Sol-Gel Materials and Application (SGMA) is a sustainable technology company that is using its new sol-gels to create sustainable solutions to plastic environmental waste. The company has researched and developed a non-plastic, non-toxic coating for products, from food packaging to electronics, that is water and oil resistant yet recyclable. Its product is the world’s only biodegradable, compostable, and recyclable (BCR) solution. The company's founder and CEO, Dr Fanya Ismail, has won the award 'Women in Innovation 2019' by Innovate UK and the company's work has been covered by BBC South East Today. The company plans to function as an IP management company, sub-contract manufacturing to chemical firms moving from bulk to advanced materials, and outsource distribution to partners, whose packaging customers serve brand owners.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£611,040
Nextfin is an FCA approved aggregation and rating portal for equity and debt crowdfunding investments.
AIM is shrinking, legacy stock markets are too expensive to maintain and do not serve the requirements of SMEs, banks are closing branches, lending less and are paying little or no interest to investors. As a result of this, there is a huge growth in equity crowdfunding and P2P lending which has seen the launch of hundreds of alternative lenders & platforms that has created a new c.£3bn marketplace, expanding at 66% p.a. There is no single portal or trusted ratings index for investors to compare on a like for like basis and no secondary market to facilitate exits.
* NextFin is the new trading name of Business Agent Ltd
The solution
NextFin aggregates equity and debt crowdfunding investments to create the alternative finance marketplace. This makes it easy for investors and lenders to find and compare opportunities by presenting all investment offerings in one place. With the addition of a free of charge ratings service investors will be able to view ratings of every equity crowdfunding pitch, every P2P site, and every equity crowdfunding site. NextFin’s technology will constantly track these companies and investments providing the investor real-time intelligence on which to base investment decisions. The platforms and entrepreneurs will be self-promoting and marketing their ratings driving thousands of visitors a month to the NextFin site, in the same way, businesses refer their potential clients to Trip Advisor and Trustpilot. There is an estimated 10 million website/platform visitors per month across the whole of the alternative finance market. NextFin is targeting to direct 5% of this highly profiled traffic to its platform from which it will earn between £5-£8 per click from advertisers and partners. In addition, an in-house brokerage service also earns between 1%-6% commissions on loan placements. A future revenue stream (not featured in the financials) will be developed once visitor traffic reaches critical mass. This will see Nextfin being able to realise the full value of its captured ratings data and visitor traffic by launching a secondary market, which is estimated to be a £5bn marketplace.
NextFin is raising £500k at a pre-money valuation of £2M to: • Develop P2P and Equity site ratings• Expand the management, infrastructure and marketing resource• Increase visitor traffic to 6m a year via rating referrals
Owing to the size of the market and rapid growth of the industry, enterprise valuations in alternative finance are based on visitor traffic, market share and registered users. Recently published valuations of companies with visitor traffic of over 6m per year are in excess of £70m. NextFin is the market-leading aggregator and has first-mover advantage. It has the potential to exceed these valuations because it is the whole of the market aggregator and is currently the only ratings service provider as it grows to achieve 500,000 visitors p.m.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£274,057
Racingbreaks.com is a digital racing and experiential platform enabling users to plan and book every aspect of their racing experience, whether that’s a ticket to a local racecourse or a unique 'Round the World Trip' to the Melbourne Cup. The company intends to offer users a single point of distribution for the fragmented racing sector, allowing customers to book everything in one place. Racingbreaks.com has earned £4.38 million worth of sales in 2019 witnessing a 300% growth in sales between 2017 to 2019. It claims that over 50,000 customers have booked with Racingbreaks.com, with the company having signed key partnerships with over 50 racecourses. The company claims that renowned horse racing jockey Frankie Dettori has invested in the company and is the face of the brand. Racingbreaks.com will use the investment to re-develop its website and platform, create a new racing app, develop new ticketing Application Programming Interfaces with more racecourses, and expand its platform globally.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£375,530
Polysolar specialises in manufacturing photovoltaic windows capable of generating electricity, which can be used in buildings to generate clean renewable energy whilst also meeting planning regulations. Its technology is already in-use by major organisations such as Network Rail and Sainsbury's.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,311,180
Patch is a modern plant shop for contemporary plant people. It helps in finding the most suitable plants and delivering them to the door. The company has delivered over 2,50,000 plants to over 82,000 customers in Paris and London. Patch has witnessed solid growth at +124% vs last year, reaching £4.48m in revenue. The company has a 4.6-star rating on TrustPilot and, it has been featured in The Times, The Telegraph etc. The funds will be used to expand across Europe, eliminate the middle-man and expand into the B2B market.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£2,412,150
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
QFinds is a purpose-built hiring tool that enables employers to easily and efficiently pre-screen candidates, conduct interviews and generate employment contracts. The company asserts that it is a UK government vetted 'Kickstart Scheme' representative and can get small businesses grants to hire interns having already processed over 100 job applications. QFinds claims that its app has been downloaded 2 million+ times garnering 24,000 reviews averaging 4.8/5 stars. QFinds also points out that bad hirings cost the UK up to £6.7 billion in turnover, productivity, and training. It seeks to change this and disrupt the £39 billion recruitment market. The company has partnered with notable entities like University College London, Kings College London and Brunel University London, intending to use them as strategic partners to increase job seekers signing up to and using its app. QFinds will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£222,866
Doc2UK is a specialist UK medical recruitment and candidate support platform. Based in London, the platform places qualified doctors in the National Health Scheme (NHS) roles around the United Kingdom. The British Medical Association (2018) reported that patient care is at risk due to a critical shortage of doctors across multiple medical disciplines. At present, the UK only has 24 medical schools to fill this gap, whilst India, in comparison, has 468 medical schools, with 68,000 doctors graduating each year. Moreover, uncertainty about the status of EU nationals after Brexit, changes to immigration policies, and the impact of changing language testing requirements for international nurses have made this crisis worse. This situation necessitates recruiting doctors from overseas an important endeavour. This is where Doc2UK aims to become a key player and ensure that lack of medical personnel doesn't disrupt any medical services. The company is seeking an investment of up to £300,000 which will be used to develop the platform with more features, expand the team, marketing and sales.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
Withheld
CoinBurp is a uniquely user-friendly crypto trading platform. It has a long-term vision to become an international brand and an integral part of the banking ecosystem. The company has acquired more than 1,000 users and facilitated 1000+ transactions, accumulating a trading volume of more than £1m. As CoinBurp enters its second phase of product development, it aims at providing banking facilities such as provide customers with prepaid cards, offer secured crypto loans and have initiated the process to become FCA regulated.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£274,630
A decentralised banking platform with already more than £13.5m dedicated for software development. BABB intends to become a licensed bank in the UK and is raising funds for the capital required to do so. The company aims to allow anyone access to a bank account, as well as a mobile app for customers to make payments, lend money and exchange currencies.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,362,430
