-The biggest challenge we faced in setting up the business was that it... >
The biggest challenge we faced in setting up the business was that it was so bloomin’ expensive to get started! Some items of kit we’ve got in the laboratories cost as much as £110,000, and not that many people have that amount of cash swimming around in their bank accounts. We certainly didn’t.
When we started though, we didn’t want to sell god knows what percentage to some wonderful venture capitalist who was going to tell us exactly what we were supposed to be doing. The whole point of our business was to do what we wanted, to achieve our goals - and not those of a VC. We had a vision of what we wanted to achieve and we wanted to do it our way.
We got around the financial challenge by getting a loan via the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme through our bank and what was then the DTI. That allowed us to pay for the kit, get the staff in place and allowed a bit of working capital for the first year or so.
Louise AllcroftComplement Genomics Ltd.
