The second batch of ‘Chiclets’ from Natwest’s Entrepreneurial Spark venture in the South East are seeking investment as they grow their innovative companies. Continuing on from last month, here we hear from two more entrepreneurs on why investors should take notice of their business.
Shuttle
David Williams, Founder and CEO
1. Please describe your business
Shuttle is a secure customer on-boarding solution which helps businesses work better with people. In essence, we have a super secure document repository with lots of features and workflow tools that helps companies reduce their administration time by as much as 70%. Our customers help their customers by giving them an easy to use, safe and quick way of sharing and protecting their personal data. We have a group of development customers with c400 end users in 16 countries, currently engaged with Shuttle.
2. Are you looking for funding or investment and if so, how much?
We’ve raised our first round of funding to get where we are today, but we’re just about to start the next round and are looking to raise a total of £180,000.
3. What would the money be used for?
We’re going to use the money we raise to build more of the features that our development customers have told us will make our tool even better. We’re also going to expand our customer success programme. We’re passionate about helping our customers, employees and colleagues to adopt and use the system to ensure its effectiveness and success. Our programme will have a team of two who’ll educate and reward our customers for successful adoption, with a range of initiatives including instructional videos, work-cards, prompts and incentives. Finally, we’ll be investing in marketing and awareness across our early addressable market, which concentrates on personal and commercial finance to give us a solid footing and robust growth curve.
4. Why should an investor invest in your company?
We’re looking for investors who understand our business, who can join in with key decisions and help us on our journey. Investors who enjoy getting their hands dirty, but not too much or too often, should certainly think about getting involved. Taking us to an exit event in around four years is very typical in our market sector at a strong valuation of c8x EBITDA. A full prospectus is available on request.
Curtain Call
Matt Humphrey and John Schwab, Founders
1. Please describe your business
Curtain Call is the IMDb plus LinkedIn for theatre - a social networking and jobs platform for all professionals working on or backstage. Our accessible, responsive and award-winning website allows professionals to build and manage their profiles and easily connect with others – paid for through a subscription model. For the first time, the public can see who has worked with who, as well as having access to our exclusive backstage content.
2. Are you looking for funding or investment and if so, how much?
We are looking for funding or equity investment of £150,000. We have already raised £130,000 through a friends and family round of SEIS equity investment, so the next tranche would be raised under the EIS scheme.
3. What would the money be used for?
Our growth plan for this next phase includes the development of an app, as well as extensive marketing costs as we build our subscriber base. Ongoing website development and plans include the integration of job and casting opportunities. We will also be expanding our team to include a full-time database manager, taking our full-time team to six members.
4. Why should an investor invest in your company?
Within 18 months we have rooted ourselves within the UK theatre industry as a credible, trustworthy company and have strong relationships with the top producers and theatres in the business. We are looking for an investor who wants to be part of an exciting, disruptive start-up that is changing the landscape of how this booming area of the UK economy works and interacts. Our growth potential is excellent, with global prospects, and our products are attractive and newsworthy – recent national press has included The Telegraph, BBC Radio 2 and Huffington Post.
