B-North is a UK-based business lending company. It has combined cloud-native technology with face-to-face relationship banking. The company asserts that SMEs account for over 60% of private-sector employment in the UK, have driven job growth over the past ten years, and are central to driving economic recovery. It intends to disrupt the £150 billion UK Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) lending market. B-North has raised a seed capital of over £6.8 million including a six-figure investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to establish its core team, as well as, build lending and deposit-taking platforms. The company is now seeking further investment through a bridge round to extend the cash runway from the end of Q4 2020 into Q1-Q2 2021 to achieve the necessary regulatory capital to become a bank and commence lending.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£2,149,256
DNApal is a personalised diet, health and fitness app that combines DNA infomation with other factors like age, weight, diet, family history and health goals. Two of the largest consumer DNA companies, 23andMe and Ancestry.com, have tested over 18m people. DNApal is capable of interpreting DNA results from these companies to provide precise recommendations on how to improve diet, hormone balance, weight loss, sleep, fitness & more. The company also won the best pitch at VentureFest 2019 at Oxford Brookes University. DNApal is aiming to launch MVP in January 2020 (iOS). The company is also aiming to recommend further testing and specific supplements where necessary and offer 1:1 consultations with a specialist. With the fund raised, DNApal plans to develop the full scope of the app, weekly goals, content challenges to keep users committed.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£49,990
DMALINK aims to create a transparent and accessible currency market for banks, funds, and corporations. The company asserts that the Foreign Exchange (FX) market is the world's largest and most liquid financial market, recording an average daily trading volume of $6.6 Trillion but is fraught with imperfect price movements. DMALINK aims to address this situation. Its portal utilises big data and analytics solutions to enable users to make better trading decisions. It also offers users access to 63 currency pair combinations. DMALINK also points out that its clients have chosen its services over 316,000 times with the company witnessing an average deal size of $585,000 and earning revenue worth $3,140,000. The company has featured in Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, and FX Markets to name a few. DMALINK will use 60% of the investment on salaries for existing and new team members allowing global growth, 20% towards marketing and sales efforts, and 20% towards technology expansion.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£425,903
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
Wamo is a mobile app that cuts through the clutter of other social networks. Curate, post and inspire using your own unique content. Wamo harnesses the power of communities to maximise brand engagement.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£441,330
B-North is creating an SME business bank that will deliver fast decisions with loans being given in two weeks. Its model is formed around strong relationships with both brokers and customers. B-North is in a positive conversation with the British Business Bank for Tier 2 debt, and its FinTech enabled lending platform is excellent. The funds will be used to expand the team and develop the platform. The company also aims at assembling a highly-experienced and ambitious management team supported by a heavyweight board.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£2,815,350
SoundOut is an online product testing company that enables retailers to optimise their ranges and improve their forecasting. They do this by crowdsourcing millions of reviews and ratings from consumers.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£363,745
Moody is a health-tracking application that connects users with customised health, food and fitness advice based on their moods, symptoms and cycles. It endeavours to become a sustainable force for good in women's health. The company argues that women control >80% of household health spend and are 80% more likely than men to use a digital health app. It aims to harness these trends and capitalise on the global remote health care market that is forecast to hit £40 billion by 2025. 'The Moody Month' app featured in publications like Vogue, Grazia and The Guardian. It has witnessed over 136,000 downloads since its Version 1 release in 2019. The app has compiled over 5 million moods to date. The company will use the investment to scale its business globally and reach 1 million subscribers within a four-year time frame.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£142,026
Prosper is creating a customer-focused brand, aiming to offer free access to public and private funds, competitive cash rates, and instant financial advice via a mobile app. They charge a platform fee based on the customer's assets. The experienced team behind successful ventures like Tandem Bank and Nutmeg is targeting the UK's expensive and underperforming savings and investment market. They've raised £3.2 million from investors including Tom Blomfield (Monzo) and Charlie Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage).
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£1,022,665
Total Be wants to bring an internationally recognised model of car insurance to the UK. It provides insurance for the car, not just for an individual driver. Additionally, it does not take crime data into account that is not specific to vehicles. Thus, this insurance is estimated to provide up to 25% cheaper cover in comparison to UK insurance. Moreover, a UK Government Petition for this insurance model has gained over 60,000+ signatures, which further validates the demand of this model. Total Be believes that it will be able to disrupt the UK market with this car insurance model.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£150,760
