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
Authenticating artwork by using DNA tags to produce certificates as a solution to forgery and fraud. Tagsmart has almost 250 artists with over 11,000 tags issued across more than 23,000 pieces of artwork. Revenue is generated via commissions with retailers where the artwork is sold, rather than from the artist. Funding will be aimed at R&D to continuously improve the security and to take the brand worldwide due to interest and demand from overseas.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£503,925
Lost At Sea (LAS) is an independent lifestyle beer brand that targets adventurers. The company has sold 26,000+ beers since 2019, with its products stocked in 50+ outlets. LAS claims that its new online shop has a 21.82% conversion rate and an engaged community of over 30,000 people. It also points out that since its first brew in 2019, it has seen substantial growth in demand, and as a result, provides kegs to its flagship stockist to ensure they have a constant flow of stock. The company has made over £1,000 Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) donations to date. They intend to use the investment to build a community of like-minded beer lovers, launch a flagship bar in Abersoch, North Wales to advocate local produce and sustainability, create a scalable bar concept for future expansion in other coastal towns, and hire personnel to drive product innovation and sales.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£82,351
Rebel Energy (RE) is an energy supplier on a mission to address inequality and provide everyone with easy access to clean and affordable energy, to eventually eliminate fuel poverty. RE claims that fuel poverty led to 16,500+ cold-related deaths in the UK in 2018. RE argues that as the UK home electricity market enters a phase of growth in a post-COVID world, it will be focused on offering reliable customer service and develop strategies that help people who are struggling with their electricity bills. The company has applied for a B Corporation accreditation. RE asserts that its customer support systems are automated and can handle multiple queries simultaneously. It plans to offer a weekly direct debit payment option. RE will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£503,810
Brew Monster is a Cwmbran-based microbrewery and also the winner of Beverage Industry Award in the Cardiff Regional Awards 2018. It serves primarily the South Wales region, including Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, and is increasingly gaining nation-wide popularity. In just 16 months since its establishment in 2017, Brew Monster has garnered a quarterly turnover of approximately £70,000 (Oct-Dec 2018). In this short period of time, the brewery has also doubled their production capacity, established a profitable micropub and set up a brewery tap.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£99,250
Creative Hub is a fast-growing cloud software platform for creative people to store, share files, and collaborate on projects. The collaboration tools also allow users to chat in real-time, and add comments on images, allowing creative teams to work faster and deliver better results. Creative Hub enables users to order professional art & photographic prints, or physical 3D prints, which are produced at its print production facilities in London(UK) and Dusseldorf (Germany). The platform currently has 40,000 active users which are growing day by day. With the investment, the company will drive growth through marketing and launch its New York production facility.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£286,992
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
MarketsFlow is a London and Boston based, highly innovative and performance driven Investment Manager platform. It is authorised regulated by the FCA, FRN 792373 and SEC. The company supports its clients to achieve financial goals by helping their money grow. In 2019, MarketsFlow became the winner of the Best Programmatic Trading Technology at WSL and Fund in New York for the third year in a row. MarketsFlow offers Managed Portfolios (GIA), IRAs and ISAs. The company is expecting that its Growth and High Growth portfolio is accessible. In the coming months, the company is about to launch its new mobile application to complement its Growth using M&A deals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£636,330
KogoPAY is a start-up fintech mobile payment company which offers quick, simple and economic regional & global money transfer with the help of an application. The company has a UK FCA licence, and it is on the last step for EU EMI licence. KogoPay has 1000 customers signed up and has been chosen to join the Mayor of London Business & Partners Accelerator. The company is planning to use the funds to complete rollout over Europe and Asia and to invest in advanced performance and customer service using Artificial Intelligence.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£198,620
Kalendit removes the middleman (agencies) and provides UK nurseries with temporary staff while helping them save up to 50% on staffing fees. Since September, over 150 users joined Kalendit, and it is continuing to add about two workers daily. This company had launched its services in November with four nurseries, and since then, have been successfully processed 49 bookings. With the funds raised, it will hire people and serve thirty nurseries in one year. By the fifth year, it wants to take 45% of the London market, which equates to 1400 nurseries.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£82,180
