Plerith works with high growth start-ups and scaling companies to plan for and deliver growth. The company asserts that it helps companies promote their business to potential funders, through its network of angel and venture capital investors depending on the stage and sector of the said business. Plerith is partnering with Newable and Bristol Private Equity Club to deliver the fund in the South West London (SWL) area and identify and invest in the most exciting high growth companies in the region. Plerith argues that its deep knowledge of fundraising, sales, strategy, finance and technology would help SWL businesses flourish. Plerith aims to provide investors access to the highest quality local companies in the SWL region.
days to go:
Stretch
investment:
Withheld
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
Findr aims to automate the creation of business partnerships by providing easy access to hyper-targeted opportunities in minutes. The company asserts that its platform allows any business, regardless of its size, to sign up, post its partnership requirements, and explore opportunities for free. The company's portal allows users to request a 1-hour 'Discovery' call with a potential partner when the said user spots a relevant opportunity. Findr argues that it has made 'Discovery' for free for the first few months to build its user base. The company has onboarded 140 business users ranging from early-stage to global brands such as Mastercard, Uber and Visa since November 2020. Findr has featured in Forbes for helping businesses navigate COVID-19. The company will use the investment to develop two new price plans – Unlimited and Enterprise, introduce new platform features, hire a machine learning expert, and undertake digital activity to grow its user base.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£396,288
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
Rnwl is aiming to be the first ever over-the-top insurance platform. The company asserts that conventional insurance companies rely on a lead generation business model that is archaic and inefficient. These result in a customer's insurance options becoming an expensive and time-consuming affair. Rnwl is endeavouring to simplify this. Users can enter their credentials and requirements on the Rnwl website. The company will analyse the market and suggest the best deals for the user. Rnwl has been accepted into the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA's) Innovation Hub. It will use 74% of the investment in human resource, 14% in marketing, and 12% as operational costs.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£450,366
Myn is an innovative source-to-pay platform driven by AI, aiming to establish a seamless network connecting companies, workers, and recruiters. Their end-to-end solution encompasses intelligent talent sourcing, self-service talent acquisition, fully funded payrolling services, digital compliance solutions, job boards, and enticing employee benefits.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£939,520
B-North intends to revolutionise the business lending industry, which is often outdated, impersonal and slow. The fintech company uses some of the most advanced cloud-based technology, coupled with face-to-face relationship teams to get the best lending solutions for borrowers and their businesses. The company is powered by a team with prior experience in starting and scaling challenger banks, and profitability is its focused goal. B-North has submitted the banking licence application, and the result is expected by 2020.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£2,135,456
The Asset Exchange Ltd is an asset-backed lender within the UK used car finance market providing cars and loans to borrowers who are unable to use traditional lending sources for vehicle finance. They use compliant Hire Purchase Agreements which provides customers with high levels of consumer protection.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£63,064
Folio is an automated savings App, allowing users to create intelligent savings goals easily. They have over 4000 active users and are growing by 6% every week. Folio aim to help people build better financial habits by focusing on the future.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£183,360
AQai is an Adaptability Quotient (AQ) assessment and coaching platform. It assesses workforce adaptability across 15 dimensions including resilience, grit and unlearning, motivation style, hope, and stress. It then deploys Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to deliver optimum learning strategies to its users so that they can adapt to changing work conditions. The term 'AQ' has featured in publications like Inc, Forbes, HBR, and the BBC to name a few. The company aims to be one of the leading companies in the $21 billion workforce adaptability sector. AQai's users are from over 52 countries and organisations like GSK, Philips, and FedEx. It has partnerships with companies based in India, Europe, the UAE, and the USA, and has sold 2,500 assessments till date. The company will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£138,540
