IO-CO is an ideation company engaged in reducing the risk of launching consumer products. With its unique designing and prototyping methods, it allows market validation at a very early stage in the development cycle. Within a short span of 7 months, IO-CO is ready to commercialise 4 new products and is on the brink of forming an alliance with a sizable financial and technical partner.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£430,005
Husky is the UK’s only open, SaaS platform for workplace pensions. For employers, the platform deals with legal and compliance burdens of auto-enrolment while helping reduce pension costs. For individuals and company directors, the app is instrumental in bringing profitable and responsible investments with the Husky for Everyone app. And for advisers and accountants, it ensures strong client relationships amidst transparency and efficiency. Close to 1.4 million employers & 22.6 million workers are affected by the UK’s automatic enrolment (AE) legislation. Within this market, a conservative estimate of fees charged on employees by pension providers is £2 billion a year; Husky aims to disrupt this market & is ready to scale. Its method of operation has led to it achieving important milestones. With more than 1000 firms onboarded, a 92% renewal rate, and an average annual fee of £438, Husky charges its onboarded firms (including Crowdcube) with monthly recurring fees laid out as part of a 3-year subscription model. With the funds received, the company aims to disrupt the relatively stagnant workplace pensions industry with innovative products and empower its customers.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£417,338
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
Carbon Gold (CG) is an organic biochar producer and retailer. It claims that its products can replace harmful pesticides, last longer, and lock away CO2. The company's sales increased by 253% from £77,000 to £272,000 in 2020 with sales in 17 countries worldwide. CG's organic products employ biochar, a type of charcoal made from sustainably sourced materials. CG further enriches it with multiple strains of fungi, bacteria and minerals, that support healthy soil biology. The company is partnering with the Woodland Trust, is certified by the Soil Association, and is also a certified B Corp. The company will use the investment to boost its marketing, international development, and manufacturing.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£722,468
Projekt Rising (PR) is an automated project management Software as a Service (SaaS) portal that delivers projects to clients by replacing freelance teams and project managers with intelligent automation. The platform provides services such as video production, web and print content, and e-learning projects. It asserts that its model in the interactive and pharmaceutical industries has led to delivery times being cut in half, costs reduced by >50%, with the highest industry quality standards being maintained throughout. PR aims to be a contender in the £57 billion Project Management Professional (PMP) market. It will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£51,060
Bippit is a wellbeing platform that provides employees with financial consultancy from a professional with zero cost to the employees themselves. The company asserts that COVID-19 has made financial consultancy services difficult to access for employees. Bippit aims to resolve this situation. It is available in mobile and desktop formats and integrates with an employees’ entire financial life through 'Open Banking'. Bippit argues that this helps staff members receive all the tools they need to learn, plan, and take action concerning their finances. It also helps companies save time and money, ensures that employees receive an impartial support system, and allows financial experts to get an extra revenue stream. The company will launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) likely within 5 years if it moves beyond strategic acquisition.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£73,000
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
Marine Power Systems (MPS) is an innovative renewable energy company specializing in modular floating offshore wind technology, well-positioned to capitalize on the expanding worldwide potential of generating wind energy from advanced floating platforms. They have established revenue-generating agreements and secured significant grant funding, enabling them to further expand their team, enhance their customer pipeline, and undertake new commercial projects.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£2,880,994
Kandu is a platform that helps organisations running entrepreneur/innovation leadership mentoring programs to source, classify and build online mentoring teams for faster, systematic business growth. It is a B2B business selling to 60k+ global corporates, universities and accelerators. Kandu’s software makes it easy for such organisations to set up, manage and track the progress of the best in class business growth mentoring and advisory programmes. Now, Kandu is seeking investment to further enhance its product/services and create a full-time sales operation.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£168,512
Loowatt is delivering safe sanitation and generating energy from waste for sustainable business growth. Loowatt argues that poor sanitation leads to more than £150 billion being lost every year due to health care costs, decreased income and productivity. It aims to change this with its patented toilet. The toilet's waterless flush seals waste hygienically away and is the starting point for Loowatt's unique closed-loop processing system. Loowatt works closely with the local utility partners and ensures that waste is safely collected, treated, and transformed into biogas to generate electricity and heat with nutrients captured for organic fertiliser production. Loowatt has processed 555 tonnes of waste and served more than 250,000 people. The company will use the investment to scale-up manufacturing, complete development of the Loowatt Pro data transmission system, and develop an aftersales monetisation strategy for large international contracts, starting with the City of Manila.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,101,180
