Connect resources to evidence milestones and distinguish business performance from cash timing.
Your learning outcomes
Build a simple cash and runway model
Compare grants, equity, debt and customer-funded development
Prepare an honest funding narrative and diligence pack
CLASS 6.1 / 60 MINUTES
Cash timing and runway
Separate revenue from cash
A sale, an invoice and a receipt can occur at different times. A business may show attractive revenue while waiting for payment and paying suppliers immediately. Build a monthly cash view showing opening balance, receipts, payments and closing balance. Use the actual expected dates rather than spreading every amount evenly. For SignalBox, devices may be purchased before installation while a customer pays later. That gap creates a working-capital requirement even if each sale appears profitable. Professional accounting and tax advice may be needed for real transactions.
Model burn and runway carefully
Runway is an estimate of how long available cash supports the planned activity under stated assumptions. A simple cash divided by monthly net outflow calculation is a rough indicator when spending is stable; a month-by-month model is more useful when hiring, equipment or receipts are uneven. Include commitments, contingency and the time required to raise funds or reduce spending. Do not treat an unsigned investment discussion, pending grant application or unpaid invoice as cash already available. State the date and conditions behind every forecast.
Use the downside to choose actions
Create scenarios for slower sales, delayed payment, higher delivery cost and a missed funding milestone. Identify the earliest date a decision is needed, not just the date cash reaches zero. Possible responses include narrowing the experiment, renegotiating scope, postponing a hire or seeking a different funding route. Avoid presenting this class as advice to take a particular loan or investment. The educational goal is to make resource consequences visible so that qualified decision-makers can review a plan before the business loses its options.
PUT IT TO WORK
Your activity
Build a six-month illustrative cash model with delayed customer payment and one major upfront cost. Explain the difference between contribution and cash need.
Produce this
A cash timeline, runway estimate and trigger for corrective action.
CLASS 6.2 / 60 MINUTES
Match funding to the uncertainty
Compare what each route expects
Customer-funded work, grants, equity, debt and partnerships have different requirements and consequences. Customer funding may demand a deliverable; a grant may restrict eligible work and reporting; equity involves ownership and governance; debt requires repayment under agreed terms. Do not rank routes only by the amount available. Compare suitability for the stage, risk, timing, control and capabilities of the team. A funding choice should support the next evidence milestone rather than reshape the project solely to fit an attractive application.
Read programme conditions at the source
Funding programmes change. Check the official opportunity for scope, eligibility, dates, costs, match requirements, assessment criteria and obligations before investing in an application. Do not assume a general description means a particular project qualifies or an award is currently open. Keep a dated funding register and record unanswered questions. Innovate UK's official guidance is a starting point for understanding its processes, not a promise that this course provides access to funding or that a teaching case would satisfy a competition.
Connect money to a bounded milestone
Explain what a proposed budget buys and which uncertainty should be reduced by the end. Break the work into tasks, owners, costs, dependencies and acceptance evidence. Include the resources needed if the preferred result does not occur. For SignalBox, a small discovery and pilot programme might precede investment in repeatable manufacturing. A larger raise is not automatically more appropriate. Funders and partners need a coherent relationship between the requested resources, the work to be done and the decision that the resulting evidence will support.
PUT IT TO WORK
Your activity
Compare three funding routes against one evidence milestone. Use official sources for any real programme and label hypothetical terms.
Produce this
A funding-fit matrix and a milestone budget.
CLASS 6.3 / 60 MINUTES
Build a diligence-ready narrative
Tell the evidence story
An investment or partnership narrative connects problem, customer, product, advantage, economics, route to market, team and use of funds. Make the strongest claim the evidence supports, then explain what remains uncertain. Separate completed results from targets and discussions from signed commitments. The fictional SignalBox case should never acquire real customers or revenue merely because the pitch is polished. An honest account can still be persuasive when it shows disciplined learning and a credible plan for reducing the next important risk.
Prepare a controlled information pack
Create an index of corporate records, ownership and IP questions, financial models, customer evidence, contracts, team responsibilities and risk registers. Share material only with appropriate permission and access controls. A data room is not a reason to upload personal information or confidential research indiscriminately. Summarise sensitive evidence where possible and obtain professional help for legal and financial records. Version the pack so statements in the pitch can be traced to current documents rather than to an outdated spreadsheet or an optimistic conversation.
Practise challenge rather than performance alone
Ask someone to challenge the most fragile assumptions: why this segment, why now, what prevents adoption, what the downside looks like and why the team can execute. Record answers that need more evidence. A polished delivery cannot replace a missing rights position or an inconsistent cash model. Avoid guaranteeing investor returns or implying that course completion makes a venture investable. The purpose of the exercise is to make the proposal clear enough for informed scrutiny and to identify what must be resolved before a real funding decision.
PUT IT TO WORK
Your activity
Draft a five-slide evidence-led pitch outline, then write the three strongest objections and the evidence needed to answer them.
Produce this
A pitch outline, diligence index and challenge log.
MODULE ASSIGNMENT / SELF-REVIEW
Build the evidence.
Produce a milestone funding plan with a six-month cash model, comparison of funding routes, use-of-funds table and evidence-led pitch outline. No real investment recommendation is required.
Assignment self-review rubric
Criterion
Points
Cash timing and scenario accuracy
30
Funding fit and current-source discipline
25
Milestone budget and decision linkage
25
Honest narrative and diligence gaps
20
Use the rubric to evaluate your own work or ask a suitable mentor. Written assignments are not uploaded or automatically marked.