Snatched from the jaws of the Dragon

This was it, the day we've been waiting for, the day on which all the work in seeking funding has led toward, all the sweat, tears and late nights was to be decided, by a panel of four, whether Go4Fresh was worth the commercialisation funding that we've been seeking to get our first machines into market.

After an early start to collect some sandwich samples from our excellent supply partner, Nibbles, we tootled off to Camberley to face the" dragons" at FSE's den to pitch our final presentation to the Finance South East (FSE) panel.

It wasnt my best presentation, that's for sure, nerves combined with a lack of clarity of how I should cram everything about our proposition into a 15 minute slot made for a somewhat confused pitch in my opinion. Also, the panel latched onto the previous involvement in our early development by Nestle foods as an issue that could recur and affect the direction of the company, which took valuable time to try and clarify, and I am still not sure that they were convinced that actually, ANY involvement by Nestle in the future would be a good thing, but that we cannot plan for it at this stage of our development.

We got the expected grilling over numbers, but they seemed easier to placate overall with that side of things, and, lets face it, they need to be confident fundamentally that they will at least get their (the tax payer's!) investment back!

I think they were more convinced of future applications and the deployment of our telemetry and inventory control than they were of the fresh, healthy eating proposition, but, with our allotted time up, we had to leave the room - to beat ourselves up about the pitch and await an outcome.

Whilst we de-briefed and commiserated with each other, the panel considered our application. They comprised members who would decide on our application, and four other attendees who have been involved in our application to date (which started last year!); Colin Hayhurst (Portfolio Manager from Gatwick Diamond Hub who's been an absolute stalwart in getting our application to this stage), Steve Wood (Gatwick Diamond Hub Director), Zoe Courtney and Martin Carruthers (Finance South East Fund Manager representatives) who we mwt with a few weeks ago at a pre-qualifying meeting.

The meeting disbanded and Zoe called us in to update us, and there's no doubt we were expecting the worst. But we got it!

I have to say it again, to be sure - We Got It. Sure, there are conditions, and we didnt get the absolute full amount, and its not been allocated quite how we wanted it, which has given us a new raft of work to try and juggle our plans around to ensure we can still get to the same goal, but the over-arching point is that they approved us. I can't begin to explain how long a journey this has felt, and I've only been a passenger on the final part of the ride, but it's a major tick in the approval box that can only help us to gain further recognition and credibility in other circles, as well as give us the capital to build some of our first batch of machines.

So, behind the apparently placid scenes of these scribbles, we are now re-working our costings and timescales to ensure we can meet the conditions placed on us, and our attention is now focussed on the next target - our launch event at the Gatwick Diamond sustainability event "Polishing the Diamond", next Friday (6th June). Lots to do; machines to finish, marketing material to complete and people to speak to!

Hope to see you there!