2024 in Review & Key Focus Areas for Founders in 2025.

Sit back, relax and let's look back on 2024 💭

Fearless Adventures And Basecamp Skills 2024 Wrapped 🚀

As 2024 draws to a close, let’s delve straight into Fearless and Basecamp’s top 5 key achievements of the year...

Fearless Adventures 🚀

• A 7-figure investment from two industry leaders: simon cooper , founder of On the Beach, joining us as Chairman and Solly Solomou, CEO of LADbible Group. This milestone enables us to support even more businesses in 2025 with our unique wrap-around support suite.

• We’ve hosted five incredible Fearless Founder networking events this year, bringing our community even closer. These events have offered founders a valuable space to connect, share insights, and engage in meaningful conversations with fellow founders and investors.
• We launched our Fearless Founder Community Platform! Updated weekly, it’s packed with valuable resources tailored for founders. It offers direct access to Fearless experts across all areas of our business and a great space to expand your network and gain priority access to our event calendar.
• We stood up for the UK entrepreneurial community, leading a petition highlighting the impact of scrapping Entrepreneurs’ Relief. Our founder, Dominic McGregor, addressed the issue in a letter to the Rt. Hon. Rachel Reeves, challenging the government’s proposal. Within just 24 hours, we united the founder community, gathering over 1,500 signatures to make a powerful statement.
• And we have had 20+ press features over the course of 2024. Featuring in The Times, MSN, Business Live, Prolific North, Insider Media, Business Cloud, City AM, Startups.co.uk.

Basecamp Skills 🙌

• Basecamp upskilled over 600 learners with cutting-edge digital skills through their award-winning Digital Marketing Bootcamps.
• Re-trained 180 small business owners, helping them launch and achieve growth.
• Collaborated with 120+ incredible guest speakers who brought real-world expertise into our teaching and gave learners the opportunity to ask questions directly to industry experts.
• Delivered inclusive, fully-funded programs that welcomed everyone, including supporting learners and those overcoming socio-economic or technological barriers.
• We are championing diversity, with 49% of our learners from minority groups compared to 75% of marketing professionals who are white.

Investing in Women Code Report

Firsly - let us explain what the Investing in Women Code actually is. The Code is a commitment to advancing female entrepreneurship in the UK by improving women’s access to tools, resources, and finance from the financial services sector.

The Investing in Women Code annual report was recently released, and in this newsletter edition, we're discussing some key findings that stood out to us.

Key findings

• Signatories are outperforming the wider VC market in funding female-led teams, with an increase of almost 10 percentage points over the past decade, from 18% to 28%.
• Warm introductions remain the most successful route to funding. While around 50% of pitch decks were from cold sources, they account for just 11% of the funded deals.
• All-female teams still receive a lower share of follow-on funding, which has remained static at 3% over the last decade.
• Diversity within signatories’ investment committees improves outcomes for teams with at least one female, and Investment teams with diverse perspectives achieve better outcomes for female founders.

So, what does this mean for female-founded businesses?

The 2024 Investing in Women report reveals mixed progress. While equity deals for female founders have increased, all-female teams still face significant barriers, securing only 3% of deals. This really highlights the need for female founders to seek diverse investor teams, as firms committed to gender diversity deliver better outcomes for women-led businesses.

Key actions:

1. Leverage warm introductions, which remain the most effective route to funding. Keep expanding your network. Attend investment and founder events.
2. Target diverse VC firms committed to supporting female-led ventures. Be strategic about which firms you pursue, as the outcomes are much better.
3. Strengthen networks through peer and community engagement to open more funding opportunities. Building true connections can propel your business much further when it comes to winning investments for a female-founded company.

You can access the full report here.

Why did we choose to become signatories?

We are committed to creating a culture of inclusion and to advancing access to capital for female entrepreneurs. We'll let our Managing Director, Rachel McDonald expand further...

“From the inception of Fearless Adventures, we had ambitions to build a business that reflected society. Creating a diverse and inclusive culture is in our DNA, and our partner portfolio to date reflects this in their gender, ethnicity, and regionality."

We’re on a mission to break barriers and drive change. So, if you're a female founder with a brilliant business idea, contact us here.

2025 Upcoming Events

Founders, we've put together a list of networking events to add to your calendar. Attending events is your chance to connect with investors, gain insights from industry leaders who have been in your shoes, and warm up your network for enquiring about investment and also mentorship.

• @Elevate Female Founders

Elevate's event is hosted by Bruntwood SciTech and is expected to be highly interactive, with questions and advice sought from the audience with some inspirational guest speakers.

🗓️ Wednesday, January 22, 2025 · 9:30 - 11am

📍 Bloc, Marble Street Manchester M2 3AW

💷 Free for Elevate members / £15 + VAT for non-members

Read more here.

• Novus Capital's Padel Office Hours

In most cases, founders find their future investors through unconventional methods. Novus Capital's Padel office hours are bringing together a range of active investors and fundraising founders for 2 hours of Padel time and a quick-fire pitch session.

🗓️ Wednesday 15th January, 2-5pm

📍 Hornbeam Park, Harrogate

💷 £17.50 per person

Read more here.

• Britain's Got Startups 2025 event series

2025 is set to be a big one for Britains Got Start Ups whose running a series of events to spotlight the best start-ups and scale-ups in the UK. Events will be held in Scotland, Wales, the North, South West, South East, Midlands, and East of England.

📍 Specific dates and venues are to be confirmed.

Read more here.

• Tech.eu summit

Lastly, this annual conference is set to discuss the tech industry and again, foster networking opportunities. Last year, this conference had more than 1,200 attendees, including entrepreneurs, investors, and industry professionals.

🗓️ Date: 25th-26th, March 2025

📍 Location: Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London

Read more here.

Founders, how has your 2024 gone? We have compiled some statistics from Sifted's 2024 survey and Balderton Capital's 2024 reports.

We saw that 80% of founders agreed that maintaining a personal life outside of work positively impacted their ability to perform well at work. However...

• 62% of founders take fewer holidays.

• 64% spend less time with friends and family.

• 68% regularly have difficulty switching off outside of work.

The statistics indicate that founders can struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance. However, we noticed that 83% of founders also said they would benefit from VC-established entrepreneur networks for peer support and community.

This is why we have launched our Fearless Founder Community Platform—a space for entrepreneurs to connect, collaborate, and grow.

The platform is updated throughout the week with relevant resources in various areas, from marketing, wellness, recruitment, investment, and more, as well as questions to get the conversation flowing are posted.

We want to ensure that we bring you content that is most valuable to your business. Fill out the form below to let us know how we can add value to your venture in 2025.

Review your 2024 here.

Small Business Spotlight: Sam's Social Media Club

Introducing this week's Small Business Spotlight: Sam's Social Media Club, founded by Sam Wilmot. Where better to source social media job opportunities and talent than through social media itself, right? Sam is building the go-to destination for social media professionals seeking exciting career opportunities and for recruiters accessing top-tier talent.

Like many founders, Sam’s journey didn’t begin in the industry his brand now serves; he actually started in music, spending eight years as a singer in a band. During this time, he developed a passion for growing the band’s social media following.

As he transitioned into social media professionally, Sam noticed how fragmented the job market was. Determined to create a solution, he launched a Facebook group to list job vacancies, which later expanded to Instagram and TikTok. The community took off, now boasting over 200,000 followers across media platforms and 21.2 million impressions this year, becoming the go-to hub for social media job listings with salary transparency at its core.

Sam’s Social Media Club isn’t just another job board; it’s also a trusted space for an expanding and dynamic community of social media enthusiasts to swap tips, news and experiences.

What can we learn from Sam Wilmot's journey?

Sam started his brand with a concept built on a real problem he was facing. It was the backbone for reaching others who felt the same and a great way for him to give them exactly what they needed.

1. Solve a Personal Problem: Sam identified a gap in the market from his own experience, building a solution that resonated with thousands of job seekers and social media professionals.
2. Leverage Social Media: By strategically using platforms like Instagram and Facebook, Sam turned a small community into a powerhouse brand with over 200,000 followers. What better place to share social media jobs than on social media?
3. Community Building: Sam's focus on transparency and trust helped create a thriving community that connects job seekers and employers, showing the power of building strong relationships.

And that's all for 2024 founders. We look forward to catching up in the new year!

Merry Christmas from the Fearless Adventures team.