A travel club and booking service offering a wide range of villas, boutique hotels and getaway experiences. Mr & Mrs Smith has over 1.5m members who have collectively made bookings valued at more than £60m in the last 12 months. The company generates income from commissions, which has resulted in revenues of £13m in 12 months up to 30 June 2018. They are now seeking to expand their travel collection and acquire US membership.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£5,926,375
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
Pluto helps travellers by providing them with information regarding their destination trip, tips from fellow travellers, and the option of travelling with others via its app. The company has over 7,000 travellers on its portal. It has sold over £140,000 worth of travel insurance, ranked in the top 3 UK travel insurers on Trustpilot, and won 'Best Travel Insurance Provider' at the Insurance Choice Awards 2020. Pluto has also garnered a 4.9/5 rating on the App Store. The company has featured in press entities such as TechCrunch, BBC, Monocle, Which, Mashable, and InsuranceTimes. It has integrated and partnered with Booking.com. Pluto will use the investment in product development, grow its market share via product and paid channels, and launch its premium subscription product to boost revenue.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£229,640
An easy and simple app for university students to find properties and pay rent all from the comfort of their own sofa. Bubble Student already has information for over 200,000 rooms, which users can book viewing schedules for, as well as a group chat feature to easily discuss the property with their friends.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£430,320
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
Kingwood-on-Thames Ltd is a company run by experienced businessman James Slater who is part of a truly enterprising family whose interests include amphibious tours in central London and the manufacture of amphibious machines. He’s spearheading the acquisition of River Thames Boat Hire Ltd – a riverboat charter company with an annual turnover of £100,000.
After extensive research, James has identified several areas of the Thames Boat Hire business which can be improved on. Having singled out each of the weaknesses, Kingwood-on-Thames will remodel the business to strengthen it from the bottom up, creating new partnerships, enhancing facilities and delivering additional marketing to initially increase the number of annual charters from 50 to 250 over four years. This represents a conservative 35% of the boats potential usage (the company has outlined 728 charters per annum as part of its forecasts).
It is expected this will take sales from £100,000 to £1.25m in 4 years.
A £300,000 equity deal for 25% of the company is available to investors. James himself will be investing £100,000 of the total amount alongside Funding Tree investors. You can join James as he endeavors to turn a steady, under-appreciated charter company into a more profitable, sought-after business.
Plans in brief:
- James will hire a dedicated, passionate manager to handle the business and take it from zero marketing to multiple marketing techniques and also drive the creation of new partnerships to increase brand awareness.
- A new website featuring efficient contact and booking systems is currently in development by Somerset Website Services. It will be launched in the next few weeks under the Kingwood-on-Thames Ltd (KTL) banner.
- New online advertising and increased social media activity and email marketing campaigns.
- The remodeling of the business to incorporate high value clients as well as standard clients.
This charter business has a unique selling point in its vessel’s historical significance. The Kingswood vessel was one of the 861 ‘little ships’ used for the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo between 27 May and 4 June 1940. (www.adls.org.uk). The boat is in excellent condition having completed a maintenance check and survey in spring 2014 by Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£31,100
WorkClub converts under-used real estate into productive co-working areas and provides an affordable membership for remote workers across London. The company has 500+ members, 800+ guests and 25 WorkClub’s spaces in London. WorkClub has also secured many venues across the UK with Young's, Hippo Inns and more. Furthermore, it is listed as a ‘Top 10 startup to watch’ by TechRound, has 4.8* rating on TrustPilot and, acquired 30 businesses to offer discounted WorkClub memberships to members including ZipCar, PureGym. The company will use the funds to develop WorkClub’s technology and to expand its offering into other key UK cities.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£342,820
Super U is a health food brand, creating great-tasting and nutritious superfood blends and providing a natural, innovative & convenient way of consuming superfoods, without costing the Earth. The company has 3500+ online consumers and, the social audience has risen to over 8,500 followers. Additionally, Super U has been a finalist for Start-Up Business of the Year and Health & Beauty Business of the Year 2019 - for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. The funds will be used for growth, marketing and export strategies.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£160,110
INSPHERE uses image sensors and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to guide and correct robot positioning during the manufacturing process, ensuring right-first-time production. The company argues that industrial robots are not completely accurate and can experience unplanned downtime that can cost up to £10,000 per minute. INSPHERE asserts that its solution allows factory operators to operate safely with less downtime, and with multiple robot and human operators. The company has developed three products since 2013 which have received recognition in the aerospace and industrial automation sectors. INSPHERE is now launching IONA, a network of sensors that can be permanently deployed in a manufacturing environment to monitor and control industrial robots. IONA, the company points out, uses both hardware and software to correct errors taking into account the robot and its relationship to the workpiece. INSPHERE will use the investment to diversify the reach of IONA across markets.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,149,999
Carnot is developing hydrogen engines with key components manufactured from ceramics able to withstand fuel combustion temperatures, eliminating the need for cooling systems and doubling the efficiencies of modern engines. The company argues that modern engines waste on average one-third of fuel energy to cool systems that stop metallic components from melting. Carnot claims that its engines eliminate this waste doubling efficiency, halve fuel costs and CO2 and achieve net-zero operation by operating on biofuels and hydrogen benefiting the long haul transport, marine and primary off-grid power markets. Carnot has raised over £600,000 including a pre-seed round in 2020 for £357,000 at a pre-money valuation of £2 million, a £300,000 Innovate UK grant and another £300,000 Eureka Eurostar’s grant. Carnot has a 5-year, 3-phase exit strategy and will begin licensing its IP at the end of 2023 at which point it will begin generating revenue. It will eventually look for acquisition from one of its manufacturing partners in 2025 after demonstrating industry acceptance of its technology.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£262,500
