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
Yolk, also known as In One Basket Limited, is a pioneering company revolutionizing the food and coffee experience for people on the move. They provide high-quality sandwiches, salads, and improved breakfast options without the premium cost, boasting five successful locations in London and three upcoming openings in the second half of 2023
days to go:
TBC
investment:
Withheld
epaysecure is a secure payment system, which offers comprehensive payment and benefit options, and allows all the services the consumer demands to be offered in one card and e-account. The prepaid business purchasing in European markets is estimated to be $700 million. The company operates in an e-banking and financial services marketing sector that helps clients by identifying new markets and bringing in new ideas to develop them through reloadable products and e-Wallet platform. The funds will be used for staffing, set up costs, other overheads including property marketing and general office costs.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£168,340
QFinds is a purpose-built hiring tool that enables employers to easily and efficiently pre-screen candidates, conduct interviews and generate employment contracts. The company asserts that it is a UK government vetted 'Kickstart Scheme' representative and can get small businesses grants to hire interns having already processed over 100 job applications. QFinds claims that its app has been downloaded 2 million+ times garnering 24,000 reviews averaging 4.8/5 stars. QFinds also points out that bad hirings cost the UK up to £6.7 billion in turnover, productivity, and training. It seeks to change this and disrupt the £39 billion recruitment market. The company has partnered with notable entities like University College London, Kings College London and Brunel University London, intending to use them as strategic partners to increase job seekers signing up to and using its app. QFinds will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£222,866
Social Republic is a dining club that is run for the people, by the people. Social Republic helps supper clubs join together. It does this by allowing any member to be an organiser or a host. This means they can run just a single event or a whole supper club. Either way they are not tied to a schedule.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£359
AP Brands are now launching their fourth brand, Create-A-Crisp. The first three brands consist of Awfully Posh, The London Crisp Co. and The London Popcorn Co. The product is unseasoned, crinkle cut crisps with reduced fat in a 5-bag multipack. Included are 10 different seasoning sachets to allow the consumer to control the amount of flavourings they would like to apply to their crisps, as well as combining sachets to create unique flavours.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£124,804
Sugar Crave is an award-winning treat delivery service that has sold more than 13 tonnes of Pick N Mix in their first year. The company have won the Best Online Business 2019 award with Shropshire Chamber of Commerce and has also seen growth of 4000% in Year 1 to £67,959 with a profit of £27,291. Additionally, from covering 5,000 postcodes, the company now caters to 79,500 postcodes in Yr 1, with the aim to deliver within 60 minutes from order, Sugar Crave is working towards increasing its coverage across the UK by 2022. With the proceeds, the company will increase the range and expand coverage to all 52 major UK towns & cities.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£131,940
Phrooti is a fruit tea that is made up of 95-97% real fruit and 3-5% natural flavouring. It is designed to be a healthier and fruitier alternative to the current teas on the market. Phrooti is caffeine-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, low calorie and has no added sugar.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£11,740
The Brook is a plant-based food business that has been making plant-based eating accessible and enjoyable for a flexitarian, environmentally-conscious generation. The company has raised over £400,000 to date and, has launched an eCommerce platform that allows customers to avail ‘build-a-box’ subscriptions as well as single purchases. The company saw its online orders increasing by nine times during the COVID-19 lockdown. It was shortlisted at the Future Food Awards 2019, Great British Food Awards 2019, and World Food Innovation Awards 2019, to name a few. It has also secured listings with retail partners such as Co-op, Dobbie’s, and Fenwick. The company has appeared in publications like the Independent, Metro and The Times. The Brook will use 40% of the investment to hire staff, 40% to promote marketing, and 20% to accelerate web development.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£359,830
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
