You know, you've got this satellite imagery of rivers and lakes and then it's absolutely stunning imagery. You would have it on your wall, right? And so why wouldn't that be interesting for for retail to to fully understand? Interest, obviously, in space has peaked generally.

I mean, Artemis, Elon Musk, x x AI, like, know, it's constantly in the forefront. So but this again is incredibly recent. This is this year. We had to focus on the new generation.

They are investing now. I wanted to be on the forefront of even if it's just, you know, a toe in the door with these platforms, I wanted to get ahead because this is the future. Right? We're not investing in launch.

We're investing in technology that is for national security, for food security, for climate change, for sustainability. And when they understand that, it's like, wow.

It suddenly opens up the eyes to the possibilities.

Yeah. It suddenly opens up like, okay, this is more than just a load of rich people trying to get to the moon and escape Earth. We're not trying to do that. We're investing companies that are saving Earth.

Leah, thank you for joining us today on the Growth Engine. Just to get us started, you've been at Seraphim for about five years now, is that right?

Correct. Yep. Five years in December, I think.

The country, the globe's kind of caught up now. But five years ago, no one was there.

Well, we hadn't really I don't think Musk had even done his kind of launch of his Tesla into space or anything at that point then, had he?

So it was very very early days.

Yeah, very early days and I think that's what's completely changed the game, like the hundreds times, you know, cost in reduction of getting into space Yeah. The fact that, you know, satellites used to be the size of buses, now they're the size of your mobile phone for example. Yeah. So all this, you know, the economics of getting into space has drastically changed within these five years that I've been doing this. And so that's been all that's been the messaging from from then to now that, you know, what we're doing, why we are able to do this now successfully, why these companies are able to, you know, build these products and and deliver, you know, data products for example to to Earth, how they're able to get into space when, you know, six six seven years ago it was completely impossible.

Yeah. Content must have been on that list at some point. What what's what was in?

Yes, so- How'd you approach your content from a strategy point of view?

So from content perspective, so when I came to the business, there wasn't anyone writing blogs, writing white papers, you know, for example, at the time the people just didn't have the time, know, incredibly small team.

And so then I had the idea of and obviously I didn't feel qualified at that point, I think now I feel qualified to understand, you know, the industry and who I'm talking to and understand the products, but I think then obviously I was new and I didn't. So it's kind of how can we get content easily and how am I able to do that? How am I able to, you know, help was by starting the podcast because I suggested, I mean, I had worked with ghostwriters and things like that before but I think as we discussed earlier, it's so niche that I think that it just wasn't even an option and a lot of people, you know, founders, CEOs don't like ghostwriters because they don't feel like it's their own voice, you know, that kind of thing, so people either love it or they hate it.

Yeah. So I think for me it was an it felt like an easy win to start the podcast where I was interviewing. It's also a great learning curve for myself to, you know, to hear straight from the horse's mouth, interviewing the partners, interviewing the CEOs and the founders, and then, you know, I'm able to get audio content, video content, and also kind of download it into, you know, into digital content for the website Yeah. Which can then obviously help improve SEO.

So I think that just felt like a no brainer to start the the podcast to help, a, for my own learning and and b, just an easy win to to draw all that information out of these these people who are the experts.

Yeah. The people that you're getting on the podcast as well, they're they're keen for the exposure because the industry's so new and wanting to get out there and, like, so presumably you had a small army of people queuing around the corner to come on the podcast.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Definitely. People were loving it. The CEOs all, yeah, wanted to be part of it.

They were they were happy to happy to help, and, yeah, I know, obviously from a marketing perspective, if, you know, they they were happy to share it as well, which helps, you know, outreach on on their behalf. Yeah. They were just I didn't, yeah, I didn't have a problem getting anyone anyone on the podcast.

And the format of the podcast, try to keep it evergreen. So the questions I ask are very similar, I kind of tweak them obviously depending on maybe the stage of the business or or who I'm interviewing. Yeah. But generally, the the format of the questions is quite the same where I ask them to, you know, talk about who they are, their journey, their product, their their market size, where they're going, you know, that kind of And then so that the flow will be the same.

So I feel like that, you know, that content is incredibly interesting for people to understand, because these companies are incredibly complex businesses.

But once you've also got that format, I mean, I'm a big, big fan of formats because it's it's once people are comfortable with the format, then they they like an episode and then they know what to expect for the next one. It keeps people coming back.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

And I'm actually now at the stage where the companies have evolved so much that I'm kind of doing them again, so from the Right. And also I think I'm better than I was when I did them five years So more in the subject of you and it's and and such for so Yes.

So so podcast was a big winner, but I know that you've you've also really leaned into Instagram as well. What what was the what was the reasoning behind that?

Yeah. I mean, space obviously being so so visual with and it's interesting actually because at the beginning, again five years ago, obviously space is visual but we didn't have native imagery, like now we actually have native imagery from the from the businesses which is fantastic. So again it seemed like for me a no brainer to take this imagery and create assets from the podcast as well, you know, overlaying imagery with with the podcast. At that point, the podcast was only audio. And yeah, it just it felt like a really good fit because I think that no one else seemed to be really doing it. I think, you know, obviously LinkedIn is still a huge platform and it is still our largest platform. But Instagram, and it was a bit of a slow burner but it we're definitely seeing growth but that came from kind of paying targeted ads via Instagram.

So that's how you started to how you almost got the Kindle That's how we revved it up.

Yeah. So I I I started I just started Instagram just kind of posting it organically or, you know, organic reach. And even at the beginning, there wasn't many of our portfolio companies kind of on Instagram either. And I guess the question would be kind of, you know, who was I trying to reach out to?

What was the market? Who? And that initially it was retail investors. Yeah.

More than for so for SSIT, for surface based investment trust rather than for the venture funds. So that was the the strategy. So that's when the focus was more aligned with the investment trust.

Okay.

Thinking that retail investors are going to, you know, find this incredibly interesting and obviously from, you know, a regulation perspective, when marketing to retail investors has to be incredibly careful, it has to be educational, you know, it has to be they we have to explain the story of space, explain what these companies are doing, and then let them join the dots, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And and so by having this platform where we're showing how easy it is to access space visually, you know, you've got this satellite imagery of rivers and lakes and and it's absolutely stunning imagery, you would have it on your wall, right? And so why wouldn't that be interesting for retail to to fully understand?

I'm slightly grinning because I'm thinking back to you saying that you were you were a a bit of a, you know, science fiction nerd or something. This sounds like to be your perfect job, that you're creating all these beautiful marketing assets of stunning space visuals. It sounds fabulous.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it it is. It's fascinating. And and again, there's just more available now, you know, than even five years ago.

And I'm constantly emailing the companies like, can you send me anything you've got, like send me any because and you're you're And they're receptive to that?

Yeah. They they love it. Yeah.

And this all started for putting together from the S Society annual reports that want to have as much native imagery in in the reports where possible rather than using stock imagery because, you know, that also that just shows our network and shows the breadth of who we are and, you know, and our kind of pull within the industry where we have access to this native imagery where I'm not just finding a random stock picture of a satellite on, you know, iStock, I'm Yeah and you're one of the most, if not the most distinctive trust in the sector arguably would cause you have all of this fabulous access to all the resources, so why not make the most of Yeah, one hundred percent.

One question I have is that from what you just said is that you said, yes, LinkedIn, yes, Instagram, but LinkedIn is your largest channel. So can you talk about your different channels and which audience types and what's the strategy for each channel?

We try to be over most things. So LinkedIn, Instagram, x, and TikTok, which TikTok hasn't really taken off yet. But the the strategy LinkedIn is mainly obviously more b to b. So Yeah.

That is aligned more with the venture fund and more use that kind of I wanted that to be a hub for news. I wanted people to come to Seraphim to help grow our brand about if they want to know not just about the portfolio but if they want to know about Space News, anything that's going on within the industry, they'll they'll come to us to be kind of the the voice of that. I kind of used that to yeah. I was posting kind of like weekly news updates which the the top stories within the sector as well as the top stories that are within their portfolio.

So the strategy of of LinkedIn is I don't do anything paid on LinkedIn.

It's all organic, but I think we have now thirty thousand followers and that's all organically grown.

Fabulous. And that's over obviously over five years, so that's that's great to come. So TikTok Yeah. Has do you think that it's just because you're you're busy getting the other channels spun up, or do you think that the audience is just not quite right there? I I would have thought TikTok Yeah. Would would have been a natural fit. If you've had success on Instagram, I would have thought you would do on TikTok.

Yeah. Agreed. I think I probably haven't put as much time into that. So basically, I take the podcasts, I use a company, they take maybe four make four or five assets from each podcast episode and they put visuals behind it to make it, you know, they put like quotes out for example and they put visuals and they take, you know, the face of the of the person who's speaking, so they're quite fast, they're quite, you know, appealing to younger generations. And so that was that started with putting these on Instagram and and TikTok.

Yeah. And I just think that you maybe perhaps you need to go viral on on on TikTok.

Just to get it kicked off.

Yeah. To to get it kicked off. I mean, get a lot of views, but they don't convert to followers. Right.

And so that's something that I need to explore and to And then let's contrast that then with Instagram, where it's it sounds like you get a lot of views but they do convert to followers.

So what what have you what have been your learnings that you've sort of found?

Because that's, you know, views is obviously great, but really you want to build that audience and I think it's been constant.

Yeah. Yeah. We it's a lot of work, but constantly, you know, posting daily, posting more than than once a day.

And again, when I started up the meta ads, kind of driving people, obviously you have the option of, you know, where are you driving these people when they're seeing your ad, and driving them towards being a follower or driving them to, on the other hand, sometimes the journey was driving people to download a one pager about educating them how to invest into Yeah. Into space. So obviously with these platforms, you put some money behind it, you you you get a little bit more traction. Yeah.

But I think it's I think it's worthwhile, I think, you know, and if you have something to to present to show that's interesting, think, you know, you don't have to start big, you know, I think with doing about a grand a month, you know, and I think Was that now or then?

A bit more now. Yeah.

But that's to get everything Yeah.

That was, yeah, the sort of budget just to get start the traction happening. Yeah.

So that's interesting. So you were sort of a dual approach, majority of the time going after followers, but on occasion, optimizing to gain downloads, and then that would be essentially a bit of detail about how you could go about investing. So that that's quite a high intent signal if you get people to download. Presumably, you're tracking Yeah. All of those outputs. Is that is that a strategy you still do now?

Still run that strategy now. Yeah. And again, it's difficult because it has to be seen as educational, so on the one pager, it's then caveated with you then go to your normal investment provider, whether that be AJ Bell, Hargreaves, you you, and then it's up to you. So then from a marketing perspective, we are losing people there in the journey, so Yeah.

It's the most frustrating thing about investment trust marketing, isn't it? You can't track the you don't have a basket that you can track.

But I could see kind of these platforms that I was driving people to, the retail platforms moving up the shareholder list.

Yeah. So I could then attribute that to my work, what I did anyway.

Yeah, that's how everyone does it. Yeah. It's an imperfect thing but you need to get your data from somewhere, don't you?

Yeah, a hundred percent and we were seeing and now we're seeing more of the retail platforms, you know, than ever, you know. For example, think, you know, AJ Bell, they they they weren't even, you know, you know, very high up in the in the, you know, in the shareholder chain and now they're, know, they're top ten, so.

So how's that that growth again, has that has that accelerated over a couple of years or has that accelerated because you've engaged that retail audience?

Obviously in the space has peaked generally. Mean Artemis, you know, Elon Musk, x x AI, like, you know, it's constantly in the forefront. So but this again is incredibly recent. This is this year. Yes. So so I mean, people have always been interested in wondered by space, but I think that's, you know, it's just been ramped up lately, like especially in the media.

So I mean very lucky those early adopters, you know, who got into the investment trust when we started this because they've seen, you know, the share price rocket, you know, since then.

You've built this infrastructure to access retail.

Now what's been in the press, and I know that you've been super busy the last couple of days, is that you've just recently gone through another fundraise with Derivin. Yep. Raising one hundred and thirty seven million. Now congratulations, firstly.

You must be exhausted. Yeah. From our perspective of putting on a podcast for other marketers, Working Investment Trust, there obviously hasn't been a lot of fundraising going on over the last few years. So you're sort of in a unique position and I'm interested from a marketing perspective, what does that runway look like of stuff that needs to be done?

Yeah, I think I'd always believed that retail investors were important and and I think I'm not, you know, saying that others hadn't, but you know, in the last ten years, the last decade, you know, the the bigger checks, the earlier checks were all coming from institutional investors. Of course. And that was moving the needle and and I think I I've always been interested in investing myself, know a lot of my friends are.

And you know, this we had to focus on kind of the new generation, you know, the new generation of people, and and investing is a lot easier now for people, you know, than it was. We have all the modern platforms, you know, trading two one two, for example, you know, you you can, you know, you can do it on your mobile phone. So this whole so my plan strategy from the very beginning and and hence using, you know, try you know, my foray into things like Instagram targeting, TikTok is trying to, you know, spread awareness on these platforms and that and I think especially not a lot of people in finance are doing especially not investment trust people are not doing it.

Yeah. So building that, you know, infrastructure up from the beginning, you know, was just having that there prior to the fundraise just made when we push Go on the fundraise, we already had had that there and we already had, you know, it was easy for for me to kind of tweak an ad to link back to the fundraise for example, that we already had the audience kind of ready.

Got a direct route into them.

Yeah, we had a direct route into them and as I said like targeting younger investors, younger people are you know, millennials, gen z, you know, that they are investing now as much as, you know, as the as an older generation. So I wanted to be on the forefront of even if it's just, you know, a toe in the door with these platforms, I wanted to get ahead because this is the future, right?

You know, this is So hundred and thirty seven million raised, did the retail amount of that come to fruition?

So I guess what I wanna know is all of that hard work with developing the channels and when the IPO happened, has a solid percentage of that come from retail?

Yep. We raised forty five million from from retail, which is incredible. It's the biggest retail raise in the UK in the last five years.

I think the only bigger was Deliveroo which was in two thousand and one.

That's astonishing.

Or two thousand twenty one, sorry.

That's amazing.

Yeah. So absolutely incredible. Yeah. So and I, you know, had a feeling that it would be popular for retail, you know, but we, you know, I think it was over seven thousand retail investors got on board and it's just, you know, a fantastic opportunity for for retail to be able to buy, you know, at a pound when the share price is, you know, is now currently, you know, on and off. I think we hit two fifty the other day, which is milestone.

Yeah. So it's wonderful to see, yeah, that we were right though, I was right, you know, that this was when in at times when institutional investors were a bit iffy about it and didn't quite believe the story, You know, retail were always willing to put money in and and willing to, you know, to believe the story and, know, trust in the in the business and and they proved it now, you know.

As you're saying, that's an that's an extraordinary opportunity for those investors coming in at at such a a price when the it's trading at such a premium at the moment.

Yeah. And it's just being noticed. You know, we've had great relationship with journalists as well, and, you know, it's been noticed by the press, and it was commented on in City Wire today by one of the journalists that actually, interestingly, he said he didn't like our font. He he said I don't like their wacky space font, but he said I've but I but he knows about it, right? So that's fair.

It's distinctive.

Yeah. It's distinctive.

That's memorable.

I'll I'll let him off for saying that but but he said, you know, but I've seen them everywhere, you know, he said, you know, that and and he also commented on our CEO, you know, Mark, he said, you know, he's everywhere, you know, they're they're always running Instagram campaigns, I've seen Mark on videos, we're seeing him at conferences, like, you know, it's it's a full, it's a multi facet strategy and I think, you know, we do try to be within all the credible places that, you know, that that we should be and we try to get our message out, you know, everywhere that we know that the right people can can see it.

And I think it's really been the story is so wonderful when people when the light bulb moment is for people when, you know, they understand the story about why we're doing it, the low cost launch, you know, what the technology is doing for the Earth. We're not investing in launch, we're investing in technology that is, you know, for for national security, for food security, for climate change, for sustainability.

And when they understand that, it's like, wow, you know.

Suddenly opens up their eyes to the possibilities.

Yeah. It suddenly opens up like, okay, this is more than just a load of rich people trying to get to the moon and escape Earth. We're not trying to do that. We're investing companies that are saving Earth, you know. And so that message is so powerful and telling that story from my perspective on on all these different platforms is what's been, you know, been the winning story.

Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. So what's what's next from a marketing perspective? You you told us about channels are workings, a bit more looking into TikTok perhaps, but what what else is on your radar?

I think what I'm interested in, I'm not an expert on this in the slightest at the moment, but is LLMs, you know, and I I want to obviously people are now searching in ChatGeeBT, you know, and people are searching in Claude, you know, like, well, how do I invest in it? I want I want to understand how to maximise that as a search for for Seraphim. And what I I do understand is that I feel like things that we were looking at in the past are not the right things now. For example, I'm not saying, you know, we we don't wanna be in the Feet or we don't wanna be in Bloomberg, but they, my opinion, have perceived as a bit of a vanity measure where we're just like, you know, it's wonderful obviously to be in the Feet but it's behind a paywall.

How do these LLMs scrape data? They use the trades, they use websites, they use Reddit chats, they use Reddit forums. So Yeah. Things are really pivoting in that in that direction.

So maybe, you know, we don't I mean, obviously I want money, I don't take them back, but we don't you know, we we can do things and I've actually I've always done things on a bit of a shoestring, you know. I've always been able to maximize content, get as much out of it as possible using similar content on different platforms. But I feel like focus on that low hanging fruit, focus on doing an AMA on Reddit, you know, focus on getting in a trade magazine, that kind of thing for because that's where that is the future of search and that is where people are looking. And if I think if you are in, you know, you're utilizing these platforms, you will, you know, grow your brand.

Yeah. Yeah. We did I did research interviews for another another trust.

I think I had to do ten qualitative interviews and every single interview I did when I was asking them about their investor journey, you know, tools that they use at different stages journey, every single one of them talked about AI search, and it was part of that investment journey, every single one.

Hundred percent.

If I'd done those same interviews twelve months ago, you'd be lucky to have had one person say it.

Exactly.

It's incredible that that how much it's changed.

Yeah. And exactly that's why I'm again, I'm not an s one, but I really want to learn more about that, and I think that's where I'm I'm gonna be focusing my energy. And and also, I didn't quite get this off the market in time before the fundraiser book, kind of influencers as well, financial or finfluencers as they're, you know, as they're called.

It's a mouthful.

Yeah. Where and but there is also something that I was reading about, kind of optimizing influencer content for LLM. So so there is a way that, you know, you can, you know, whatever you're pushing on social media, whatever these people are saying, whatever the and and the chats, you know, then the on the that all is gonna make a huge difference to AI search. Yeah.

But I'm seeing yeah. I really want to focus on, if possible, from a budget perspective, yeah, using influencers to reach out to retail investors because again, that is a trusted source of and I think it is all about, especially in financial services, all about trust and transparency. Yes. And hopefully, you know, people retail investors realise that, you know, we are, you know, we are regulated and we we can't we wouldn't be using someone that wouldn't be, you know, a safe pair of hands and and wouldn't be kind of, you know, you know, explaining exactly how things need to be need to be said.

So I think using someone who's trusted, people are more likely to to to go to that person because it's it's also, you know, it's not it's not someone who is, you know, someone who's had a, you know, a column in in the Times for the last fifty years.

It's someone who, you know, is is trying to make money by talking to real people and it it just it's I think it's because as I said because I think It's an authenticity in that.

Yeah. That's the word I was looking for. I think it's it's authentic and it's it's a changing world where everyone can invest now, you know, whether you know about it or understand it at all, you can. And so these are the more likely where people are going to are looking for advice rather than going to, you know, a column in the Feet.

Just come up with another question listening to you then, and it relates to something you mentioned before about how you're tracking the shared platforms on the share register. But you also mentioned that specifically targeting going after a young investor.

Now majority of investment trusts, and I won't name the company but a research company that does a lot of investigation into investment trust audiences, still getting that the average investment trust holder is about sixty five years old male property living in South East.

Sorry.

I think there's a general awareness that actually that may be true, but from a monetary point of view, but when you speak to platforms like AJ Bell, they'll tell you that actually they're starting to see much more growth coming through sort of late forties, and that and that sweet spot really I think, is sort of forty fives to fifty fives, just seemed to me about the next level of investment trust investor. But there's obviously a much younger cohort that are really interested in investing, where you've got huge numbers and also a long path in front of them to invest. Now those, as I understand, are the platforms of like Trading two one two and stuff like that, are they starting to show up on the share register for you? Yeah.

And is that is that so they are, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's recent.

Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's within the last six months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So your your strategy is is encompassing both those existing investment trust investors, but also you're starting to to to you've so you've got you've almost got quite a short term, long term play marketing strategy happening.

Yeah.

Because as I because we're not I I haven't forgotten about current investors or, you know, older investors and there's a lot of there's a huge PR strategy as well where, you know, we're always trying to be in the press, in the media, you know, so we are still in the you try to get in, you know, in Bloomberg, in Reuters, in in channels as well.

Exactly. Yeah. So it's it's a multifaceted strategy where we're still doing everything traditionally, but kind of the the social engagement, the platform engagement is something on top, something new. Yeah. And I think that is future proofing, you know, and obviously it just made sense being spaced, being super interesting, being something that that, you know, a younger generation are probably less risk adverse to because they've grown, you know, up around it.

Yeah, yeah, amazing.

I'm gonna start wrapping us up if that's okay. And I'm intrigued to when you look back on your time coming in to Seraphin and you're thinking about, okay, if there was one golden sort of nugget that you'd pass on to other marketers that are sort of perhaps coming into a role when they're, you know, they feel quite daunted, they've got all of this list as long as you're armed to do list. What would be your advice to those folk?

I think I'm lucky where now I've had a lot of autonomy in my role and I've been trusted to try things, you know, and if things haven't worked within a reasonable budget and I think, and I said this to before, but I think it's PR, it's not ER, I think it's he can try things and if they don't work, no one's going to die, you know, like I I think have the, you know, the the sense to and and the creativity to come up with new ideas and come up with new outreach try different platforms and see what works for you, know, test things out and if they don't work, can them do something different. Keep the traditional things going as as we said, but there's always space to try try new things and and, yeah, don't be don't be afraid.

Thank you, Leah, for for taking time to come come in. Before before I let you go, there's there's one other thing. We we we ask our guests if they'd like to leave something behind, memento which is almost reflective of your journey at Seraphin so far. Is there is there anything you'd like to contribute to the bookcase?

I'd love to and a book, so it does have it. So this is Reach for Tomorrow by Arthur C. Clarke. And it's a compilation of different space stories And I think what's good about it is many space stories are very kind of dystopian and dark, I think this is a very for how long ago it was written, it it's very positive and it talks about what space can bring, you know, and what and you know, how exciting the future can be and I think for any space enthusiasts, you know, it's a must read.

Or any budding space investors as well.

Well definitely, Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's superb. Thank you so much.

I'm I'm I'll look forward to putting it on the bookcase, but more importantly, look forward to reading it as well.

Yeah. You again, Leah, for joining us. You for listening today to The Growth Engine. If you enjoyed this episode and like to hear more, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from, and follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates or on hub agency dot co dot u k. Thank you, and see you next time.