The Network for Sophisticated Investors
BLADETEC DECRYPTING THE BITCOIN MINE, BLOCK BY BLOCK
ADAPTTECH A LEG UP FOR THE PROSTHETICS INDUSTRY BRANDS REUNITED TAPPING UP NOSTALGIA FOR THE PERFECT PINT
APRIL 2018
Welcome Welcome to the second edition of the ENVESTORS magazine of 2018.
ENVESTRY™ continues to flourish and this month has signed two new licensees, VALIDIFY and EXPONENTIAL CLUB. This brings the tally to 73 – with 7,425 registered investors – and we have recently appointed Jennie Sherington, as Business Development Executive, to further augment this growth.
Soaring above the crowd with a minimum investment of £25,000. © Envestors Limited, 1 Lancaster Place, London, WC2E 7ED. Envestors Limited is incorporated in
As with the January publication, the buzzword must be data. This year is seeing data analytics evolve and grow as companies are getting increasingly aware of the immense power to be had from harnessing this information. The SaaS technology employed by our companies WISE ANALYTICS, EDOZO and BODYTRAK is astonishingly cutting edge. The THIRD BLADETEC BITCOIN MINE LTD will blast those chains in their metaphorical quarrying of the Bitcoin and ADAPTTECH is a game changer in the world of amputation. Our last company, however, is BRANDS REUNITED, who have returned – after an initial funding round with ENVESTORS in 2016 - to seek further investment through ENVESTRY™. In such a high-tech world, they are capitalising on the understanding that our taste for beer and appreciation of our heritage remains conversely very much in the past.
The invaluable Guide to Investing will be published later in the spring. This definitive opus is the culmination of years of experience and research and we have been very grateful for all the input and help from our sophisticated investor network. We wish you all a happy end of winter though, as it’s blizzarding at the time of writing, spring still seems to be a highly improbable concept.
England and Wales, registration number 07236828. Envestors Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom.
envestors.envestry.com Victoria Maby Content Editor, Envestors
Onwards and upwards! Oliver, Scott and Nick
Not even the Beast from the East was able to dampen the plucky ENVESTORS spirit, and we have already hosted two successful and well attended Presentations this year. Following the success of the November One Belt, One Roadshow, the conquering of China continues at full speed and Scott will be leading the second trip in April.
Events Investing in Construction Industry Innovation
Envestors Investment Presentation Lunch
Family Office and Early Stage Fund Breakfast
Envestry Event: An evening of networking, talks & updates
Date: Friday 20th April 2018 Time: 12.00pm – 2.00pm Where: Envestors London, 1 Lancaster Place, London, WC2E 7ED
Date: Wednesday 25th April 2018 Time: 8.30am – 10.00am Where: Coutts, 440 Strand, London, WC2R 0QS
Date: Thursday 3rd May 2018 Time: 11.30am – 2.30pm Where: CMS, Cannon Place, 78 Cannon Street, London, EC4N 6AF
Date: Thursday 24th May 2018 Time: 4pm – 7pm Where: 3 St James’s Square, St. James’s, London, SW1Y 4JU
New Investor Member Lunch
Date: Thursday 26th April 2018 Time: 12.30pm – 2.00pm Where: Envestors, 1 Lancaster Place, London, WC2E 7ED All events are by invitation only. Please contact Julia.Sinclair@envestors.co.uk for further details.
Helping fledgling companies grow and succeed
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Business savvy, no-nonsense advice from CMS.
Contact John Finnemore T: +44 20 7524 6432 E: john.finnemore@cms-cmno.com
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Contents INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
8
ADAPTTECH
A leg up for the prosthetics industry
10
WISE ANALYTICS
12
BLADETEC
14
EDOZO
Distilling knowledge from the beautiful noise
18 Airbeem FEATURES 6 NEWS FROM THE PLATINUM MEMBERS CLUB
7 ENVESTRY™ CASE STUDY ZAP & GO and ENVESTRY™ Funding power to blitz the competition
Decrypting the Bitcoin mine, block by block
Digitalising the commercial property market
16 BODYTRAK Straight to the core with Bodytrak: precision engineering, life saving technology
18 BRANDS REUNITED Tapping up nostalgia for the perfect pint
Risk Warning Responsible Investing Please be aware that investments of this nature are
Before investing in a project about which information
not for everyone. Investment in new business carries
is given, potential investors are strongly advised
high risks as well as the possibility of high rewards.
to take advice from a person authorised by the
Risks include a lack of liquidity (ie. the ability to sell
Financial Service and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), who
your shares) and loss of investment. To help manage
specialises in advising on investments of this kind.
risk you should invest in a diversified portfolio. For full information as to the risks, please visit: envestors.envestry.com/risk-warning ENVESTORS 5
PLATINUM CLUB
NEWS FROM THE PLATINUM MEMBERS CLUB
2018 got off to a welcome start in February – after the predictably eternal dry January – with our Platinum Members Club enjoying a New Year’s evening of networking, canapés and Ruinart cuvées at the Moët Hennessy HQ in Grosvenor Gardens.
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By way of expressing our gratitude to our investors and continued supporters, guests tasted R by Ruinart, the classic Ruinart Blanc de Blancs and finally the Ruinart Rosé, all with tasting notes provided by Benjamin Mante-Martini. It was a wonderful evening and one lucky (or clever!) team of investors went home with a case of Blanc de Blancs to boot! The year ahead looks set to be an exciting one. Our partnership with Hapag-Lloyd continues and, for our motor enthusiasts, we are planning to do more with McLaren too.
Platinum Members are reviewed on an annual basis and membership is by personal invitation. If you would like to find out more about the Platinum Members Club from ENVESTORS, please contact Jessica.wilson@envestors.co.uk
ENVESTRY CASE STUDY
ZAP & GO AND ENVESTRY ™: FUNDING POWER TO BLITZ THE COMPETITION
Founded in 2013, the Oxford based company ZAP & GO have developed a solution to the problems encountered by all the current generation of appliances, devices and vehicles powered by lithium: slow charging. Their revolutionary, award-winning technology uses carbon nanomaterials that can, in under five minutes, fully provide a safe and durable power cell. After a successful initial funding round that raised in excess of £1m through ENVESTORS, ZAP & GO Investment Director Simon Harris decided to seek further funds through ENVESTRY™.
The tools remain in place, even when the funding round closes. Everything is in place for further funding rounds, but in the meantime, it can be used as an investor relations portal to keep shareholders and investors informed of progress and developments. The easiest analogy would be to compare it to a fan club. The message spreads virally and it has worked far better than we had even hoped. Friends tell friends, members tell members and this raises ZAP & GO’s profile exponentially. And the important bit: we have connected to 137 investors, made 39 deals and, at the time of writing, raised £437,000 entirely through our ENVESTRY™ platform’. ENVESTRY™ is a white-labelled FCA regulated crowdfunding platform, which organisations licence to help them manage investors and deals. The key benefits for licensees are that it offers a complete set of tools: dashboards, CRM tools, online book-building, FCA regulatory cover and the opportunity to syndicate as part of the enlarged ENVESTRY™ network of networks. For further information please contact Jerry Plant Email: jerry.plant@envestors.co.uk
‘We are at the forefront of this highly specialised, cutting-edge technology and thus are naturally very capital hungry’, explains Simon. ‘However, raising funds can be a hugely time-consuming business. We had featured on BBC Click - which created a very welcome buzz - but we wanted to ensure that we had some control over the whole process of fundraising, which is exactly what ENVESTRY™ does. Having worked with the team as an employee of ENVESTORS, I had no doubts in their ability to deliver a platform that would be user friendly for the investor, whilst maintaining the necessary tenacity and clarity. As their client, I knew that they did not expect us to adapt to fit the platform, and that we would maintain far more control over the process than we could hope to expect from its competitors. The team behind ENVESTRY™ have years of experience running a successful private investor network and know exactly what features companies need when they’re raising funds, such as advising us on all legal and regulatory compliance. They also know exactly what investors want to see which optimises the whole experience with maximum benefits.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
ADAPTTECH: A LEG UP FOR THE PROSTHETICS INDUSTRY
There are 32 million amputees worldwide (6.5 million in North America and Europe alone with 6,500 dedicated fitting centres) and with that number expected to double by 2050 – as a result of the obesity epidemic (the main culprit being vascular disease) and an aging population – the business of prosthetics is an international one.
Thankfully, the technology is now so advanced that an amputation no longer needs to be a lifetime of disability, a fact utterly proven at the Rio Olympics in 2016 when Greek Paralympian Michail Seitis set a world record for his division with a time of 49.66 seconds in the men’s 400-metre final, despite coming in sixth place out of eight runners… the irony being that the five who finished ahead of him were double amputees and he joked about being let down by his ‘one good leg’. But, even with these premium, worldclass prosthetics, the current method for fitting relies on a trial and error methodology which takes time with varying results dependent on the patient’s feedback, the prosthetist’s level of experience and the type of amputation. Frederico Carpinteiro and Mario Saenz Espinoza met while studying at Portugal’s leading FEUP (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto), respectively gaining an Integrated Master’s and PHD in Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering. They realised that this was an industry that could hugely benefit from their collective learnings, seized the opportunity and co-founded ADAPTTECH.
‘A prosthetic limb lasts on average for two to four years’, explains Mario
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‘The current method for fitting is that the amputee gets examined and measured, a plaster mould is cast and a transparent check socket is then made. Normally, it takes several adjustments to get the right fit and each adjustment costs well over €100, so the costs are high. In addition, insurance companies or healthcare services do not take into account these extra visits – only providing the funding for the prosthesis itself – which leaves the clinic’s profit margins heavily reduced’.
ADAPTTECH are seeking funding to run pilots in strategic countries such as the UK, Germany and the US. They have already raised £900,000 from Mercia Technologies and Hovione Capital and have attracted some serious interest in the US: Ohio Willow-Wood, one of the largest prosthetic component manufacturers has already sent them a letter of interest about the possibility of distributing ADAPTTECH products within the entire North American region.
‘The welfare of the amputee is severely affected with any delay with mobility and dexterity drastically reduced. And this arduous and antiquated system can take weeks’. This is where ADAPTTECH comes in.
They will monetise the business by supplying the centres with an initial pack, an annual software license and the necessary consumables involved with the process. This is real technology, with real power to transform the lives of those living with the reality of amputation.
‘We mustn’t forget the effects on the patient either’, continues Frederico ‘Our idea was to use a laser scanner system and wearable technologies to address this problem. The laser scans the inner surface of the socket and the sensorised interface is used to gather bio-data. With this, we can build a profile and precisely locate all the problematic points where corrections are needed and eventually suggest the required modifications to maximise the adaptation. This in turn reduces friction and pressure pain, and, based on our preliminary tests, decreases the number of interventions needed to reach a final socket by up to 40% and speeds up the whole process by as much as 60%. It is also essential to point out that it’s as much about what we don’t do: we don’t replace the prosthetist or devalue their craftsmanship in any way, we don’t scan the stump and we don’t 3D print a socket (though, if necessary, our software is perfectly able to send its output to any 3D printer or CNC machine)’. With a system that aims to reduce the number of interventions to just one or two, they have conservatively estimated that the saving made per fitting centre to be in excess of €50,000 per annum. ‘We deliver value to the whole process: the centre in which the prosthesis is fitted, the clinician and ultimately, the patient. In a nutshell, we are faster, cheaper and our results are better’.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
WISE ANALYTICS: DISTILLING KNOWLEDGE FROM THE BEAUTIFUL NOISE
Data is the key to understanding - logging the likes and recording the retweets beauty brands are able to your customers. This is create products that appeal to their customers and particularly true in the beauty thus make more profitable choices. However, the industry, where trends evolve challenge remains for those frontline decision makers and change daily. In what was who are not necessarily expert analysts – to make meaningful sense of all this digital noise, and this is where WISE ANALYTICS steps in. once a linear, far more simple world, the big brands reigned ‘After 15 years in the IT services business, I decided it was time to get back into the family supreme with expensive, business which specialises in analysing data’ glossy print advertising; says WISE CEO Christian Eckley nowadays we are all online and there are hundreds of beauty ‘The UK beauty industry is worth £17 billion and with the proliferation of social media sites such as Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram, shoppers vloggers, commanding millions (particularly the younger ones) are far more informed than ever before. The days of viewing an advertisement, going into a store and simply of views for their tutorials buying the item are long gone. Our software offers a 360° view of the entire industry, from brands and product lines to individual SKU’s, thus creating a very complex enabling the client a way to navigate this new paradigm and deal with the sheer volume and variety of data that is available to them. Such is the success of this service that it is already being adopted by other players; marketplace. for example, publishers and media agencies. By studying these trends
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In a sense, we are matchmakers. We have a portfolio of solutions that collect online and offline data which we then analyse using a mixture of proprietary tools, technology and sector expertise. We connect brands to publishers and media within the industry and ultimately brands with the consumer’. Indeed, WISE is already metaphorically matchmaking an astonishing 80% of the UK beauty market, and their client list reads like a beauty Who’s Who, including blue-chip international names such as L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Elizabeth Arden and Coty. They offer two unique products: Media View and eCommerce View, which are delivered via a proprietary SaaS platform. These monitor and analyse all relevant print, online and social data thus enabling their clients’ PR and Marketing and Sales and Pricing teams to optimise their marketing and advertising spend. Because they track all leading brands in the beauty industry – regardless of whether they are a WISE client or not – they have become the industry benchmark for beauty PR and communications. These clients are now pressing WISE to expand their highly scalable product into other territories. Currently they are available in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Ireland and the UK; their primary international focus is now on the rest of Europe and the US. They will continue to explore the use of AI to drive efficiency, either through organic development or external acquisitions should it benefit the business. There is no doubt that WISE ANALYTICS are true pioneers in the world of beauty data. Their proprietary technology has done a full loop and made this enormous, complex industry a far simpler place for their clients to connect to their customers. Oh, and just in case you were wondering (your trusty female scribe certainly was) what the most used brand name on social media was in 2017? WISE is very happy to divulge the answer: Charlotte Tilbury.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
BLADETEC: DECRYPTING THE BITCOIN MINE, BLOCK BY BLOCK
The big business buzzword of the moment has to be Bitcoin. However, in order for a Bitcoin to exist, it must first be mined. This is a fascinating and highly complex process: all mines together form the global infrastructure that is needed to ensure Bitcoin transactions are completed successfully and properly. And in order to mine a Bitcoin, you need a dedicated, highly experienced team who know exactly what they’re doing. And so…
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The Third Bladetec Bitcoin Mine Ltd (TBBM for short) was co-founded this year by John Kingdon and John Pitcher, and will be administrated and managed by BLADETEC, the business they founded in 2002. They have maintained their simple ethos throughout: in a world of increasingly complex business computing, their stated goal has always been to achieve the ‘power of less’. By harnessing disruptive technologies, they have built systems that are faster, cheaper and therefore more efficient for their clients (who include such highprofile names as the City of London Police, National Grid, NATO and the Ministry of Defence). In a nutshell, they deliver this beautifully and have been at the forefront of blade computing technology ever since. John Kingdon is a tech genius whose 30 years of experience have included the growth of a single operation business to a revenue of $70m in 6 years and John Pitcher, who will manage the promotion and sales side of TBBM. With a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computing from the Queensland University of Technology he started his career in software development in the 1980’s including the successful creation of a number of new technology businesses. The third member of the mining triumvirate is Declan Kennedy. An accountant, he is known as Ireland’s first ‘green’ entrepreneur (and won the highly coveted Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1997), having founded the Irish Forestry Fund. The concept of collective ownership behind such a fund – buying the land, growing the trees, cutting them down after a precise number of years and then disseminating the proceeds of these assets to the shareholders – is a perfect analogy for the goal of TBBM.
‘Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency’ explains John Kingdon
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
‘It was introduced in 2009 by an unknown person(s) named Satoshi Nakamoto. It differs from fiat currencies in that it isn’t controlled by any government but rather by a monetary policy that is based on artificial scarcity, thus creating its value. Only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist and these are released in batches of 12.5 every ten minutes to miners of Bitcoin. It is estimated that 78% of all Bitcoins have already been released through this process, leaving approximately 4.7m still unclaimed and the last one is expected to be metaphorically minted by the year 2140.
SO HOW DOES A MINE WORK? Just as gold miners produce the world’s supply of gold, so do Bitcoin miners produce Bitcoins. This is done by utilising complex mathematical formulae and hugely powerful computer processors, enabling them to build and add a new block to the Bitcoin Blockchain (a publicly visible, anonymous online ledger that records every single Bitcoin transaction), which results in the receipt of Bitcoins as a reward. These miners keep the chain consistent, complete and unalterable by repeatedly verifying and collecting newly broadcast transactions into a block. A useful example would be to compare it to a lottery: the more tickets you buy, the higher the chance of winning. In a Bitcoin mine, this equates to the faster the speed and power of the computers, the greater chance a miner has of ‘winning’ the coin.
As Managing Director of Biotricity, Declan is fully aware of the energy required to run such an efficacious mine. ‘These machines are incredibly efficient in terms of energy’, he explains, ‘although obviously they use a large amount of electricity. We are negotiating exceptionally favourable energy prices with our power network provider. TBBM will be 100% shareholder owned and we are offering investors the chance to acquire shares at £1.00 each with a minimum investment of £5,000. We are entirely focused on maximising shareholder returns and so, understanding the relatively volatile nature of Bitcoins, we have allowed for four different growth scenarios with up to 45% capital growth per annum. Our exit is estimated to be within 2 – 3 years at which stage our shareholders’ returns will be based on the proceeds of the sale of the mined Bitcoins and the ASIC machines. We know that our mine will be highly competitive for the next few years and the revenue we generate for our shareholders will be in £Sterling. We are seeking funding of £10m to purchase the hardware, build and run this dedicated facility and to recruit new personnel. We are highly experienced, having done this twice before, so we know what we’re doing, and we’re very successful at it”. Blockchains and Bitcoin mining are quickly becoming the most exciting technologies of our time; the recognition of the long-term significance and revolutionary power of a decentralised currency is universal. The future is now and TBBM is right there at the forefront.
The TBBM will be the first Bitcoin mine in Europe to be funded by investment in a limited company governed and protected by UK law. The company’s strategy is actually quite straightforward: they will acquire approximately 1000 ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuits)-based Mining Computers all running at 43 Terra-Hashes per second (a speed so unfathomably fast, it’s nigh on impossible to quantify; suffice to say, it’s the fastest available globally today). This will create a significant global mine, placing them in the world’s top 25 and as a result of this dominant position, produce significant returns for shareholders.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
EDOZO: DIGITALISING THE COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MARKET
The immense value of data in any market is universally acknowledged and this is particularly true of the commercial property market. It is now essential for companies to have a good grasp of their data; this means knowing how to gather it, process it and analyse it. To many property professionals, this is an undertaking that they’re hesitant to pursue; the time and resources needed to fully capture the value of data are huge, and it’s a daunting and complex task. Cue EDOZO. 14 ENVESTORS
Co-founded by Marcus Ginn and Andrew Peacock in 2016, the EDOZO team has huge property and technology expertise. An alumnus of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and a serial entrepreneur, Marcus has a proven record of growing businesses from scratch: his previous endeavour had 300 employees and a multi-million pound turnover. His old schoolfriend Andrew has 20 years’ experience in the property sector and has been a qualified Chartered Surveyor for 15 years. Both are equally passionate about delivering a product that will add value to the property sector. ‘90% of commercial property transactions are lease rather than sale’, explains Marcus. ‘If you think about an existing landlord with a lease that has to be renegotiated every five years – the rent review negotiations, the market research, tracking commercial property evidence (comparables, as it’s known in the industry), the deal records and so on, you understand just how complicated and time consuming the whole process is. Currently the industry is fragmented, with different companies relying on different operating systems meaning that the quality of the data is highly variable; it is widely documented that fees from lease events have been missed and that the industry is in dire need of something to harness all this vital information in one place. Quite simply, this is what the EDOZO platform does.
‘EDOZO paid for itself within weeks’ James Harrison, Partner, BDG Sparkes Porter
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We combine valuable commercial property information with simple deal pipeline management, reducing costs, saving time and increasing revenue for clients. Our platform is secure, robust and overseen by our CTO Luke West, the former head of service delivery at Rightmove and lastminute.com. Our market insight tool combines peer-to-peer exchange of valuable transaction records with millions of other data points. The deal pipeline app digitalises transaction records so that all events, such as rent review and lease renewal are flagged in advance using our ‘traffic light lit’ dashboard. A recent case study has proven its efficacy: a Central London surveying firm identified over £100,000 in new fees that it would otherwise have missed, within its first 90 days on our platform’. EDOZO has three unique competitive advantages: the quality of the data is more accurate as it is for the client’s own use in the first instance, they are more affordable as user generated data collection reduces costs and they offer a complete solution: ‘peer to peer’ sharing, other data sets and deal pipeline.
Over 60 Surveying firms have already signed up - including such names as Chestertons, Eddisons and Allsop - and this number is growing rapidly. Their growth will be augmented further with a recent integration with Zoopla (providing a database of over 200,000 property records) and the addition of millions of other data points (from the Land Registry, the Valuation Office Agency and other sources). The new maps function of the platform offers the client a comprehensive and detailed boundary map, co-designed with the property firm Allsop, that offers marketbeating pricing and functionality. The exceptionally strong EDOZO team have personally invested over £500,000 into the business and are now seeking funding for product development and sales and marketing to rapidly expand their customer base. With their list of blue-chip clients, their vision, their insight of the commercial property market and their technological expertise, expansion and success are very much a realistic prospect.
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
STRAIGHT TO THE CORE WITH BODYTRAK: PRECISION ENGINEERING, LIFE SAVING TECHNOLOGY
When 3 SAS soldiers died following a gruelling test run on the Brecon Beacons in 2013, there was an understandable public outcry. Despite using a theoretical risk model to try and reduce the heat risk, the technology was simply not proficient enough to protect them.
This resulted in huge criticism of Ministry of Defence chiefs and two officers were subsequently charged with ‘negligent performance of duty’. Leon Marsh, founder and CEO of INOVA, the company that created BODYTRAK, was the man with the vision and skills to fix this issue. A design and engineering graduate from Brunel University, Leon started his career at Philips before moving to Nokia as a senior industrial designer. Following an in-house competition for great business ideas – which Leon won – he met Geoffrey Drage, who immediately recognised his talent and became Leon’s informal mentor. Geoffrey originally trained as a Chartered Accountant and has long had an interest in technology start-ups – he himself founded two technology companies and exited one to Nasdaq quoted OSI Systems – before getting involved with SETsquared, a collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey that partners in enterprise activities and collectively supports the growth and success of new business opportunities through spin-outs, licensing and incubation. With SETsquared and Geoffrey as Chairman, it was all systems go and thus INOVA was founded.
‘The fact is that people in high risk jobs and in remote locations – for instance the Army, the Fire Service, the Police – need monitoring’, explains Geoffrey ‘They have a right to be protected and mistakes like the Brecon Beacons tragedies simply cannot happen again. This tragic episode – not the first – and the ensuing scrutiny alerted them to the crucial fact that in order to better understand physiological responses and thus improve health and safety monitoring, an individual’s heart rate and critically the core body temperature must be accurately and reliably measured. The BODYTRAK device is the first in the world to be able to do this’.
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Continues Leon: ‘It is indeed unique. The critical difference is that BODYTRAK exploits the only body site from which all vital sign parameters can be measured continuously and crucially in real time: the core body temperature, heart rate, VO2 and motion (including fall detection). We have created a tiny, non-invasive, in-ear device that sends these measurements to our powerful cloud-based analytics SaaS platform, which in turn uses proprietary algorithms and machine learning libraries to provide health and wellbeing alerts via a simple and configurable user interface. By accessing the ear, it can detect changes in the body physiology rapidly and accurately due to it close proximity to the brain; its miniature components provide two-way audio communications and ambient sound transparency for health and safety applications, which are both critical for adoption of the technology in this field. The BODYTRAK technology has been gold-standard tested by leading UK and US universities and they have already won contracts with the Ministry of Defence. Currently the company has over 40 trials planned and in progress with prospective partners that include several multinational industrial enterprises, fire services and defence contractors, all of whom need the data that we provide. Not just a soldier training in the heat, think about a firefighter in an operational emergency, an oil worker in the North Sea or a utility worker on a power line. Heat stroke, hypothermia, exhaustion, the potentially dangerous hazards are endless and employers need to be aware of not just how the individual is coping, but how to prevent problems in the future. Ultimately, this tiny device will save lives’. The team, having already raised £3.5m, are now seeking a further £1.5m to bring a viable version of BODYTRAK to the manufacturing phase by the end of 2018. They have gained a significant amount of traction with their trial partners and BODYTRAK is already a multi-award winning product. Engineering that will safeguard the future of those who protect us.
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BRANDS REUNITED: TAPPING UP NOSTALGIA FOR THE PERFECT PINT
Millennials are a funny bunch. The 21st century, with technology so advanced it would seem anything is possible and lifestyles so seemingly effortless that previous generations couldn’t begin to fathom how easy it all is and yet, and yet…. the latest Big Thing is all about resurrecting the past.
Possibly they hanker after a return to tangibility at a time when all our stuff is in the metaphorical cloud? Or is it the belief that, by harking back to the time in which their parents – the boomers – were young that maybe, as if by some magical fusion process, they can experience a bit of that ‘we had it so good’ postwar privilege? 4.1 million vinyl records were sold in 2017 in the UK alone, Polaroid cameras are all the rage and the recently re-released original Nintendo console, the NES, sold out in 30 minutes. But this obsession with nostalgia doesn’t end there: the thirsty millennial is no different and Nick Whitehurst, CEO of BRANDS REUNITED, is well aware of this market’s huge potential. Nick started his career selling beer for Bass Brewers twenty years ago in the East End, before moving to managing sponsorship and licensing for Ministry of Sound, and latterly running a marketing agency specialising in food and drink. His team includes Managing Director Emma Turner who previously held senior commercial roles at United Biscuits (a £1bn turnover snack business) and Shaun Goode, who started his career at Courage before holding senior positions at Heineken and S&N.
‘The total beer market is worth around £8.5bn in the UK’, explains Nick. ‘Craft beer alone is worth over £1bn and is growing at a rate of 20% per annum. There is a particular stronghold in the South East – we actually consume about a third – and it is growing in every developed global market which will also give us a significant opportunity to export abroad. We have licensed four brands to date from Heineken. Watneys, which first started brewing in 1837, was once the UK’s biggest selling beer and we relaunched it in 2016. The biggest hurdle for new brands is awareness and by tapping into the heritage brands we can successfully
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cut through this problem. Watneys branding still features on hundreds of pubs and was once synonymous with such huge characters as Peter Cook, Michael Caine and Monty Python. These undoubtedly ‘cool’ connotations can only work in our favour and this has already been proven with total sales across our brands of over £400,000 to date’. Their most recent launch is a limited edition called Ravensbeer. In keeping with the equally topical thirst for a back story, this modern craft beer is so named in honour of the ‘lucky’ ravens who lived at the old Watneys Brewery and acted as unofficial air raid wardens during the Blitz. BRANDS REUNITED have licensed three other brands to date, with the trademarks held on a royalty basis in perpetuity from Heineken UK. ‘By looking back at a brand’s heritage’, continues Nick, ‘we can pull out an interesting story and this appeals to modern tastes and thus pushes sales’. ‘We don’t own a brewery, a van, not even a barrel. Our focus is entirely different: we design the beers but then we leave the production process to our respected partner brewers; this enables us to concentrate entirely on the sales and marketing side. We know that our ‘ready-made’ brands have the heritage and provenance to appeal not only to the younger craft beer fan who wants to reconnect to his parents’ or even grandparents’ halcyon days of youth, but also to the older drinker who will recognize and engage with this nostalgic brand in a modern and relevant way’. BRANDS REUNITED are now seeking funding to further expand their team, build their range, support new distribution with greater activation and target grocery retailers and the export market. ‘We have been waiting for this moment for over 20 years. We’ve acquired vast knowledge and skills through our decades in this industry and we know that the market is moving in our favour. Craft beer is burgeoning and classic brands have serious kudos’. BRANDS REUNITED is a business with a vision, scale and proximity which will be the key to long term success in a competitive market. The perfect recipe indeed. Cheers!
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, e l p o e p 3 5 4 y o l p m Ie t n a w t s u b ut I j o t e n o e m so tal k to. People turn to you for leadership. But who can you turn to, to help manage and grow your business? Our specialist entrepreneurs group works with founders and management teams from vision to exit. We understand the complexities you face, including raising finance, understanding evolving tax regulations, global expansion and exit strategies. Running a business is a journey. And we’ll be with you all the way. To find out more, please contact Guy Rigby on 020 7131 8213 guy.rigby@smithandwilliamson.com smithandwilliamson.com
Mary Green &
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