Kestrl is a mobile app based on the principles of Islamic banking. It aims to cater to the over 1.9 million British Muslim community to invest in the UK in line with their religious beliefs. Consumers can avail a host of financial services from finding interest-free savings accounts to taking out a mortgage. The company raised a £135,000 pre-seed round from C-level Islamic banking professionals in January 2020. It also launched its application on Google Playstore and App store in September 2020. Kestrl is working on launching an equity-based home purchase product soon. It also aspires to expand to Malaysia/Indonesia by white labelling with established retail banks and utilising its 'inside knowledge' of the region. It will use 39% of the investment towards platform up-gradation and tech team expansion, 20% towards hiring personnel across various departments, 19% for maintaining agency license fees and acquiring its own regulatory permissions, 8% in marketing, and 14% towards ancillary costs.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£194,502
Findr aims to automate the creation of business partnerships by providing easy access to hyper-targeted opportunities in minutes. The company asserts that its platform allows any business, regardless of its size, to sign up, post its partnership requirements, and explore opportunities for free. The company's portal allows users to request a 1-hour 'Discovery' call with a potential partner when the said user spots a relevant opportunity. Findr argues that it has made 'Discovery' for free for the first few months to build its user base. The company has onboarded 140 business users ranging from early-stage to global brands such as Mastercard, Uber and Visa since November 2020. Findr has featured in Forbes for helping businesses navigate COVID-19. The company will use the investment to develop two new price plans – Unlimited and Enterprise, introduce new platform features, hire a machine learning expert, and undertake digital activity to grow its user base.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£396,288
Whitehall Finance (WF) is a Business-to-Business (B2B) financial technology platform that provides working capital to UK-based Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The company offers revolving credit facility that is withdrawable in currencies like GBP, USD or EURO or a combination of the above under a single facility agreement. It also permits buying companies to offer their suppliers an early payment for a discount, as well as, enables users to access Forex services and creditworthiness data of companies. WF has extended around £16 million in finance through 1,600+ transactions over its platform in the past one year. The company will use 30% of the investment to expand its sales, 20% to increase its marketing budget, 30% to increase operational capacity to service volume business, and 20% to develop key partner relationships.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£160,027
Infinity Circle (IC) is a digital wealth creation platform that aims to create an ecosystem where wealth management meets social media in a way that is cyber secure, respects a user's privacy, and complies with the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) rules. IC intends to vet and distribute the best-in-class products for each asset class on its platform that is planned to be partly automated and partly operated by specialists who can guide a user. IC asserts that its CEO Elisabeth Dana has worked with the likes of Barclays Private Wealth, handling average accounts of £50 million while its CTO, Ashley Adkins, is a coding expert who has put his talent at the service of the UK Government before starting his private practice. It will use 40% of the investment for technology innovation, 30% for upgrading operations, and 30% to market the platform's launch.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£335,390
Thyngs is a touch-free instant payment platform for businesses and charities. It has around 20 active re-seller partners for new sectors and markets. The company is working with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as part of its raise programme and actively engaging with several Series A Venture Capitalist (VC) funds intending to raise £4-5 million in late 2021 to scale its business. Thyngs aggregates various payment partners including PayPal, Worldpay, Apple Pay and Google Pay. The company was the cashless donation platform for 210,000 fundraising events for Macmillan's 'World's Biggest Coffee Morning', which raised £27 million in 2019. Many reputed organisations such as Warner Bros, Royal British Legion, Wasabi, National Geographic, and ANZ Bank are working with Thyngs. The company will use the investment to enhance its marketing campaign, bolster its sales team, work on data security and integrations on its platform, and expand the account management team to boost its business.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£329,591
Ziglu is a financial technology entity that allows a user to access both Forex and digital currencies seamlessly. The company permits a user to use any currency via its Mastercard debit card and protects the user's digital currency up to £50,000 against cyber-attacks. Ziglu is authorised by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) and is one of the first companies involved with digital currencies to be registered under the UK’s Anti-Money Laundering Regulations (AMLR). The company has achieved a 94% rating on TrustPilot, offers customers the option to send money via cryptocurrency, and previously raised £5.25 million in seed funding. Ziglu has featured in media entities like Coindesk and Yahoo Finance. It will use 30% of the investment in product development, 60% on user acquisition, and 10% on international expansion initiatives.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£3,041,878
Wedding Planner is an online wedding-planning marketplace that provides an easy way to plan and book a wedding. Around 20,000 couples are using this platform to plan their dream weddings. Besides being a pre-COVID profitable business in the UK, it is the UK's number one ranked site for 'Wedding Planner' as per Google. The website has been created by combining a digital wedding booking system, curated venues, planning tools, and supplier search options. The platform generates 8,500+ leads for venues and suppliers per quarter and has a registered base of 3,000+ venues and other suppliers. With the investment, the company will use 25% to update their booking system catering to couples and suppliers, 12% in creating new and tested standardised contract templates between the couple and the supplier, 13% in developing a partnership with a wedding insurance provider, 30% as substitution funds for supplier and venue subscriptions frozen during COVID-19, 13% in continuing the platform's growth in Sweden, and 7% in costs associated with fund-raising.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£25,010
AxiaFunder is a commercial litigation funding platform that offers investors access to pre-vetted cases. The platform aims to connect eligible investors like sophisticated retail investors, high-net-worth, and typically institutions with claimants seeking funding. Launched in January 2019 with the first case fully funded within seven days and the third in 7 hours; 5 cases financed to date, attracted over 355 registered investors so far including several institutions and has featured in several prominent publications including the Financial Times, Times and City AM. Also, they have won the 'Best Commercial Litigation Crowdfunding Platform 2019' award by Wealth & Finance. AxiaFunder plans to use the proceeds to make key hires particularly to strengthen its case origination, further development of its platform and marketing to build the AxiaFunder brand and grow its investor base.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£256,780
Avida Global (AG) is a Business-to-Business (B2B) producer of high-quality medicinal cannabis oils and derivatives for the global medical, well-being and cosmeceutical markets. The company has a cultivation and processing facility in North-East Colombia. It asserts that the therapeutic properties of the cannabis plant has driven 53 countries to legalise its use, with more to follow. AG seeks to capture this demand and become a contender in the medicinal cannabis market that is expected to soar from $33.1 billion to $84.0 billion by 2028. The company has received regulatory approvals for initial non-psychoactive cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, and export licences in 2019. It is working on a partnership with a medicinal cannabis prescriber through doctors and clinics for the supply of medicinal cannabis strains in the UK. The company will use 40% of the investment to drive revenue growth, 25% as capital expenses, and 35% as additional operating expenses.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,646,249
Qardus is an ethical and Sharia-compliant financing platform for social impact Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and investors. Qardus asserts that the 3.8 million Muslim community in the UK, and 25 million in Europe, is massively underserved when it comes to accessing interest-free (Sharia-compliant) structures. It intends to change this. Qardus offers up to £200,000 in innovative interest-free business financing to eligible SMEs for tenors of up to 24 months and is Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved. Qardus points out that it has provided over £250,000 in financing to some high social impact SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic, maintained a 100% track record with a 0% default rate to date, and featured in media entities like Sifted, Islamic Finance News, Peer-to-Peer Finance News, and Fintech Futures amongst others. It will use 30% of the investment on marketing costs for acquiring SMEs and investors on its platform, 60% on growing its team, and 10% on obtaining additional licenses to expand its services.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£313,009
