like them. And then we talked about how he's driving change in this space. It's not about backing businesses that aren't good enough, but being open to [00:05:00] businesses that wouldn't normally get funding. It's a really great conversation. I think you're going to love it. Like I said, see how stupid I signed on. Hopefully I hold my own as an interviewer, but You're really going to enjoy this episode. Here is the awesome Tom. So Tom, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you on. Tom: Thank you for having me. Teresa: My pleasure. So let's start because you're, I feel like you have many things in many pies to do with what we're doing here and this conversation. So let's just start with you explaining to the listeners who you are and what you do today and kind of how you got there. Tom: Sure. So, so my name is Tom Adeyula. I've been in the sort of startup space around the creative industries for over 25 years now. So I've worked in various startups from sport to telco to film, TV, Pirate Jets. I even managed a friend's band for a while as a, as a side hustle. And then I [00:06:00] ran my own fashion technology startup. for 11 years, which was very sort of high IP focused around computer vision, but originally was inspired by some research work that was done around replicating antique ornate statues. And it was all around trying to solve the online clothing fit problem. So I, I, I've been in that space for a long time, I've seen a lot of things and fundamentally I'm inspired by trying to solve problems and disruptive innovation. I sold that company in 2019 and subsequently I've invested in a few startups specifically trying to look into sort of, Climate change, positive society, overlooked spaces in terms of how I focused. I also co founded a non profit called Extend Ventures, which is about using insight to improve access to finance and outcomes for underrepresented founders. I also sit on the steering board of the Startup Coalition, which is the voice for startups in [00:07:00] the UK. I co authored the Labour Startup Funding Review for Rachel Reeves, and I also now sit on the board of Channel 4. Teresa: Wow. I'll just end with a wow, because that is crazy amount of stuff. Like, that is, to me, what that says is you are absolutely an expert in this space. Like, you can't and wouldn't have done all the things that you've done if you weren't very knowledgeable about this space. But I just want to go back really quickly, just for my own curiosity, how did you get started? In creative startups, like what? What did that look like? Did you come out of college and get a job or? Were your families entrepreneurs? Like where, how did that happen? Tom: No, so both my parents were immigrants to this country. So my mom's Norwegian, my dad's Nigerian. I was sort of fortunate enough to get a scholarship to an independent school, was bursary funded through, my dad worked on the buses, my mom worked in day nurseries. So there was no sort of entrepreneurial bent, if you [00:08:00] like, there. But I was, yeah, I was, a good student. I was really interested in lots of different things. And I, I, I sort of followed all the opportunities that was given to me at school. And I, I recognized that it was a real sort of privilege in the sense of my sister went to a comprehensive. I ended up at an independent school. I went on to Cambridge. She didn't do a level. She didn't go into university. And I think. Like, going through school, in, most of the time I felt like I was a jack of all trades and a master of none and I envied people who had a singular passion about a specific topic, but I was interested in everything, I wanted to try everything. Um, and I did economics at university and the gravy train would have been into banking and I did some internships, but I found it really boring, like, and I didn't really see the sort of like societal value of just pushing paper about, and I wanted to do something a bit more interesting. I originally started as [00:09:00] a management consultant. And it was very focused around pharmaceutical sector and I, I got a good grounding in how to do spreadsheets and analysis and all of that, that good stuff right at that time, the internet being was happening and there were lots of like really cool startups starting and it felt like it was a moment where. you could get involved and it sort of didn't matter who you were. And there was no sort of like fixed hierarchy or structure. And with a friend, we, we were getting meetings with potential investors as, as, as kids straight out of university. And it seemed a really exciting space in the end. We felt that what we were trying to do, we were too late to the party, but through the experience of, of getting involved in what was a really exciting sector, commercial director, a company called Sportal, which is a big sports internet portal at the time, um, he, he saw me and he, he sort of, Tried to hire me and [00:10:00] ended up joining that company and sort of working directly for him pre vetting deals and then running all of e commerce across the websites because we ran the websites for AC Milan football club, Juventus football club, which we ran Euro 2000 football championships. We had run the websites for South Africa, rugby America, sorry, Australian rugby, et cetera. And it was early days, but a real sort of like world west type environment. And. It was still too early, but it was that thing where if you solved a problem, you were just given more. So it felt meritocratic. It felt exciting. And it, it was, it was great for someone like me where I felt like I could do well and I was rewarded subsequently. So that, that, that got me sort of going in terms of the entrepreneurial types of companies. Teresa: I love it. One thing that's really interesting about your story and fits so perfectly, hence probably why you're doing what you're doing today, is that [00:11:00] you almost had, when we think about the investment into businesses and the type of businesses that get investment, we, one of the things that came out in the report was the fact of the. you know, predominantly white males were the people who were getting them and well educated white males. So, you know, people who were going to the likes of Cambridge and places like that. and mixing it. And it was almost like, and I guess I can say as a bit of a boy's club, you know, if you're in, you're fine. If you're not getting in is really hard, but you had two sides to that, that coin almost, you had the side where you went to Cambridge, you had that kind of in, but also, you know, You have the side where you weren't brought up and I can't, and this, this isn't the podcast for it, but I would be fascinated to see how you got on at Cambridge as a scholarship student and, you know, and, and, and, well, obviously at school and, and mixing when [00:12:00] your lifestyle didn't necessarily match up with some of those other people's, that would just be for my own interest. So we won't go to it today, but. You had the other side where you didn't come from a hugely wealthy family, you know, you came from, I guess, a fairly working class family, you know, you, your family were immigrants, like, and that's kind of the, the, the interesting part of this is that in one way you fit really well, and you would be like, tick the box, yes, you would be in that world, but in another way, you don't fit well and you don't fit in that world. So how was it for you, I guess, coming into the world of venture capitalists, coming into the world of, you know, startup businesses and, and seeing both the sides of that coin. Tom: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that's really interesting. Like if I think about my time at school in university, I would say that There were only ever two black kids in the school at any given time. And yeah, whereas, so I didn't have any black friends. Whereas my sister [00:13:00] did, cause you went to a comprehensive and it was actually way more mixed. And then when I went to university, it was the same. So, and I actually, one of the, the other black kids was also Norwegian, Nigerian, and he, he became a friend. Fake IT person and is, you know, that his character is what the intranet at Channel 4 is named after in terms of Moss from the IT crowd. Yeah. And, and I went into IT proper. Um, but it, it was that sense of like, I was part of this network of privilege, if you like, and, and to some extent, I remember having a board meeting once with somebody in my startup and they said, Oh, yeah, that the problem with your management team is that you're, you're, you know, you're white and middle class. And I was like, that's interesting. So that there's a color blindness here. And you haven't recognized as well that. My CTO went to Comprehensive in Bradford, um, is working class background to me. My CFO is from Hong Kong, but you've basically, because we speak well and highly educated, we've jumped into a sort of [00:14:00] different stratosphere in terms of how we've viewed. Yeah. But even still, I would say that, you know, and I'm quite diplomatic. I would say I've got quite EQ so I can see and understand how things happen. And even so, like it was, It's trouble for me to get money in the UK, I would say. So I went to sort of different avenues to try and raise money. I ended up raising about 25 million for my company, but more than 20 million of it came from Asia. Like I went to where the money was very directly related to the problem. So trying to get people who are so motivated by the problem you're trying to solve that it's just a very straightforward conversation, which isn't about, yeah, am I investing in. Yeah, they can see past the who you are, because I think the difficult thing always is like, can you generate some sort of relay relatability with the investor on the other side of the table in a conversation? And what is unfortunately true is that the investor in a conversation when you're meeting them [00:15:00] has made that decision where they're going to invest in you or not within five minutes. So before you ever get out of the deck, so if you're spending that first five minutes trying to relate and there's no common ground, it's, it's very difficult to get past that. So, and you're going to have much shorter time to present ultimately is business because actually an investment in the early stages is an emotional decision, but that's the bottom line. And as, as a business grows and you become. More established, it's a decision based on metrics, financials, and so on and so forth, but in the early stages, people are investing in you, and the vision, and if they don't connect to you, it's not going to happen, and fundamentally, the, the sort of sphere of people who have money is, you know, biased in one particular area, and, Hence, where they're looking for some sort of [00:16:00] person to work with, they're sort of looking within a meritocracy, as you might call it, rather than anything else. So what's, what's, what's the way in which, which they can connect, connect. That's not to say that there are people who are more open than that, but in general, the people are thinking about their own money. They're trying, they're going for the path of, you know, least resistance really. Yeah. Who am I going to be able to, you know, have a relationship with over five to 10 years? Teresa: Which was a super interesting conversation that I talked about with Sam on her interview where we talked about the fact of like, In my head, very simply having never gone through anything like this and probably never will, because my business is based on me as a personal person, and I can't see how it would ever be that type of business. And I'm not sure I'd want it to be that type of business. But one of the things we were talking about is I assumed that it was very factual, that these smart people were [00:17:00] looking at. stats and facts and maths and going, that makes a good business that doesn't make a good business. And obviously, what is coming out in these conversations with you is it's not done on that at all, or not to the degree it should be. But also it's that, Like you said, you know,...