‘What if we could provide a funding and mentoring platform for start-ups?’ – Sonny Cutting, founder of the Tiger’s Pen
As an avid viewer of the BBC programme Dragon’s Den, and the show’s original inspiration Shark Tank, Sonny knew how critical investment could be to businesses.
He was honoured to be invited by Pete Baikins, creator of Gamification+, to Brighton University to be a ‘Dragon’ alongside other business-minded individuals. Students would pitch their business plans for investment opportunities and mentorship opportunities.
So, in essence this is where The Tiger’s Pen started and we built it upon this success and then we pushed it out to start ups too.
This year we placed the pen into the BIPC in Jubilee library with 6 start ups all pitching for up to £5,000 capital investment, mentoring and access to the ‘wildcard prize’ of best pitch of the day, this year it was won by Fliss Lewis of WOOL SHrED for a passionate pitch in the Jubilee Library on 28th September 2023 as part of the Sussex Business Show, and Fliss was invited to join Sonny Cutting, the pen founder and three of the investors to help her with business strategies and plans to scale up.
Thank you to Matt Turner, Creative Pod, Damien Burke Custom Credit and Andrew Stenning Clearline Recruitment for taking time out of their busy schedules for the Tiger’s Pen meetup with Morning Tea at The Grand Brighton.
