Vercida aims to be Europe's largest diversity and inclusion-focused careers website. Vercida's AI integrated system offers candidates with more reliable search results and job matches based on what they truly want from a workplace. The company has drawn 2 million+ visits from 136 countries, has strong comeback rates from high profile clients like Virgin and Home Office, and has won multiple awards. Vercida is driving innovation backed by technology to set new standards to attract, progress, and retain the best candidates for the job.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£315,220
Arcis Biotechnology provide nucleic acid sample preparation solutions. They have made the process of obtaining genetic material from biological samples less time consuming so it can be done in less than 3 minutes.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,146,318
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
A premium British handcrafted candy-maker seeking funds to expand and grow their business internationally. In addition to their own candy and confectionary, they also offer customers to create their own designs using natural colourings and the finest ingredients. Spun Candy have the rights to the Candy Crush app.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£341,990
Run An Empire is a mobile app that is encouraging people to get outside and start jogging/ running more often using gamification. The idea behind the app is that users run around a particular area and then that area is claimed as their 'territory' until another user jogs that area and then claims it.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£60,370
Opportunity Network is a digital network that provides equal growth opportunities to Chief Executive Officers (CEO). The portal's algorithm vets prospective users, allows them to buy, sell, raise or invest in an asset, gives them the option to choose the industry they wish to do business in, and then post their requirement for the same. The user can then select the best deal for their business from a list of responses and scale profitably. The company's platform connects 32,000+ qualified CEOs in 130+ countries to $295 billion worth of commercial, financial, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals. 86% of the deals on the portal find at least 1 counterpart in 48 hours. Opportunity Network aims to reach full scale by the end of 2020 and find 10 counterparts for 95% of the deals in 1 hour. The company has also been featured in publications such as Forbes, CNBC, Financial Times, and The Economist. It will use the investment to scale its business across various verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£962,500
Ready Burger (RB) states that it has created the UK's first scalable, value-driven, entirely plant-based Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) brand. RB claims that it has mastered the science behind the taste and texture of plant-based foods to make them indistinguishable from their non-veg counterparts. It further points out that its final products use up to 92% lesser greenhouse gases, and require up to 70% lesser water than competitor brands. RB argues that its meals cater for vegetarians, vegans, meat lovers, and people preferring Halal or Kosher foods. RB offers fast-food classics and has partnered with a global plant-based food manufacturer. RB asserts that its ergonomically designed kitchens enable it to produce 1000s of items a day, that are in turn, serviced from its central distribution centre. RB's integrated web-app ordering, in-store ordering kiosks and an innovative delivery solution allow customers to have their food in under 30 minutes. RB says it will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,998,549
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
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
Uni Compare is a cross-platform student to university marketplace that acts as an enabler for undergraduate, postgraduate and international students. The company is targeting a £35 billion+ course advisor market. It displays university statistics, student reviews, and personalised choices to help students decide which course to choose when applying to university. Uni Compare raised £250,000 from Seedrs in 2018 and has witnessed 189,143 student registrations till date. It is now working with more than 14 partnered universities to create a new product line suited to connect postgraduate students with universities that are offering postgraduate courses. Uni Compare will use the investment to open up new markets, invest in scaling current revenue streams, and supercharge the business to meet client demand.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£248,476
