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
Glint is a proprietary multi-currency platform that allows users to buy, save, spend and send real gold and other currencies, digitally with its application. The company asserts that its scalable technology enables its clients to use their currencies such as GBP, USD, EUR and Gold, with Glint's UK, EU and US-issued Mastercards in 210 countries worldwide. Glint also points out that its Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Service, Glint It!, allows clients to send and receive gold and currency between Glint accounts in over 160 countries. The company has raised £20 million in equity funding to date, reached 79,000 registered clients, and overseen over £158 million worth of transactions on its platform. Glint will use the investment to maximise revenue, organically grow its business, increase its registered customer base to 250,000 in 2021, and hire key personnel across various portfolios.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£3,072,539
WeSwap is an award-winning P2P travel money platform that enables travellers around the globe to exchange currency in a hassle-free and transparent manner. The company has over 500,000 users who have swapped and spent more than £255 million in 197 countries and territories. WeSwap has also launched a portfolio of travel money products such as travel cash and buyback. The company has also garnered over 3000 reviews and earned a five-star rating on Trustpilot. Furthermore, WeSwap has won "Best Travel Money Provider" title for two consecutive years at the British Bank Awards. With the proceeds, the company will launch in international markets, make new products and develop new partnerships.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£2,520,786
StepLadder is a financial technology company dedicated to helping people buy their first home. The company asserts that it is tackling the housing crisis with its 'StepLadder Circles' that is based on the Rotating Savings and Credit Association model (ROSCA). Users have to state a monthly monetary contribution and a financial goal. The portal then adds them to a group of people with the same goal wherein all users contribute the same amount each month. The portal then randomly allocates one person in the circle each month the total contribution received. This repeats every month for the duration of the circle until everyone has received their deposit. It has awarded over £750,000 to members on its portal. The platform has featured in The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, and The Independent. It also won 'Innovator of the Year' in the Women in Tech Awards 2020. StepLadder will use the investment received to improve its pan-UK growth via referral and ambassador programs.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£161,420
A share tip service to save investors time and money by consolidating the most trusted tipsters and analysts to follow and copy. Stockomendation aims to increase trading activity and engagement on trading platforms by aggregating, tracking, collating and analysing tips offered by those working in the industry. They use a multitude of sources including brokers, websites and researchers so investors can view and follow track records of success with confidence.
Stockomendation has received a £100k UK Government Innovation Grant, £200k from the Development Bank of Wales Technology Fund, partnered with a leading UK University and developed artificial intelligence technologies using Big Data to analyse the market for stock tips and advising which shares to buy or sell. To date, in the UK more than 40,000 stock tips and 300 analysts and tipsters have been tracked for the 7,500 current investors on the platform.
Revenue is generated via monthly membership subscriptions, as well as licensing agreements, partnerships, sponsorships and advertisements. Stockomendation has launched in the UK and is now seeking funds to expand into the EU, USA, Canada and Asia. In addition, this funding round will allow the business to launch further monetisation methods to increase B2C and B2B relations, recruit key hires, develop multi-lingual offerings, increase data collection and develop more sophisticated functionalities such as widgets.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£381,725
Landbay is a marketplace lender that's main focus is on prime residential mortgages. They match investors' funds directly to loans. Landbay plan to use the proceeds for general working purposes.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,601,371
Wombat is an investment platform that encourages millenials in the UK, Europe and beyond to invest in some of the world’s best-known brands for as little as £10. Their mission is to empower the generation of millenials to manage, save and grow money by breaking down barriers to traditional investing. The Wombat app was launched in the summer of 2019, and the company has already acquired more than 5,000 customers. Moreover, the company was nominated as Best Newcomer for the Robo Investing Awards and received positive press coverage. With the proceeds, Wombat is planning to build a strong customer base, fulfil growth strategy with a significant increase in marketing, product development, and to educate customers about investing.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£435,717
PonchoPay aims to change the way parents pay for childcare and access the government funding they're entitled to.
Hundreds of millions of pounds of government support available to parents is going unspent each year due to poor awareness, clunky processes and a low adoption of technology. PonchoPay is making it easy for any source of funding to be aggregated at point of checkout, saving parents money and saving childcare providers a significant amount of time in the process.
Using Poncho Pay's intelligent automation engine, our vision is for parents to be able to quickly access and use this funding across all childcare providers that are registered to receive them nationwide.
As we build our prominent role in the payment journey, PonchoPay will be well positioned to offer additional services in future to parents and childcare providers alike. Growth capital and insurance solutions for childcare providers, Buy Now Pay Later for parents and AI-powered booking curation tools are a handful of additional revenue sources that we plan to explore in the future.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£405,860
Lifetise is a financial planning platform that enables prospective clients to plan significant expenditures such as buying a home, marital expenses, child-rearing and retirement. Presently, they have come up with two major offerings: Homefinder and Childminder. The first one acts as a tool that shows money required to afford a home in the UK and the amount of time taken to save the money while the latter helps parents to calculate the costs of childcare along with their work. Lifetise is targeting the 25-40 age group in the UK whose population numbers are approximately 14 million. To date, they have been featured in prominent publications like Evening Standard and Stylist with an active following on Reddit. The company has secured 12,000 customers after their partnering with Accenture's Fintech Accelerator Programme. With the investment, Lifetise will spend more on developing its applications with a focus on all major life expenditures, marketing on social media channels, build partnerships and human resources.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£254,240
Like to be are an online platform connecting students with professionals to provide them with real world, impartial careers advice. The Ed Tech platform aims to disrupt the analogue world of careers advice using their unique platform and content.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£195,404
