StartUpBuzz Archives

StartUpBuzz

In the run up to the festive period, the AIN team highlights some of the companies that they are most excited about. With two companies shaking up the property market, a chocolate brand targeting the very top of the market, and a company that is revolutionising 3D printing.

Virtual View App

During the pandemic, viewing properties has been difficult, at times impossible, but one of the lasting effects of it is more and people screening potential properties with virtual tours.

Virtual View’s ‘Vieweet’ app helps amateur photographers create a 360 view, or virtual tour on an app. It’s useful for viewing potential property to buy or let, but other use cases span insurance, interior design and surveying.

Key Facts

– Vieweet currently collects data on the 7% of the UK properties sold every month

– Partnerships with some of the largest property sites including Zoopla

– Customers include some of the largest estate agents, such as Purple Bricks and Countrywide

‘The thought of them already collecting data on 7% of UK properties sold every month before turning on the revenue taps showed me just how confident the founder is. The levels of data they can gather on each home will help further stimulate several other industries’ Xavier Ballester

Find out more about Virtual View App.

PropertyLoop

Continuing the property theme, PropertyLoop is an end to end lettings platform. Making life much easier for property landlords. It’s also the world’s first commission free letting platform.

Landlords typically spend thousands on unhelpful agents just to find a tenant. On PropertyLoop, landlords list their property only once, the listings then are posted on to hundreds of portals including Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket. PropertyLoop verifies renters identities, as well as sorting tenancy agreement, deposits and renewals.

There’s also a ‘Smart’ tools service where tenant report any issues with the property online, where it is automatically sent to relevant, qualified contractors who bid for the work. Property Loop takes care of all the access, proof of work and invoicing so that landlords don’t have to.

Key Facts

– Multi excited founders

– sold one of London’s biggest retail estate agency chains, taken care of $1 billion of property every year.

– 95% of the market still being dominated by High Street Agents, the ‘Blockbusters’ of the Property Market

Total Addressable Market – £1.7 trillion rental market

‘Having spoken to a number of landlords about PropertyLoop each of them said they would be crazy not to use it. Everything to do with the running of your property under one roof and free is definitely a problem being solved!’ Xavier Ballester

Firetree

There’s expensive chocolate, and then there’s Firetree – chocolate is priced at a price point that you wouldn’t really expect to see chocolat at, more the territory you would expect to see a fine wine.

Firetree is a new chocolate brand positioning itself at the top of the end of the market, and therefore avoiding the competitive mid-market with the likes of Cadbury and Mars. Chocolate is roasted in its shells using a slow chocolate craft production process to ‘optimise their complet taste characteristic’.

Firetree believe they are the only serious player who can capture the top of the market with an experienced team that combines both mass market and high end chocolate experience.

Key Facts

– Set for £1m in revenues in 2021

– Retailers include Harrods, M&S and Ocado

– Vegan, Dairy-Free, Nut Free, Halal and Kosher Certified.

‘ I tasted them and know just how delicious they are. My wife is a big chocolate snob and says she has never tried a better chocolate. Firetree could be the brand to take over the super premium category.’ Xavier Ballester

Find out more about Firetree.

Wayland Additive

Wayland Additive have overhauled additive manufacture (3D Printing) of metals, making it faster, more reliable and allowing for the printing of larger structures than has commonly been possible.

Wayland aims to create metal Additive Manufacturing (“AM” – 3D printing) machines to sell to industrial organisations, including in the aerospace and medical industries. With highly advanced tech created from the worlds of scanning electron microscopy and electron beam lithography.

As a result of these innovations the machine will offer higher productivity, unparalleled process monitoring and control, and versatility in materials.

Facts

– First client signed in N. America (£850k) and working with the MOD

– £29m pipeline of opportunities

– Raised £2.1m of a £3m round backed by Longwall Ventures

To hear more about Wayland Additive, reach out to Ed Stephens directly ed(at)angelinvestmentnetwork.co.uk.

Keen to hear more?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.

StartUpBuzz

At AIN, we celebrate connecting investors to back the great businesses of tomorrow, whatever they do. With this in mind, our latest round up includes a new form of property marketplace, a platform using AI to reinterpret education and a company making new types of soup!

Soupologie

Whilst you may think there isn’t much to differentiate soup, Soupologie would beg to differ. Soupologie makes award winning soups and ready meals that are driving a number of innovations including: the world’s first ‘5 a day soup’ and ‘first free from the 14 main allergens soup’.

Capitalising on the plant based movement, the company has achieved strong growth and has even released two cookbooks. With an exit focused management team and strong revenue growth, the company is on a fantastic path.

Key Facts

– On track for £3.2m revenue in Y/E May 22

– Products sold at Waitrose, Tesco, Ocado and leading supermarkets

– Over 21k+ followers on social media

“Soupologie have steadily built a strong business core around an innovative product range. Alongside executing the fundamentals of the business brilliantly, they amplify the brand exceptionally well through wide reaching media campaigns and an enviable following. The combination is powerful and we knew it was something that our network would be keen to see” Sam Louis.

Find out more about Soupologie here.

Vesta

Vesta is a marketplace for buying and selling rental property, and has sold over £50 million of property since it’s launch in 2018.

It’s the leading marketplace of it’s kind covering buy-to-let, student accommodation, and portfolio properties for example. The properties often come with a tenant in place – if you buy a property with a tenant in place, the tenant is happy as they don’t need to find somewhere else to live, and the buyer is happy as they have an immediate rental income.

Key Facts

– The rental market is expected to be £1.7 billion by 2025

– Vesta has a growing pipeline currently worth £100 million.

– Revenue currently > £20k a month

“This is a space that has been of interest to me for some time and Vesta clearly sets out what the investment options and how much I can hope to generate from the moment I buy the property” Xavier Ballester.

Find out more about Vesta here.

Habitat Learn

Habitat Learn is an ecosystem of products designed to remove the barriers of learning. With the ethos that ‘when online learning works better for all students; all students work better.’

Habitat Learns comprises a suite of products easily integrating into existing education technology. This includes:

– Video conferencing software, designed specifically for education, as well as providing high quality live stream content, there is AI captioning and translation, and digital watermarks to safeguard IP.

– Advanced analytics including everything from live recording, invoicing and student attendance records

– An option to get notetakers to take notes remotely.

Key Facts:

– Projecting £3m revenue in 2021, (£600k: 2020)

-185 customers (universities and colleges) including Harvard, Yale and Cornell

– Experienced team founding multiple successful startups

“With lockdown Edtech has seen a real surge but I also looked back to my uni days where I spent most lectures frantically scribbling and missing half of what was said… Oh to have had Habitat Learn!” Xavier Ballester.

Find out more about Habitat Learn here.

Keen to hear more?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.

#StartUpBuzz

Here’s our pick of companies raising investment on Angel Investment Network at the moment.

From launching podcasts, to helping you select the most appropriate emobility solution, or a modular sofa that will actually fit through the front door, these are the startups that are solving meaningful problems with capable teams, and a clear route to market.

Auddy

Whilst starting a podcast may seem deceptively easy, actually launching it successfully, building a user base, maintaining growth and monetising it, are a lot easier said than done. That’s where Auddy comes into help.

Auddy is one of the UK’s leading podcast publishers. Using cutting-edge data and analytics, they make the business of podcasts hassle-free. They work with top creators to produce and market premium shows before distributing them to all major platforms. They then provide advertising and sponsorship sales, paying properly meaningful royalties back to the creators.

Controlling the end-to-end process means they can also produce private shows for corporate’s internal employees or leading branded content for a company’s content strategy. These are high margin jobs and provide a diversified revenue stream beyond pure consumer publishing.

Key Facts

Founder has numerous IPOs and exits, including for Virgin

B2B clients including Vodafone and Open University

Acquired leading UK branded podcast publisher – Radio Wolfgang

‘Auddy has an incredible team behind it, driving a sophisticated business model in what is a rapidly expanding market space. We were hooked from the off and we think it’s an exciting opportunity for the network!’ – Sam Louis

Find out more about Auddy here.

Electric Rider

In big cities, suddenly electric mobility solutions are appearing everywhere. Electric Rider is an online marketplace selling emobility solutions from ebikes to escooters, even electric unicycles.

The trend for the electric revolution appears to be getting strong momentum, buoyed in part by London and other major cities introducing low emission zones.

Electric Rider makes it easy to find the most appropriate electric mobility solution for the user – with a ‘help me choose’ solution finder, as well as flexible payment options.

Key Facts

The emobility market is forecast to grow at 20% year on year

Electric Rider achieved £1million gross revenue with 30% margin in first 18 months

Over 55 brands in stock and growing

‘Impossible to ignore what they have achieved in such a short space of time. Along with the current move towards electric transportation in cities it was a company that I really wanted to help raise.’ – Xavier Ballester

Find out more about Electric Rider here.

Cozmo

Ever ordered a sofa with a long lead time only to find it didn’t fit through the door? Or pulled a muscle in your back trying to lug a sofa up the stairs? Cozmo is a new type of sofa company, reinventing what sofa purchasing should look like – modular and delivered in a box. It’s also a sustainable solution, allowing easy changes to both configuration and also its design with changeable top covers.

Key Facts

The emobility market is forecast to grow at 20% year on year

Electric Rider achieved £1million gross revenue with 30% margin in first 18 months

Over 55 brands in stock and growing

Find out more about Cozmo here.

Keen to hear more?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.

#StartUpBuzz

Each month our team selects some of the companies raising on Angel Investment Network that really stand out, as part of our #StartUpBuzz feature.

This month’s picks includes: Smart Container Co – real time tracking for beer kegs, Bx Technologies, a platform facilitating carbon offsetting by connecting corporates with farms, and ARQ, an investment platform for personalised wealth management using AI.

Smart Container Co

Enabling Transparency and a net-zero draught beer supply chain.

Smart Container Co turns traditional kegs into ‘smart’ containers, so that breweries, distributors and pubs can monitor the state of the beer inside, by combining a small waterproof IOT device connected to each keg (a KEGTRACKER), with their BEVEREDGE software.

It means that relevant parties can track the location, volume, temperature and motion for the liquid inside, reducing the risk of wasted stock, helping obtain more accurate shipping information, and gaining granular information about which product is being consumed where and when.

– UK patent pending
– Chairman with 30 years experience including SAB Miller
– Piloting technology with Brewdog.

Sam Louis, Head of Consultancy, Angel Investment Network shared why he is most impressed by Smart Container Co:

“We’ve known the Smart Container team for a while now and have been incredibly impressed with their progress. What we like is that they have a product that integrates smoothly into an exceptionally large existing market, giving significant opportunity for fast scale.

Since we first spoke with them, they’ve built strong relationships with some of the largest brewers and keg owners in the world, all of which have approached them cold. The timing is also very good – the pandemic has meant pubs and bars have become increasingly open to technology, something that was previously a hurdle, and many breweries have seen strong profits from retail sales.

All in all, it sets the company in a very strong position going forward and we’re excited to see where they go next”.

Find about more about Smart Container Co here.

Bx Technologies

Helping farms prove carbon emissions and offsetting – connecting farm to corporates.

Farmers are incentivised to maximise crop yields, but are rarely accountable for their carbon footprint. However, there is enormous interest in carbon offsetting from corporates to help them meet their ESG goals.

Bx Technologies is the first two sided marketplace that connects corporations with farms and agriculture, reversing climate change through carbon offsetting and economic service investment.

Bx Technologies use a farm management SAAS system with a trading platform powered by blockchain to create a carbon credit investing platform, allowing farmers to see both their carbon position and the profitability of their orchard. At the same time, Bx offers Ecosystem Service Investments for corporates, securing a long term supply of carbon offset tokens.

– 1st SAAS client signed – paying $200k per year.
– Expected to hit profitability by March ‘22
– Pipeline of over 12k hectares established

In terms of what excites him about Bx, Sam Louis explains:

“We were drawn to Bx Technologies for a number of reasons, the first of which was the boldness of their mission – remove 500m tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year. They’re operating in an exceptionally important and exciting vertical, with the opportunity to make an incredible impact on the planet as well creating massive growth potential.

They’ve tied these lofty aims to a strong underlying business model, with profitability within sight, and they aren’t expecting any altruism to make their business work. They’ve aligned the incentives of all their stakeholders, making it genuinely robust model. All in all, it’s the type of business we love – exciting, impactful and pragmatic.”

Find out more about BxTechnologies here.

ARQ

A wealth management app using AI personalised insights and comparisons.

ARQ is an investment platform that creates a personalised wealth management experience using AI and deep science.

The intelligent tools rank your investments performance using huge quantities of data and gives insights that can be used to improve your portfolio. ARQ are making tools that are only available to the super rich to more mainstream investors.

– A team with over 100+ years experience in financial services

– ARQ are offering white label services for wealth managers

– In house tech team behind leading fintech apps.

Xavier Ballester, Director of Angel Investment Network’s Brokerage Division shares why he is particularly impressed with ARQ.

“What I love about Arq is that I have this very issue: an Excel sheet with my various investments that doesn’t really give much insight after I have made my initial decision to invest. The beauty of this platform is that I can see my net worth and how my money is working for me and I imagine it will be a huge hit with financial advisors too.”

Find out more about ARQ here.

Keen to discover other startups?

If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network you can find them through your local network here.

#StartUp Buzz

Each month, we share a selection of stand out companies that our team have picked out as particularly exciting, or high potential. This month we have selected the following:

Immersify Education

Immersify Education is a learning app, initially creating a totally novel experience for dentistry students, but ultimately a comprehensive solution that makes it much easier for students to learn across disciplines.

Immersify fast tracks the pace of learning by combining rich multimedia content and an AR experience that gives the students the sensation that they are working on a patient right in the dentist’s chair.

– The founder is an award winning edtech entrepreneur with an exit in the dental education space

– 100% recommendation for the B2B offering

– Rated 5 Stars on the app store

Immersify Education are raising £1.2 million and have SEIS and EIS relief available.

Find out more about Immersify Education.

28 Well Hung

28 Well Hung are pioneering the regenerative restaurant concept in London.

All their food is chosen to help regenerate the planet, sequestering carbon and methane in the process and specifically working with farmers who are obsessed with regenerating the soil that they use.

Starting out as a street food stall, 28 Well Hung is now an established restaurant with £230k revenue that was profitable during Covid.

‘28’ are raising funding to expand, they have acquired a 9 year lease in Brixton and plan to open this summer, with a further London site due by the end of the year. Of note:

– Strong vegan and vegetarian customer base (50% of menu is veggie)

– Nominated for multiple awards including Best Street Food Trader

– 16% operating profit in 2020

Find out more about 28 Well Hung Ltd.

Scrubbingtons

Scrubbingtons produce a range of bespoke personal care products perfect for kids, from hand sanitiser and soap to shampoo and bubble bath.

They use natural ingredients, perfect for sensitive skin, and make the product easy for kids to use themselves.

Why’s it special? It’s 98% natural, very soft, and has special foam that lasts twice as long as gel. It’s sustainable with refillable pouches and recycled.

– 4.9* average across thousands of reviews

– Already supplies 150 school and nurseries directly

– 400k revenue in 2020 with 200% Y-O-Y growth

Scrubbingtons products are widely available including in Tesco, Amazon and Ocado.

Find out more about Scrubbingtons here.

#Start-up Buzz

Each month on the Angel Investment Network blog we feature some of our start-ups making waves. Here are some of the ones to keep an eye out for in June:

Vitabeam

Vitabeam has developed a patented LED technology that mimics the sunlight spectrum to stimulate plant growth, extend shelf life of food and kill unwanted pathogens, such as bacteria and mould.

Vitabeam has £1.72 committed sales, a pipeline of £6.5 million, and has received 2 Innovate UK government grants valued at £640k. Tests have shown biomass increase in herbs as high as 54% from using Vitabeam. You can click here to investigate on the best banking services available .

Learn More

Mintago

Mintago helps businesses save on their workplace pension tax bill, whilst improving the ‘pension well being’ of their employees. Mintago helps businesses to structure their pension in the most efficient way using HMRC’s salary exchange scheme reducing NI contributions, whilst rolling out pension optimisation tools.

Founded by the founder of Perkbox, and with the team ex RBC, BDO and Atomico, Mintago is growing at 100% MoM and saved customers over £250k despite only launching in December 2021.

Learn More

KiKaPay Digital Payments

KiKapay enables merchants to collect payments from customers in a manner that is typically 80% cheaper than card payments, by using their bank’s secure customer authentication process, and because it doesn’t require an app to be downloaded, KiKapay provides a frictionless solution.

With open banking payments increasing ten fold in 2020 and 25 billion card transactions having been processed in the UK alone. KiKapay has brought onboard an experienced team with 75 years experience, including a partner at Deloitte and the ex Head of Advisory for European payments at EY.

Learn More

Start-up Buzz

If there is one positive from the pandemic, it has been the sheer volume of innovation and exciting businesses that are forming and growing as a result, as markets shift and new trends emerge.

Each month we’ll select a few start-ups that we see as particularly exciting and worth a further look. Here are some of the current highlights:

Zero Carbon Farms

Farming needs to evolve. Urbanization, population growth and climate change demand it.

Food supply challenges are well documented – Covid-19 has seen empty supermarket shelves and highlighted the need for secure supply chains, awareness of the damage of pesticides and GMO crops is growing, and extreme weather events are making food production more unreliable.

Enter Zero Carbon Food (ZCF), a cutting edge AgTech company that builds and operates controlled environment farms, providing a future-proof and sustainable solution for growing. This innovative method allows them to use less water, less space and run on 100% renewable energy. Their first farm? It’s 13 storeys below London in a WW2 air raid shelter.

ZCF supplies brands nationwide including M&S, Tesco Whole Foods and is discussing an international licensing agreement.

ZCF Pitch

Anatome

Anatome is an innovative healthcare brand, founded by an exited entrepreneur. Built on the founder’s passion for apothecaries of old and combining it with cutting edge science. It’s already on track to turnover £1.3 million and is playing in the global wellness market,with a total size of $7.2 trillion.

It’s a digital first platform focused on online sales, but also leveraging real world stores to activate customers in premium locations, including Marylebone, Chelsea and Islington.

On top of this it’s FDA approved, has margins in excess of 70% and has developed partnerships with the Hug group and Space NK.

Anatome Pitch

ClearWaste

ClearWaste is the first platform of it’s kind offering a price comparison site for household waste – it’s effectively Money Supermarket for household waste.

Founded by a former EY Entrepreneur of the year, the business has gained traction by helping citizens report where rubbish has been illegally left, and councils link it back to the culprit. Each month ClearWaste submits thousands of reports to local communities.

ClearWaste has over 500 certified waste removal companies on it’s platform, has hit the top 10 on the Apple app store and is projecting £729k revenue this year.

ClearWaste Pitch