Wellbeing Sisters (WS) is a company that offers wellbeing advice, hosts an online shop, and sells a subscription box full of toxin-free health, beauty, and nutritional products by and for women. The company first launched its subscription box in 2019 for women trying to conceive. WS witnessed a sell-out of its series of one-off boxes tailored towards conceiving, pregnancy, early motherhood, midlife and menopause in 2020. WS aims to be a contender in the UK subscription box market that is set to be worth £1 billion by 2022. The company asserts that it has organically grown its social media following consisting of over 5,000 supporters. It will use the investment to invest in technology, product development, and marketing/PR.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£153,394
Smartlands is a blockchain-based digital finance and investment ecosystem. It allows asset owners to turn an ownership right to a share of any asset, into a tradable digital token attributing it almost unlimited liquidity. In the UK, Smartlands is the first platform for crowdfunding investments that allows investors to use digital currencies alongside fiat currencies to raise capital. The platform boasts of a 16,000 strong community following with over 11,000 wallets opened since its inception. It has a reputed list of partners including Colliers International, CMS, Archax, UK Sotheby’s, and many more. They have been awarded the 'Best Crowdfunding Platform' at the 2020 FinTech Breakthrough Awards and have been featured in Yahoo Finance, Forbes, Coindesk, Benzinga, and Investors Chronicle to name a few. With the investment, the company will grow its internal engineering team and obtain the necessary licenses to move its business forward across Europe.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£379,183
Lucy Choi has created an affordable luxury footwear brand that comes with a unique heritage, having learnt her craft from her uncle, the great shoe designer, Jimmy Choo. Lucy Choi London has been featured consistently at London Fashion Week and in the elite fashion press. The brand has been featured in platforms such as The Times, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Grazia, and The Telegraph. It has been worn by A-list celebrities including Hailey Beiber and Sharon Stone. From 2018 to 2019, there has been a 40% increase in the number of shoes sold. Lucy Choi London has also been sold to various UK stockists and wholesaled internationally. Around 5,800 subscribers have subscribed to its website since 2016 (41% CAGR). With the proceeds, the company will refocus on wholesale globally, design a new website, hire new employees, and increase marketing spends.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£182,770
Marine Power Systems (MPS) states that it has developed a technology that can harness wind power, wave power or combined wind and wave energy at grid scale. It argues that governments worldwide are looking for alternative sources to meet global energy consumption needs. MPS endeavours to usher in an energy revolution and become a contender in the floating offshore energy market that is set to be worth over $100 billion by 2035. MPS claims to have successfully tested its medium-scaled prototype in the ocean, demonstrating the ease of transportation, deployment, and showcasing the devices ability to generate grid compliant electricity. The company has been awarded a £12.8 million grant by the European Union (EU) to deliver a full scale, grid-connected commercial demonstrator in 2022. It says it will use the investment to conduct its final phase of development and testing before taking its devices to market in Q1 of 2024.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£4,151,001
Mami Wata (MW) is a purpose-led, premium African surf lifestyle brand on a mission to redefine the global surf market. MW asserts that it has collaborated with global luxury brand, Moncler, and partnered with renowned stockists including Mr Porter and Huckberry. It aims to be a contender in the $9 billion global surfing market. It has also shipped 1200+ copies of its AFROSURF art book to 39 countries along with funding a surf therapy clubhouse in Harper, Liberia. MW has sold products to 7,500+ customers generating more than £400,000 in revenue to date. The company has featured in global media entities such as CNN, GQ, Wallpaper, Monocle, and HypeBeast. MW will use the investment for its international launch in the USA.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,145,799
Charm is a peer-to-peer impact investment platform that allows a user to use his/her investments to drive positive change in the world while earning a financial return. Morgan Stanley estimates that 85% of people are interested in sustainable investing. Charm enables individuals to fund projects led by high-impact entrepreneurs selling clean energy solutions in developing economies. Users can view their investments on the company's transparent, personalised impact investment dashboard, as well as, earn social, environmental and financial bottom line returns for their contributions. The company secured a £496,000 grant funding to develop its platform, refine its offering & provide growth capital. It is in the process of becoming an appointed representative of a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorised entity post this funding round. It will use the investment to expand its team, develop its platform, and raise brand awareness.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£273,720
Comino is an international start-up specialising in the design and production of liquid-cooled PCs and servers. It claims that its products consume up to 40% less electricity than equivalent air-cooling computers. The company currently operates in AI, Forensic, Gaming, and Video Rendering, with aspirations to enter other domains in the coming years. Comino has sold 2,000 work stations to professional businesses, accruing sales north of 9 million EUR since its launch in 2017. Its products have been accredited by global hardware giants like AMD and ASUS. The company will use 70% of proceeds for manufacturing its devices, 10% towards marketing and promotional materials, and 20% to compensate its teams.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£949,608
TransferGuru is a money transfer comparison site that aims to get the best deal possible for people transfering money abroad. The user simply inputs the amount they want to send and where they want it to go and they will then be shown all the options, displaying the best price, the best ratings and the fastest way to make the transfer.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£82,593
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
The Pension Lab offers an interative platform for employees and individuals, helping them reconnect and engage with their pensions. Its mission is to provide the customers with better knowledge of pensions and promote long-term financial decision making. The company has reached the finals of 'Pitchfest' competition held at the NEC as a component of “Venturefest”, and it is also a finalist in the “Innovation in Business” category. Some of the best Fintech solutions providers and pension services such as Yodlee and Origo are in partnership with the Pension Lab. With the proceeds, the company will develop its working capital, infrastructure development, and customer acquisition.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£38,024
