Legal Connection (LC) is on a mission to democratise the $1 trillion legal profession, and enabling networks of legal professionals to compete with large partnership firms. The company asserts that the UK leads the world in being a friendly regulatory environment for freelance lawyers and virtual firms. LC aims to capture this sentiment and provide the aforementioned lawyers with the right technology so that they can group to provide a comparable service to large firms at a fraction of the price. LC argues that its product looks like a social networking tool but functions as a legal case and practise management suite wherein all the work takes place in secure chat rooms. Lawyers are also allowed to leverage third-party managed accounts to hold client money and execute transactions. LC was selected by Antler Venture Capital and given a pre-seed investment of £120,000. LC will use the investment to grow its user base, continue product development, and use technology to power the future of law.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£211,874
Baanx is a B2B2C mobile banking platform offering cutting-edge services in remittance, spending & blockchain. The company takes pride in its innovative customer acquisition process through partner communities. The BaanxCL already has a CL™ VISA Debit Card, Crypto-Payment Gateway, a Crypto-Exchange, Stablecoins, and other exciting features. The company is also partnering with new brands around the world which are not banking already but have large user communities to connect. The company is aiming to target 100,000 users by Q2 2020 with the assistance of Super Seed Investors. With the proceeds, Baanx will hire additional team members, spend funds on marketing, and launch services in South America and Asia.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£658,200
VINEX is a digital Business-To-Business (B2B) trading platform that connects buyers and sellers to source, sample, negotiate and execute contracts related to wine. The company has traded more than 115 million bottles of wine across 26 countries since 2016. It has also witnessed 3,200 monthly visitors on its platform with an average of 80 million litres of wine traded each month, from 16 countries. The company recently launched VINPay, an industry-first financial technology service customised for the wine industry, providing wineries with guaranteed payment and increased access to capital liquidity. VINEX argues that VINPay pays wineries in 3 days from dispatch, rather than them waiting for 90+ days, and removes non-payment risk. The company points out that it has already started processing invoices, making and receiving payments from 7 countries. VINEX aims to become a contender in the wholesale wine market that is set to exceed US$381 billion in 2021. It will use the investment to help wineries invest and flourish.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£159,720
Evaclite manufactures dynamic exit signs designed to make buildings safer and save lives. The company argues that its products are 77% more visible than conventional exit signs and reduces congestion at exits by 36%. The company received the 2018 FIREX - Fire Innovation of the Year Award. It also won the Safety and Health Excellence (SHE) Award in 2019 and 2020. Evaclite counts companies like Apple, CBRE, BBC, Melia, and MetroBank amongst its clients. The company has inquiries from over a dozen countries globally with a 12-month sales opportunity pipeline of over £1.5 million. It will use 60% of the investment to build its sales team, 28% to boost its inbound marketing campaign, 7% to develop additional intellectual property, and 5% towards overhead and general costs.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£148,736
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
Racingbreaks.com is a digital racing and experiential platform enabling users to plan and book every aspect of their racing experience, whether that’s a ticket to a local racecourse or a unique 'Round the World Trip' to the Melbourne Cup. The company intends to offer users a single point of distribution for the fragmented racing sector, allowing customers to book everything in one place. Racingbreaks.com has earned £4.38 million worth of sales in 2019 witnessing a 300% growth in sales between 2017 to 2019. It claims that over 50,000 customers have booked with Racingbreaks.com, with the company having signed key partnerships with over 50 racecourses. The company claims that renowned horse racing jockey Frankie Dettori has invested in the company and is the face of the brand. Racingbreaks.com will use the investment to re-develop its website and platform, create a new racing app, develop new ticketing Application Programming Interfaces with more racecourses, and expand its platform globally.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£375,530
Rebel Energy (RE) is an energy supplier on a mission to address inequality and provide everyone with easy access to clean and affordable energy, to eventually eliminate fuel poverty. RE claims that fuel poverty led to 16,500+ cold-related deaths in the UK in 2018. RE argues that as the UK home electricity market enters a phase of growth in a post-COVID world, it will be focused on offering reliable customer service and develop strategies that help people who are struggling with their electricity bills. The company has applied for a B Corporation accreditation. RE asserts that its customer support systems are automated and can handle multiple queries simultaneously. It plans to offer a weekly direct debit payment option. RE will use the investment to grow its business across different verticals.
days to go:
Expired
investment:
£503,810
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
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
