Helena Murphy is the Founder and Managing Director of Raising Partners, the investment firm that guides startups through each step of their fundraising process. Helena started a sustainable clothing e-commerce business straight out of St Andrews University in her native Scotland. She was unprepared for how rocky and opaque the fundraising process would be, and experienced first hand the pitfalls of seeking investment. Helena was left with £100,000 of personal debt after being forced to fold her business, a process that left her feeling defeated and caused her to lose her hair due to stress-related alopecia. As a result of this traumatic experience, Helena then worked as an in-house consultant for several years in order to help other businesses raise capital and avoid the mistakes she made. In that time, she developed an extensive network of connections, from investors, to accountants, entrepreneurs to lawyers, and became an expert in early-stage investment.  Raising Partners is the company she wished had existed when she was going through her own investment process. Helena and her team are determined to level the investment playing field, demystify the fundraising process, and help deserving businesses flourish.  Founded in 2017, Raising Partners has helped over 110 companies - including the likes of Thread, Celtic Renewables, ARQ, Equipsme, Poppy’s Picnic, Penfold, and Ilumoni - raise over £30 million, through pre-seed to Series B rounds. After an initial consultation, Raising Partners assesses the individual funding requirements of a startup, before creating a comprehensive, tailored investment strategy and proposal. Raising Partners also provides end-to-end crowdfunding support, introducing new investors to the campaign, creating critical crowdfunding-specific assets, such as campaign videos, investor decks, testimonials, and pitch pages, and assisting with investor communications.