Linking private investors to enterprises with high-growth potential

Connect East enables investors, from the East of England and across the UK, to connect with innovative and interesting companies with commercial potential. Starting as Norfolk First in 2005, and now rebranded as Connect East to reflect our greater investor connections and the wider demand for equity finance, Connect East provides a secure mechanism for investors to share information and increase co-investment opportunities.

We also seek to encourage involvement from those who may have looked to more traditional forms of investment in the past, through providing observer places at presentation events and social activities to facilitate relationship building between seasoned and new investors.

Investors can view, discuss and partner on funding opportunities, using a unique ‘self-drive’ portal to investigate, communicate and collaborate.

Sometimes investors also need to look outside their own networks to find co-investment and syndicate partners, or may know about a deal that is investable but they don’t want to lead, or perhaps requires some specific sector expertise to really make it fly. Connect East enables this to happen too.

Businesses with strong propositions, especially early stage and pre-revenue, need to have a way of connecting to sources of finance without prohibitive fees or long-winded processes. Connect East provides its services for free.

It’s not here to make money, but to make connections: that enable investors and businesses to come together, to do deals, and the UK economy to grow stronger.

We hope you will join us.