The Network for Sophisticated Investors SEPTEMBER 2018
LIGHTPOINT MEDICAL ILLUMINATING TECHNOLOGY, ECLIPSING CANCER CELLS
UNDERTHEDOORMAT MONETISING YOUR MANSION, PROTECTING YOUR PALACE
HOW TO INVEST ENVESTORS MAKES IT EASY TO DISCOVER AND INVEST IN HIGH-GROWTH BUSINESSES
Welcome We have great pleasure in bringing you the September issue of the Envestors magazine. Our featured portfolio companies offer great variety in this issue: we have EdTech, MedTech, peer to peer sharing, scientific solutions, Artificial Intelligence, B2B SaaS platforms and some delectable and award-winning accompaniments.
Ralph Hulbert has been kind enough to share the highs and lows of his long life as an angel; we are grateful to him for taking the time to tell his story. There are also features on How to Invest, EIS and the recent hugely successful CHARGEMASTER exit.
Victoria Maby Content Editor, Envestors
Soaring above the crowd with a minimum investment of £25,000. © Envestors Limited, 1 Lancaster Place, London, WC2E 7ED. Envestors Limited is incorporated in England and Wales, registration number 07236828. Envestors Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom.
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Contents 18 Airbeem FEATURES
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES 5 THAROS
14 HIYACAR
6 THE BAY TREE
16 FANTOO
8 UNDERTHEDOORMAT
18 DIGINIUS
10 KINTERACT
20 LIGHTPOINT
22 RALPH HULBERT Professional Gambler or Public Benefactor? A Life Spent Looking Forward
24 CHARGEMASTER An Electrifying Exit: ENVESTORS portfolio company CHARGEMASTER aquisition
26 HOW TO INVEST Envestors makes it easy to discover and invest in high-growth businesses
12 ANTACO
Events New Investor Member Lunch
Date: Thursday, 27th Septembe Time: 12.30pm – 2.00pm Address: Envestors Office, 1 Lancaster Place, WC2E 7ED, London
Google Campus Investment Briefing
Date: Wednesday, 3rd October Time: 10.00am – 11.30am Address: Campus London, 4-5 Bonhill St, Shoreditch, EC2A 4BX
Envestors Spotlight Masterclass
Date: Thursday, 8th November Time: 6.30pm – 9.00pm Address: Grace Belgravia, 11c W Halkin Street, Belgravia, London, SW1X 8JL
Investment Presentation Lunch
Date: Monday, 26th November Time: 11.30am – 2.30pm Address: CMS, Cannon Place, 78 Cannon Street, London, EC4N 6AF
Family Office/ Early Stage Funds Breakfast Date: Tuesday, 16th October Time: 8.30am – 10.30am Address: 12 Hay Hill, Mayfair W1J 8NR
All events are by invitation only. Please contact julia.sinclair@envestors.co.uk for further details.
Risk Warning – Responsible Investing Please be aware that investments of this nature are not for everyone. Investment in new business carries high risks as well as the possibility of high rewards. Risks include a lack of liquidity (ie. the ability to sell your shares) and loss of investment. To help manage risk you should invest in a diversified portfolio.
Before investing in a project about which information is given, potential investors are strongly advised to take advice from a person authorised by the Financial Service and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), who specialises in advising on investments of this kind.
For full information as to the risks, please visit: envestors.envestry.com/risk-warning
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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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
THAROS: SCIENTIFIC SOLUTIONS, EQUINE ELIXIRS
Often referred to as the body’s second brain, digestive efficiency is a lively, if stomach churning, discussion held in all corners of the globe. Even Hippocrates himself claimed that ‘all diseases begin in the gut’, so this is hardly a new concept. However, it’s easy to forget that it’s not just humans who are driven by the critical importance of maintaining a finely tuned constitution. In recent years, scientists have become increasingly aware that animal health and performance is just as reliant on intestinal stability and the impact of the microbiome, (literally the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi), is coming under increasing scrutiny. In the case of highly prized racehorses, digestive upsets – which can also lead to more serious problems such as laminitis and colic - are a common and long-standing problem for owners and trainers as, quite simply, poor performance equals less prize money. ‘This forms the scientific focus of THAROS’, explains CEO Harry Paul. Now living in Shropshire, Harry started life in Argentina and Brazil and has 25 years of experience in multinational companies in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. Coupled with an early job that involved training polo ponies, Harry was perfectly placed to take the reins at THAROS.
The key features are a number of live enzymes and its liquid, honey like taste that is highly palatable to horses which, in turn, also helps with the rest of the feed. We have created, through science, a solution to an ageold problem’. Though the current focus is primarily on the equine sector, this product can be hugely beneficial to other animals. For example, after birthing a calf, a cow’s system is in disarray and they quite often suffer from lameness. EquiNectar® can drastically improve this state and thus be truly beneficial to the dairy industry. Trials are underway to test applications for companion animals, such as dogs and cats. Ultimately, our fundamental aim is to promote animal health through world-class, scientific innovation’. THAROS is seeking funding to grow the business through the sale of EquiNectar® and to develop and bring to market its next products, including a key biochemical pathway that will enable the early detection and treatment of the potentially life-threatening condition, laminitis (a disease affects the lining of the hoof and estimated to affect as many as 60,000 horses in the UK alone). A company that has developed a translational research programme that uses metabolomics, immunology, microbiology and related techniques to ultimately widely benefit animal health? My gut feeling is that THAROS is leading the field.
The business was founded in 2015 and 2018 will see the market launch of their first product, EquiNectar®. ‘This is the culmination of years of research and development’, continues Harry. EquiNectar® is an enzyme rich, malt extract that has been scientifically proven to improve the health and performance of racehorses suffering from common digestive problems. We’ve had a hugely successful trial with trainers in Newmarket and it has been described as a total ‘game changer’.
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THE BAY TREE: APPETISING ACCOMPANIMENTS, PERFECT PICKLES, MARVELLOUS MARMALADES
There is something about a business born through a genuine passion that makes a wonderful story. When that passion translates into food as delicious as THE BAY TREE offerings, the story – in the case of your lowly scribe, at least – translates into a deep, deep hunger.
THE BAY TREE’s founder, Emma Macdonald, has long had the afore mentioned passion for food. A trained chef, she travelled the world in pursuit of different flavours and, on her return, started creating recipes in her mother’s kitchen. Her first two creations, Aga dried tomatoes and a Cucumber Relish, were so mouth watering that they were instantly picked up by Fortnum & Mason and Harvey Nichols. Despite these somewhat humble beginnings, THE BAY TREE was born. ‘Right from the very start’, explains Emma, ‘we have married traditional cooking methods with innovative flavours. We have a passion for tradition, but our inherent sense of adventure continues to push us, to fully explore many conceivable flavours, but only ever producing something that we are proud of. These values are still central to our philosophy today; we call it making the ordinary extraordinary’. The business quickly outgrew the kitchen: by 1996 they were supplying their products to 500 clients and by 2001, they had launched their initial entry in the premium supermarket sector, through Waitrose. There are now over 150 recipes in THE BAY TREE product portfolio that are divided into six distinct lines: condiments, accompaniments, cooking sauces, preserves, speciality (such as ingredients for an indulgent pudding) and a gifting range. By 2013, THE BAY TREE relocated its core operations entirely to Devon. Shareholder Ted Clucas picks up the story. ‘I was fortunate enough to sell my own business in 2007, just before the recession hit. I wanted to invest my money in a sector that is ‘crash-proof’ and homed in on food. I found Emma’s story highly appealing: not only is the food delicious and of a peerless quality, I realised that they only needed a small part of the market to do very well indeed. The UK consumer expenditure on food and drink in 2016 alone was £203bn; we have identified that an estimated 98% of UK households buy accompaniments and dressings. Our typical customer enjoys experimenting with flavours and understands that our superior taste justifies the price. With the business currently valued at £5.2m, now is the time to take a bold step. We are very engaged with our vast and loyal clientele and
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have differentiated ourselves from our competitors in the following unique ways: Through our website we offer our customers an opportunity to share and compare THE BAY TREE recipes and we are highly active on social media. We hold tasting events (three in August 2018 alone) and taste panels confirm that THE BAY TREE offerings are well liked and taste unique. This has been accredited by several outstanding taste awards. Emma has written two books, Home Deli Recipes and Preserving. The brand is famous, respected and peerless. Now we are ready to scale up the business in a serious way’.
‘…we have married traditional cooking methods with innovative flavours’ explains Emma With this intention, THE BAY TREE team is seeking funding to hire two sales and marketing experts. This will enable consumers to firmly associate the Bay Tree brand as the leading premium manufacturer of condiments, pickles, chutneys and cooking sauces. By extending and deepening their trading relationships with quality supermarkets - where products can be purchased in much greater volumes by premium consumers – they will increase their market share and the distribution of THE BAY TREE range. By continually analysing and eliminating underperforming lines, they will focus exclusively on the profitable product portfolio and thus drive efficiency in the business. To finish on a personal note, I cannot remember a time that I didn’t have a BAY TREE product in my kitchen. My favourites are the Red Onion Marmalade and the Beetroot and Horseradish Relish, which, according to Emma, if you mix it with redcurrant jelly and allow to set, is the perfect accompaniment to cold beef. Rumble.
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UNDERTHEDOORMAT: MONETISING YOUR MANSION, PROTECTING YOUR PALACE
The concept of monetising one’s assets has very much captured the zeitgeist. The home sharing market is particularly popular and has completely revolutionised the travel industry: business travellers and tourists are increasingly appreciating that the best way to get an authentic ‘feel’ of a city is to live in a local’s home.
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Airbnb may have become a household name, but it takes just a few minutes on the internet to realise that there are some seriously hazardous possibilities, which prevent many people (your scribe included) from being brave enough to trust it. Leaving one’s home in the hands of an app or, conversely, arriving in the middle of the night to an unmanaged property… For the more sophisticated visitor or homeowner, this is simply too daunting a risk. Herself a seasoned traveller Merilee Karr, identified this flaw in the home sharing market. A property management expert and the elected chair of the UK Short-term Accommodation Association, US born Merilee spent 15 years working for Shell, managing 12,000 petrol sites in 43 countries. ‘I spent a great deal of my corporate career travelling and was always lucky enough to have local colleagues to show me around and give me a true experience of a city’, says Merilee. ‘I realised that this new, emerging sector was the ideal way to achieve this. However, as the industry grows and if it is to reach its full potential, this sector needs to professionalise. I knew that I had the operational capability to scale and build a business, so I took the plunge and founded UNDERTHEDOORMAT in 2014.
‘The next phase of our development is preparing for international expansion’. Essentially, we de-risk the whole process: we offer the comfort and personality of a real home with the professional service of a top hotel. The last thing any traveller wants is uncertainty: they want somebody to meet and greet them, they want to know that there is a professional in charge and that, if something does go wrong, it’ll get fixed. Most high value homeowners would never put their homes on Airbnb and this is one of the limiters of the traditional P2P sites (despite this segment being worth a potential £5bn in London alone, it still only counts for 8% of visitor stays). It’s viewed as being too dangerous, risky or simply too much hassle (cleaning, changing the sheets etc).
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
UNDERTHEDOORMAT provides fresh towels, linens, toiletries and employs a housekeeping team to deliver an expert clean after the guests have left. This is a unique offering, specifically for high-value guests and owners who want the consistent luxury of a premium hotel, but with the distinctive, personalised experience of staying in a home. Our insurance policy is another great differentiator. This took 16 months to put in place and covers every owner. Crucially, this is a B2B arrangement, rather than the responsibility of the guests or owners. It is entirely separate from their own travel or home insurance, and one of the things we say to our clients is that if we’ve been through the due diligence of a Lloyd’s insurer, you can be assured that we’ve thoroughly checked our people and properties with just same attention to detail’.
alone. However, we are seeking growth capital to scale the business to profitability. Our biggest challenge now is to build awareness: there really is an alternative for those who find the uncertainty of traditional P2P sites unappealing. Our partnership with Expedia provides 20% of our bookings; these giants have recognised that managed property businesses, such as UNDERTHEDOORMAT, are fundamentally disrupting and revolutionising the home-space market’. UNDERTHEDOORMAT, the perfect conduit to your home away from home (with nicer sheets).
‘… we have demonstrated the model and shown that it can be profitable during the peak season’. UNDERTHEDOORMAT’s current portfolio consists of 152 listed on their website and through their channel partners including Expedia, Bridgestreet and TripAdvisor. These generated gross rental revenues of £741,000 during the financial year 2017/18 alone, hosting over 4,000 guests from more than 50 countries including Wimbledon players, an ex-Formula One driver and corporate travellers from Nike, UBS and McKinsey. ‘We are currently focused on Central London,’ continues Merilee, ‘and aim to own the Branded Home Accommodation segment of the market. We are the primary company to be certified in the world’s first scheme to establish a consumer facing accreditation, which sets the gold standard for quality in the industry. The next phase of our development is preparing for international expansion. We have been monitoring key 12 cities in Europe and Dubai and are now seeking £1.2m in funding to drive homeowner and guest acquisition, the appointment of a COO to codify the push overseas and, in order to build the UNDERTHEDOORMAT brand every further, to improve the website and IT tools. ‘We are not a start-up, we have demonstrated the model and shown that it can be profitable during the peak season – we have already generated over £2m and are on track to make another £2m by the end of this year
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KINTERACT: A LESSON IN 21ST CENTURY LEARNING
Governmental research has indicated that almost 200,000 children across England are underperforming in primary education and fewer than 65% of all pupils reach the expected standard in primary literacy and maths. There are approximately 32,000 schools in the UK. However, one in eight secondary schools in England is underperforming - according to the Department of Education – and this worrying figure is increasing year on year. And yet it is no secret that a good education has the power to change a life. It is the avenue that facilitates the process of cultural transmission and hence the continuation of society. It is a basic human right and every parent knows, that in order to give their child the best chance in life, where and how they are educated is crucial to their development and eventual success. However, recent UK governmental research highlights that many children are not meeting acceptable development standards before the age of five; this is not just a UK problem either, it’s global. However, in our 21st century world of spectacular technological advances, the education sector is still in its relative infancy with only 3% of the market being digitised. KINTERACT have identified that this is a colossal market – there are 14m schoolchildren in the UK and 1 billion globally at any given point – ripe for disruption.
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KINTERACT was co-founded in 2015 by Shehzad Najib. Shehzad is a strategic thinker with a track record of delivery in business change and transformation programmes. His previous roles have included senior positions at Pearson and Barclays; his fellow founders and their development team are also exceptionally strong: all have experience in managing schools, product management, technology and engineering. They have designed and developed applications and platforms for other FTSE 100 companies with high level connections. So, what exactly is KINTERACT? ‘Until now, the education sector has operated with a ‘one size fits all’ learning approach, which is becoming less and less relevant and effective in the modern age,’ explains Shehzad. ‘Technology has enabled us to transform this: our unique software and AI can create a personalised learning approach in real time. KINTERACT is the only product on the market that follows the child through their schooling and allows the learner and their carers to keep this record in perpetuity. The KINTERACT platform is an industry leading, modern cloudbased application that manages and assesses student progress, thus facilitating fast feedback and collaboration between teachers, students and parents. It serves data driven actionable insights and then makes recommendations based on these learnings. A teacher can make an objective assessment via the data that our platform has captured, allowing a more synthesised method of educating. The benefits are palpable. The teachers have improved productivity – not only in faster workflows but are better able to plan lessons and save time by getting to know their students. For the pupil, our intuitive software leads to enhanced, self-directed learning and collaboration. The parent is given real-time feedback and is thus more involved in their child’s education. An example of how this works is that the teacher will post a project on the app, which the student will then do at home. The parent can comment and update the teacher, who in turn then assesses the work; all of this data is stored and will be used to further enhance the whole process.’
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
The business growth has been impressive and KINTERACT has been generating revenue since August 2016. ‘We secured our first strategic partner, GEMS Education, in the UAE the same year and launched our High Performance Learning App in March 2017,’ continues Shehzad. ‘The KINTERACT software is in place in over 80 schools globally, with 140,000 users. Examples include institutions as diverse as the International School of Budapest, students in the Middle East (through the GEMs partnership), it offers a bespoke curriculum to pupils in Shanghai, it addresses learning without levels at a multi academy trust in Birmingham and a home-schooling co-operative in Oxford. Whilst EdTech is largely present in the US, Europe and Asia are not far behind. Our aim is for KINTERACT to have a global presence and, as we have already entered Europe, China, Latin America and the MENA markets, this is fast becoming a reality.
markets - with the intention of becoming the leading European App - and entering the North American market via an identified and experienced US CEO. They will also accelerate product development by specifically focusing on the data and science components: this will enable them to put in place the technical and operational infrastructure to grow and scale the business. We are living in a time of technological revolution within the education space – current estimates conclude that an astonishing 65% of primary school children today will have a job that doesn’t exist today – and the KINTERACT platform will allow its users to naturally take advantage of new technology and behaviours which, in turn, will exponentially improve all learner outcomes. In layman’s terms, I believe what this really all means is a cheery farewell to the homework-eating dog.
The software can be accessed through a mobile app or a desktop and tablet interface and the monetisation comes from school subscriptions and, in the near future, from the parental user base. It is highly scalable - it can be used by students aged from 2 to 18 - and is suitable for all domestic and international education systems.
‘The KINTERACT software is in place in over 80 schools globally, with 140,000 users…’ KINTERACT creates value by offering a product that is agnostic to curriculum, age, stage and language. This, in turn, allows a holistic view of the learner to be captured and presented. Furthermore, as a platform, it allows educational institutes to aggregate the data from the various products and services they use into a single source; with this information they are thus far better informed to make good judgements. Finally, with efficient data capturing and tagging by educators and learners, KINTERACT learns from these inputs and then provides AI powered insights and recommendations. The KINTERACT team are now seeking funding to expand their sales and marketing, which includes hiring senior sales executives in targeted
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
ANTACO: CLEAN WASTE, CLEAN ENERGY, A CLEAN WORLD
ANTACO’s technology converts any type of organic waste into a solid biofuel, termed biocoal. This process known as hydrothermal carbonization, or HTC, naturally occurs, but takes millennia.
In 1913, the Nobel Laureate Friedrich Bergius discovered a way to achieve this process within hours, rather than millennia. Incredibly, there was little interest in 1913; it was only in 2006, with the rediscovery of HTC by the Max Planck Institute in Germany, that scientists realised that his findings were highly relevant to the problems faced in the modern world. Here was a solution to the global carbon problem: a fossil coal substitute, produced from organic waste, that represents a carbonneutral renewable energy source. Although HTC’s significance is still somewhat opaque to the uninitiated, it’s one of the most important innovations of the century. Founder and CEO of ANTACO, Dr Dominik Peus, recognised the immense value of this revolutionary discovery. He experimented with organic waste in his garage and realised it worked. Working with industry specialists, he developed an engineering solution to commercialise the process, while at the same time also filing patents for his innovations. In simple terms, ANTACO’s technology cooks the organic waste at domestic oven temperature and at 20bar pressure. After several hours, the organic matter is broken down into its constituent elements. Carbon particles join together, while oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water; the result is a carbon-rich solution that is easily dewatered and pelletised.
‘Today, there is an increasing acceptance that clean power is of paramount importance’. Martin Bolton, the former MD of an environmental services company and an expert in sustainability and the low-carbon sector, joined ANTACO in 2013. ‘I knew the landscape and I understood just how important Dominik’s findings were’, explains Martin. ‘Firstly, we took the concept to the Department of Energy and Climate Change and won a grant of 1m. Combining this with private investment through crowd and angel fundraising, we were able to build our first biocoal plant and prove
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the concept at scale. Ironically, one of the problems we’ve encountered is that people think it’s too good to be true! Nevertheless, prospective customers are waking up to the potential of this technology, especially with tightening legislation driving demand for new solutions in the waste market. Sewage sludge is the waste product from the water cleaning process and wastewater treatment plants can no longer spread this on land or dump it in landfill sites. Instead, they are forced to use more expensive ways of disposal, such as incineration. This is where we come in, as we can offer a more cost-effective solution for wastewater treatment plants to process their waste. In 2017, we signed our first commercial contract (value £5m – £7m) with a public utility in Central Europe to convert organic waste into biocoal’.
ANTACO’s innovative solution hasn’t gone unnoticed: they have won multiple awards and have run a number of successful fundraising campaigns. In the 12 years since the rediscovery of HTC, a number of companies have recognised just how important the process is and have started to explore it. ANTACO considers itself ahead of the competition on account of its robust patents and the fact that they are the first HTC provider to have secured a contract with a European wastewater treatment plant. Cleantech and innovation, in its most impressive form. Could ANTACO and their patented HTC process be the answer to increasing waste and dwindling energy, as well as climate change?
ANTACO’s waste processing activities with the public utility are profitable in their own right, without the sale of the subsequent biocoal product, which can be used as a replacement for fossil coal in existing energy infrastructure to generate clean energy. ANTACO sent biocoal samples to an industrial energy provider, who instantly recognised their value and are prepared to offer the company a biocoal commodities future, as soon as production scales. Today, there is an increasing acceptance that clean power is of paramount importance. For example, Drax, the second-largest power station in Europe, spent somewhere in the region of £700m converting half of its capacity to generate power from wood chips. HTC could have provided a far cheaper option had they investigated it.
‘…we can offer a more cost-effective solution for wastewater treatment plants to process their waste.’ HTC is the ultimate sustainability story. Many global business giants are driven by social, financial and environmental pressure to reduce their carbon footprint, and there is significant global demand for HTC. For example, 60% of the Indonesian city of Jakarta’s waste is organic. By employing ANTACO’s HTC process, the Indonesian government could have a cost-effective, green way to manage their waste and supply this city with clean energy.
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HIYACAR: A DRIVING FORCE IN THE SHARING ECONOMY
The concept of the sharing economy is not exactly new: some of the earliest forms of human transactions involved bartering of goods and services, but it is the digital revolution that has brought this practice into the mainstream.
With AirBnb leading the market for peer to peer (P2P) home sharing, why not extend this to our other assets? The sharing economy has been on an exponential growth curve over the last couple of years and has been the subject of considerable interest to the stakeholders and policymakers across the globe. Why shouldn’t we monetise our assets, and where better to start than with – invariably – our second most valuable investment, our cars? HIYACAR co-founders, Graeme Risby and Rob Larmour, recognised this huge potential and founded the business in 2014. The management team has an exceptionally strong pedigree: Graeme is a social entrepreneur and former Risk Analyst at Smith & Williamson; he founded an early property selling service in 2008 and so was fully equipped to take on the concept within the automotive sector. Rob is also an experienced e-commerce professional, with previous roles including Head of Marketing at Pigsback.com. The rest of the team includes the former MD of Zipcar and former CTO of Whipcar, the world’s first P2P car sharing platform.
‘… car ownership, particularly in the capital, is an expensive luxury’. ‘Though many of us think of our cars as a valuable asset’, explains Graeme, ‘if you really think about it, they’re actually our biggest liability. It costs the average Londoner over £4,000 a year to run a car: parking permits, road tax, petrol, insurance, depreciation and congestion charges etc therefore take up a very large percentage of our incomes. And yet how often do we actually use our cars? I was speaking at an event recently and conducted a quick survey: 70% of the people in the room owned a car, but only 5% of them drove it for more than an hour a day. In other words, car ownership, particularly in the capital, is an expensive luxury.
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Initially, the P2P car share market was stifled by regulations, but in 2015 HIYACAR agreed a comprehensive P2P insurance product with AXA. ‘The car hire industry has traditionally been one of the least customer friendly,’ continues Graeme. ‘We knew that this was a sector ready for disruption, we had the vision and – crucially – the technology to achieve this. We have built a customised, 100% owned platform that provides a service that will change ownership and usage of cars forever, for everyone, allowing owners to generate income 24/7 by sharing out their cars to a vetted, fully insured community of drivers with no hassle or time wasted. In a UK first and exclusive to HIYACAR, we offer a full keyless car opening solution – QuickStart - which means that owners and drivers don’t even need to meet each other as cars can be unlocked and started via the app. We are also developing multiple partnerships with key players in the ecosystem - such as car manufacturers - and building solutions for organisations to enable employee to employee sharing. So how does it actually work? ‘In order to join the HIYACAR community, all our members are subject to a comprehensive vetting process. This supports the core of our business which is based on transparency and trust, and we have maintained the safety aspect by a best in class ‘Know Your Customer’ process. A driver can then book a car of their choice and add the full insurance cover provided by AXA. This is very much supporting the ‘Amazon generation’ - providing simple, immediate car sharing with minimal fuss - and in complete contrast to the traditional car rental sector. We provide full, best in class UK based community support and operate an incentive led ratings system – just like AirBnb – which drives efficiency and quality. For drivers, we appeal both to urban dwellers who can’t or chose not to afford the cost of running a car but occasionally need one, to the young professionals with an ‘asset light’ lifestyle and to the average income family, with diverse and uneven transport needs (potentially occasionally a second car). For the owners, this is attractive to the opportunist who just wants a bit of extra spending money to those with a higher disposable income with a second car that isn’t used as regularly. Quite simply, this will benefit anybody who owns a car or needs one for a limited period of time (our average rental period is 1.9 days), at a far cheaper cost that would be incurred via traditional rental methods. HIYACAR are now seeking funding to enhance their sales and marketing activities, further develop their keyless technology and to focus on the growth of their B2B partnerships. With a pre-money valuation of £6.7m and a community that already has 50,000 members, I would say the brakes, in HIYACAR’s developing trajectory, are most definitely off.
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FANTOO: INNOVATIVE INTELLIGENCE, PRIORITISING PRODUCTIVITY, EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES
The average office worker tends to have an idea how their day will pan out (in my case, with the help of post-its and scraps of paper. Not ideal.
However, the best laid plans… a call from a client, a complaint or anything that is unexpected, can lead to a confusing myriad of emails, phone calls and suddenly one’s priorities are entirely reversed. Then there are the days that we clear our inboxes and it all runs smoothly, but have we genuinely delivered value to our business? Is all this information actionable and appropriate? FANTOO CEO Jordan Fantaay understands this. A serial entrepreneur, he started his first business at the age of 18. A self-confessed music devotee – but without the singing or playing skills – he produced high end hi-fis that were able to send music wirelessly to different rooms of a house (quite the innovation in the mid-90’s). These stereos were picked up by Harrods, which led to a chance meeting with the CEO of David Lloyd Leisure, who was looking for a way to wirelessly entertain his members with an audio stream while they exercised. Jordan spent the next 15 years building this new business and eventually became the world’s second largest company in the fitness entertainment space. His third company produced interactive screens, with the help of AI, that got to ‘know’ the individual exercising and tailored their entertainment accordingly. In its first year, Jordan took the company’s earnings from zero to $4m; eventually he sold the business to Google.
‘…the FANTOO software inevitably leads to higher productivity…’ ‘I’d experienced some IP theft through a company in China’, explains Jordan. ‘Coupled with near constant travelling, I was exhausted and decided to try something completely new. I had long been interested – in particular, with the fact that I was abroad so often and away from my desk – in how to increase my efficiency and workplace. This became the genesis of FANTOO. The workplace productivity space is an emerging sector in technology, but I wanted to take it a step further than the current offerings. We have built a platform that streamlines all information
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and web-based applications – whether it is WhatsApp, email, Instant Messaging etc – into one place on the desktop. This allows the user to task what is important and saves them having to jump around different tabs or apps. For example, you’re planning a trip to Manchester to meet a client. FANTOO will identify this – from your task list or calendar – and seamlessly offer suggestions to you around your task, such as train tickets, suitable hotels and so on. By leveraging priority messaging into one centre, we silence all the noise and clutter and allow the user to triage the appropriate information into deliverables. This, in turn, then allows them to have a reflection point: for example, have they got the quote back to the customer? FANTOO will identify these committed times and help them achieve the crucial tasks that ultimately serve the individual and the business overall.
acquired by Hitachi Data Systems for over $500m in February 2015), and the entrepreneurial skills of Jordan, this experienced and connected management team is seeking funding to leapfrog into the US. They have already raised £500,000 and are looking to increase this to £750,000, which will give them enough runway to get to their monthly recurring revenue target of £40,000. Since launching the software in December 2017, they have signed 25+ businesses and have over 1,000 active, paid daily users. The global computer giant Dell is one such partner, so much so that FANTOO were handpicked by Michael Dell himself to be the company’s first ever Global Startup in Residence. Jordan himself says it best. ‘I believe a vision should be concise and yet broad. FANTOO’s vision is to be the end user communicationcollaboration interface for business users globally’.
‘The workplace productivity space is an emerging sector in technology, but I wanted to take it a step further…’ Is it spyware? ‘Not at all’, continues Jordan. ‘Management are being provided with a solution. The opt in metrics and analytics are used only as far as how much time is available and how long an employee spends on a certain application. For instance, a company with a workforce of 300 people, spends on average $300k a year on SaaS applications; the industry average is that 20% of that is wasted on virtually unused apps. FANTOO will identify these and, by cancelling the unnecessary subscriptions, the business will naturally save money. Ultimately, this is about empowering a team: by better understanding what is being used and what is not, by saving employees valuable time by determining which information feeds are appropriate to them, the FANTOO software inevitably leads to higher productivity and a vastly augmented sense of wellbeing, control and success’. The business is now starting to think in global terms. With the mentorship of chairman Andre Boisvert, (a Silicon Valley veteran) with a long and highly successful career that included selling Revolution Analytics to Microsoft for $150m in January 2015. He also co-founded The Pentaho Corporation in October 2004, the world’s most popular commercial open source business intelligence platform, that was subsequently
ENVESTORS 17
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
DIGINIUS: TRAILBLAZING TECH, SIMPLE SOLUTIONS, OPTIMUM OUTCOMES
First, let’s start with the statistics. Over 4 billion people are now online, which means an astonishing 53% of the world’s entire population has access to the internet.
A recent report revealed that the average internet user now spends around 6 hours each day using internet-powered devices and services – that’s roughly one-third of their waking lives. If we add this together for all 4 billion of the world’s internet users, we’ll spend a staggering 1 billion years online in 2018. 75% of these people are active users of social media – 3.19bn to be exact. Businesses know this and, quite simply, if they want to fully maximise and capitalise on their sales and marketing activity, effective online strategy is a must. However, with the vast array of channels, devices and formats, this can prove to be prohibitively expensive and complicated for small or medium sized businesses (SMEs). Cue DIGINIUS Insight. Founder and CEO, Nate Burke, is an entrepreneur and ecommerce pioneer with over 20 years’ experience in the technology sector. He created his first internet business in 1997 and is a two-time nominee of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. US born, he launched London-based DIGINIUS in 2011. His management team has a similarly powerful pedigree with previous, senior positions held in multinationals such as Google, RBC Capital Markets, Cisco and Telefonica.
‘We guarantee our clients a transparent, manageable system that will revolutionise their online activity’.’ ‘Managing and monitoring their online activities can be a painful and costly process for SMEs’, explains Nate. ‘It can also be confusing. We have built a software solution that empowers organisations to achieve the maximum impact from their online sales and marketing activities. We make the process much, much simpler and guide our clients through the entire process in order to get them the best possible results: their social media campaigns and all online advertising, their website ‘health’
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
such as monitoring the performance data and organic search ranking. We manage all stock-related data feeds including automated price adjustments, we monitor their competitors’ online prices and marketing activities, thus giving them a competitive advantage. We can provide ‘lead intelligence’ solutions such as identifying which companies have visited their website and which of the services they are interested in. We also equip our clients’ inhouse teams to become experts in online advertising and provide hands-on, first-rate management. Ultimately, our software will benefit any company that generates sales leads or transacts online exponentially, although it has been designed specifically for the needs of SMEs. Our algorithms enable our clients to make smarter, quicker decisions, reduce their operational costs, provide at-a-glance insights into all of their online activity and thus maximising all returns on investment. Our Saas platform can be licensed anywhere in the world by any business and we currently have a customer base of around 80 clients, including Dreams, the bed manufacturer and top of the Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 league table. Our sales are growing in the UK and we are currently working on licensing agreements in Sweden, the US, China and South Africa. We’ve been developing, enhancing and optimising our solutions since 2011 and have created enterprise-grade software but at an affordable price. We guarantee our clients a transparent, manageable system that will revolutionise their online activity’. The team are now seeking £500,000 – of which £237,000 has already been advanced or pledged – to scale up their activity, further growing their sales team, automating the ‘on-boarding’ process and recruiting for their finance team. DIGINIUS are a further example – if any were needed – that today’s complicated and sophisticated technology can, in the correct hands, make online life conversely far more simple. Genius.
ENVESTORS 19
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
LIGHTPOINT MEDICAL: ILLUMINATING TECHNOLOGY, ECLIPSING CANCER CELLS
As if a cancer diagnosis isn’t bad enough… the reality that a battle to survive will involve surgical intervention, possibly the horrors of chemo and radiotherapy and, in many cases, life changing side effects.
In surgical cases, despite extensive pre-operative planning, even the most talented and experienced surgeon may not be able to remove all cancerous tissue during the operation – relying completely on their sense of touch and naked eye - which would therefore necessitate further surgery. There is also the risk that healthy tissue is removed, which can leave patients with long term complications or the need for additional surgery and radiotherapy. Getting as many of these cells out as possible in one intervention drastically increases the patient’s odds of recovery; increasing the chances of successful surgery is critical to the effective treatment of the cancer and the eventual cure of the patient. Medical imaging has long been acknowledged as a valuable weapon in the cancer slaying arsenal and very much Dr David Tuch’s area of expertise. A native New Yorker, he was educated at MIT and Harvard and has spent his entire career in the medical imaging field, with senior roles including Head of Research Alliances at GE Healthcare and Head of Clinical Imaging at Novartis.
‘We have developed an instrument that will guide surgeons and clinicians through light and in real time…’ ‘The genesis of LIGHTPOINT came about when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer’, explains David. ‘Thankfully her treatment was successful but, as part of her cancer care plan, she needed to have her healthy lymph nodes removed as the surgeon was unable to see whether the cancer had spread. This put her at risk of infection and, to reduce the possibility of lymphedema, she was forced to wear compression bandages and fitted sleeves on the affected arm. This visual and tactile standard of care in breast cancer surgery is highly subjective; confirmation that no further surgery is required can only happen after histological assessment of the removed tissue, a process that can take up to several weeks. The current statistics supplied by the NHS show that 20% of patients will require further surgery to remove the primary
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INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
tumour; there simply hasn’t been a method for even the most skilled surgeon to know that all cancerous cells are removed through touch alone. This is a universal medical problem faced by cancer patients: namely, that surgery is very often unsuccessful’. David thus founded LIGHTPOINT in 2012, with the specific purpose to address this problem. ‘We have developed an instrument that will guide surgeons and clinicians through light and in real time. We have four devices in various stages of development: the LightPath Imaging System for imaging specimens, the PICO laparoscopic probe for minimally invasive prostate surgery, HARLI for the life sciences market and Clovis for open surgery. Our products improve clinical outcomes, reduce the need for further surgery and radically decrease the chances of developing the terrible side effects that the patient may have to endure. This in turn, of course, has a massive reduction on healthcare costs.
LIGHTPOINT has already raised £8m in grant funding from Innovate UK, the National Cancer Institute in the US and the European Commission. They are now seeking further funding of £5m – more than £4m of which has already been raised – to increase their sales and marketing activities, further develop their products and to continue clinical trials. I imagine the spotlight will be firmly shining on LIGHTPOINT, for quite some time to come.
In 2014, LIGHTPOINT scanned their first patient in a breast cancer clinical trial. In the following years, they have won multiple awards – including the UK Private Business Award for Technology Innovation of the year in 2017 - and signed three development contracts with NHS England. Their devices have been sold in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, in David’s words, it’s been like ‘a rocket ship’. ‘Our aim to is reduce the need to remove excessive tissue to 10%, which will significantly raise the patient’s quality of life. Our products are applicable for a wide number of cancer types, but we will focus - for now - on prostate and breast cancer. This will prove to be an absolute game changer for those who have a radical prostatectomy or large sections of lymphatic tissue removed, procedures that often leave the patient with life-long complications. Preliminary clinical trial data shows that our technology agrees well with the gold standard of pathology. Our key competitive advantage is that our technology is using imaging agents which are already clinically validated and approved by regulatory agencies; our competitors all face the enormous barrier of millions of dollars in capital and years of development time to gain FDA clearance: we already have it.”
ENVESTORS 21
INVESTOR TALES
PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER OR PUBLIC BENEFACTOR? A LIFE SPENT LOOKING FORWARD: RALPH HULBERT
I love business, especially small business. My grandfather ran engineering firms in the Midlands so, unconsciously, that may have generated some deep interest in it all: I love the mechanics, the buying and the selling. I love the excitement of seeing whether a new idea can take off or not. Who will buy its offerings and how disruptive will it be? My particular joy is seeing my protégé reach the break-even point; but I also love the people… after all, it takes a lot of courage to take these sorts of risks. Before going up to Cambridge to read Engineering, I used my ‘gap’ year as a trainee accountant to study a great many companies. In those days, Article Clerks were expected to wear bowler hats, our annual salary – with two weeks’ holiday – was £100, the standard tube fare was 6d (2.5p) and we didn’t even have Punched Cards, let alone computers. I worked for three banks. Charterhouse in the corporate finance division, followed by a job at the UK merchant bank associated with Texas’ premier oil bank. The boss of the bank was a star pupil from Harvard Business School; I think that he came top in his year. But, as a result, he had such difficulty making decisions; this, along with a number of other examples, has convinced me that business schools are a poor background for small business. My third banking job came in a delightful way. I was working in a small but very successful broking/research house. We got a contract, from the World Bank, to analyse the creditworthiness of the world’s major banks covering both their commercial and the political risk; we were then permitted to sell our research to the entire banking community. This was hugely attractive to small US banks, as it saved them an enormous amount of time and trouble. No bank, however grand, could refuse to open their books for the World Bank, so I had great fun quizzing the chief credit officer of some very big banks as to the horrors in his balance sheet.
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Anyway, purely by chance and off the shelf, I chose to interview the CEO the United Bank of Kuwait (UBK) which resulted in me being hired as one of the five people effectively running the bank. One of the glories of my job at UBK, was that I was allowed to invest in small companies on my own behalf. This enabled me to carry on without interruption and with a much enhanced experience of leasing, mortgages, venture capital, factoring, lending and so on. At about this time, one of my old banking colleagues persuaded me to invest with him in a University based, science company. It ticked along until one day, the Professor who was also the chairman, asked me to take the chair. I asked to see the books of account, which were kept by the CEO’s mother at her home; I then received an email from the CEO immediately sacking me as a director, through his 50% majority shareholding. The other business investor joined me and, as soon as the company went bust, we moved in. The largest US company in the field (Mr Big) also wanted to pick up the pieces but rather than let him do it alone, I persuaded him to join us and we then created a tripartite arrangement – one third Mr Big, one third the two of us and one third the key staff. This scenario was a very happy solution and, in general terms, I like this format because with three equal parties, the chances are reason will prevail should any disagreement arise. This business did well, then badly, then well again. We had the odd dividend and then, for some reason, we hit a bit of a downturn. The US shareholder had been supporting us by lending us money when we needed it. But this time, they decided that would only back us by taking more shares which would have given them control. Although I thought at the time that I was very likely throwing good money after bad, I could not allow that, so I matched them while my colleague did not. In due course our company prospered and, following floatation, I ended up with a post-tax multiple of some 83. This success probably coloured my judgement for later investments; I have probably been over keen to subscribe to take up shares in similar situations, sometimes with poor results. A previous investment - that gave me a 30x return - coupled with this sale, that produced a million pounds at a time of life when my family responsibilities were becoming modest, has enabled me to increase my exposure to the angel world; without it, I would only have been able to make a fraction of my later investments. These exits also gave me the financial strength to cease being dependent on employment.
INVESTOR TALES
It is worth thinking about the how angel investing can benefit from the tax relief systems. My early investments enjoyed BES relief (Business Expansion Scheme). However, at the time, the BES scheme was being abused by other strategies coming out of the City and the Government decided to review It. For some reason, I was invited to go and talk to HMRC; I chose to approach this by going through my portfolio, already some 2 or 3 dozen investments, and tell them which investments needed the tax break and which I would have financed anyway. It was an extraordinary meeting. Halfway through the meeting, these civil servants, charged with redefining the system, suddenly had their eyes opened: the tax breaks altered what we angels actually do. It was not just a giveaway. Thereafter, we got the EIS scheme, a very generous tax break which the Government uses to encourage employment. Until I stood back and did the sums, I wondered how effective it was as so many of these startups only employ a handful of people. On reflection, however, the companies that I have backed have created. thousands of jobs, so from HMRC’s standpoint I do not believe that the taxpayer loses. A question frequently is asked is ‘is it better to have a good business run by an inadequate management or a bad business run by great management?’ I have no pet answer for this. However, when trying to assess the CEO, I think the most important characteristic is perseverance. Intelligence is good and necessary, but only up to a certain level; beyond that it is a handicap, as people can get bored. I can think of two businesses that failed due to the CEO being overly bright. Two characteristics that I think can mark a successful entrepreneur are first having a chip on his shoulder - he is really going to try - and second humility: a humble man is prepared to listen and that is crucial. I remember floating a contracting business, where the CEO had a handshake like a wet fish and couldn’t look you in the eye. However, he was a very effective salesman. I concluded, wrongly or rightly, that he owed his success to the fact that he made the local authority folk, who awarded the contracts, feel superior. Where do deals come from? When I started, angel investing was undeveloped and most of my deals came from personal connections. I still get deals coming to me directly and we have just launched a perfect example of this. A good friend of my son’s, was running a successful department of a small company which was proposing to sell his division with him as the MD. He is an ambitious chap and asked me if he could do an MBO and be his own boss. Once I got to know him and his reputation and seen his past performance, I thought he deserved the chance, so I told him not merely should he do it, but that I would put £50k behind him. Without too much trouble we raised £500k, half from his friends and contacts and half from five of my mates. I was particularly touched that all of my friends, who are themselves professional business angels, decided one by one that they were prepared to back him after meeting him. Another nice feature was that my chap’s old boss was prepared both to invest and come on the Board. These are situations I really enjoy. Having agreed a deal, the convention is that it is necessary to agree a Shareholders’ Agreement (SA). This is designed to protect the investors, as they will have little day to day control. I come at this from the side of cynicism - I have concluded that there have been no examples, over some 90 deals, where an SA has been of any help to me whatever. A company will generally succeed or not succeed, and once you start haggling over an SA, you are doomed anyway.
you think you are good at it and perhaps because you want to put back into society something you have taken out. It is useful to have chums in this game, to swap ideas, periodically take counsel, share risks and be sounding boards. Investing has destroyed any interest I might have had in gambling. Having a little flutter of £10 or £20 on a horse has no excitement whatsoever in comparison to gambling with stakes of £10,000 or £20,000. To what extent does luck come into angel investing? Of course, I have had many lucky breaks, but I have also been unlucky. An unfortunate example of this was when one of my companies, which made specialised desks for dealers, was on the verging of signing a huge contract to expand the New York Stock Exchange’s Blue Room. But, just before it was signed, Black Friday came along and effectively wiped out our company. A lot of luck is timing. I also remember years ago, maybe back in the 80s, meeting two successful business men both on the verge of selling their companies when there was a big market crash. One sold before the crash and one just missed it, which resulted in one very rich man, one virtually bust. I very much enjoy the aphorism ‘Never talk about luck to a self-made man!’ I think people like me, who enjoy the good fortune and the luxury of success, should be really serious about charity. You don’t just give someone £50 when a box is rattled in front of you, you research the market, you should meet the CEO and then you give them the serious money. I was on my City Livery Company’s charity board and I have developed four rules: focus your efforts, the cause must be very strong, the charity must be well run and the charity must be sufficiently small that your donation makes a real difference. Over some 40 years, I have invested in the equity – in one way or another – in some 90 private companies. I have had two big wins (30x and 83x and one in the current portfolio which I believe will produce at least 20x). I have had one big loss of £100k, a possible provision £100k and a series of smaller losses, roughly along the lines of 10x £1k, plus 15x £5k, plus 10x £15, plus 8x £20k plus 2x£25k and 1x £35k or total losses (post tax) of £680k from 48 investments. Smaller profits came from about ten investments and probably totalled about £360k. In total I reckon I have a current portfolio in excess of £2million with a book cost of about zero. People often ask me, ‘surely you get more right than wrong?’ This is a common misunderstanding. For the very early stage companies I have backed, most do not work either because they go bust or because they become the “living dead” (worse than going bust!). The key is that for every ten that go nowhere, you need to back one that does really well. Have I made money because I am good at it or because the odds are stacked in my favour? I think the odds are good: partly because of the tax breaks and partly because on any one ‘bet’ there is, or at least should be, limited downside and no limit to the upside. I think my strengths are experience, a positive attitude, a deep curiosity and deep knowledge of the world of finance. My big weakness is laziness, particularly regarding the due diligence process. There are far easier ways to make money, but few that provide such excitement. My favourite bit of the game is taking an idea and turning it into a business. I would like to carry on for maybe another ten years taking the number of investees up towards 120 - as no excitement, even selling a business, has quite the thrill of seeing your baby settle into monthly cash break even.
One of the pleasures of being an angel, particularly if you become active in building your investments, is meeting and working with fellow angels. Almost by definition they are an interesting bunch. Firstly, they have to have made money. Probably this is because if you have been successful
ENVESTORS 23
ACQUISITION
CHARGEMASTER: AN ELECTRIFYING EXIT
ENVESTORS portfolio company, CHARGEMASTER, has been acquired by BP for £128.9m. This represents a return of £42,686,301 for 50 members of the ENVESTORS private network and two introduced Funds.
CHARGEMASTER, who are the operator of the UK’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network and the leading supplier of EV charging infrastructure, worked with ENVESTORS over an eight-year period to secure several rounds of funding to drive their growth, leading to their acquisition by the global oil and gas giant, BP, and a hugely successful exit. CHARGEMASTER CEO David Martell first approached ENVESTORS in 2010. As an early stage business, David needed help with the first round of funding. With David’s track record – he founded TRAFFICMASTER in 1989, valued at £500m when floated on the Stock Exchange in 1994 – and an exceptionally strong management team, their potential for huge success was instantly recognisable. As with all ENVESTORS’ portfolio companies, we guided CHARGEMASTER through the whole funding process: the preparation, promotion, deal negotiations, further funding rounds and investor relations. Our network of over 3,000 sophisticated investors understood the value of this substantial pedigree and, with the foresight to appreciate that a solid and sustainable infrastructure would be vital to the burgeoning electric vehicle economy, we raised an initial sum of £1.8m through 50 of our private angels. After the success of this first round, David returned to ENVESTORS in 2011; this later round was even more of a triumph, raising just under £4m. As the business grew and matured, it inevitably needed another cash injection and we therefore introduced David to the Swiss based fund Helium Rising Stars, who raised £4m and the London based VCT, Beringea, who provided a further £5.7m in funding. CHARGEMASTER has since grown to become the UK’s biggest name in electric vehicle charging, trusted by thousands of owners, businesses and councils: designing, building, selling and maintaining over 6,500 charging points in partnership with all leading electric vehicle manufacturers. The acquisition by the British oil giant BP is an assured demonstration that the motor industry is shifting towards lower carbon sources, driven by advances in technology and growing concerns about climate change.
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ACQUISITION
‘We are incredibly appreciative of all of our investors and the vital support we received from ENVESTORS in the early days. The creation of BP Chargemaster is great news for electric vehicle drivers, as it will deliver significant investment in the further deployment of EV infrastructure across the country, with a focus on ultra-fast rapid chargers. BP’s 1,200 retail locations represent a fantastic opportunity to expand Chargemaster’s existing network of more than 6,500 charging points in the UK. This most successful exit could not have happened without ENVESTORS and their network of sophisticated angels. I am delighted that they can now successfully realise their investment’. DAVID MARTELL, CEO, CHARGEMASTER
In total ENVESTORS helped CHARGEMASTER to raise over £15M. ‘We are delighted to have raised a total of £15.3m and to have been part of this incredible journey. We are so pleased that over 50 of our sophisticated investors and two of our early stage funds have realised a very significant return. We would like to thank them for their farsighted vision and support and will look to share a glass in celebration in the coming weeks. It’s a brilliant success story and exactly why we founded ENVESTORS. We realised, as entrepreneurs, how difficult it can be to raise investment on one’s own, no matter how strong a business model may be. Through our years of combined experience, we know that the strength of the management team is a crucial factor in a start up’s success. David’s exceptional track record and achievements with TRAFFICMASTER highlighted this perfectly. All of us at ENVESTORS wish David, and the whole CHARGEMASTER team, our warmest congratulations’. ‘Finding and accessing credible unlisted investment opportunities is half the battle, execution and monetisation is the other half. ENVESTORS delivered on the first half and the management team and staff at CHARGEMASTER delivered on the rest. The proactive communication from CHARGEMASTER from Investment to realisation has been excellent. I’m personally delighted with the impressive financial returns generated, and I’m always open to ENVESTORS’ introductions’. CRAIG LEWIS, ENVESTORS PRIVATE INVESTOR
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HOW TO INVEST
H O W TO I N V E S T
E n v e s t o rs make s it easy t o discover and i nv e st in h igh -gr owt h businesses. 01. Find the right opportunity
01
02. Do your due diligence
04. Complete your investment
F I N D T H E R IGH T OPPOR TU N ITY
> Go to
envestors.co.uk
> Click
‘View Deals’
‘View Deals’ Button
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03. Pledge your investment
Once you’ve found a deal you’re interested in, click ‘View Deal’. This will open the Deal Information page.
Click on the ‘Filter’ icon which is in the top right-hand corner. From here you can easily find a specific deal or browse deals according to your interest.
HOW TO INVEST
02
DO YO U R D U E D ILIGENC E
To gain access to detailed information on the business and its
03
PL EDG E YOUR INV ESTME N T
Input the amount you would like to invest into the pledge box.
plans, you’ll need to login.
If you haven’t registered with us, you’ll need to do so now. See ‘Registering as an investor below’. Click on ‘LOGIN’ which is in the top right-hand corner. Once logged in, you will be able to access information about the management team, business plans, market, Q&As from other investors and business updates.
We recommend you click on the ‘Track’ icon, which is beneath the Pledge box. This will make it easy for you to find the deal on subsequent visits and receive updates from the company.
If this is your first time investing with Envestors, you will need to complete the Suitability Questionnaire and to provide contact details. This is required for regulatory compliance. All investors will need to agree to the terms of investment. Please read these carefully and then and check the box to indicate you have accepted them. At this point you are making a legally binding pledge to invest should the business in question meet its minimum fundraising goal. You will have a window of 14 days from the point at which you accept the terms to change your mind.
To review confidential documents, you will need to request access to the deal documents. To do this, click ‘Request Access’ in the Deal Document section at the bottom of the page. Your request will be sent immediately to the deal manager. You’ll receive an email from us confirming your access to the Deal Room.
REGISTERING AS AN INVESTOR 1. Visit envestors.co.uk 2. Click ‘Sign up’ in the top right-hand corner 3. Complete the short form 4. Select your investor type 5. Confirm your investor type and click ‘Sign-up’
MEET THE TEAM We recommend meeting the management team as part of any investment decision. To schedule a meeting, contact the deal manager.
04
COMPL ETE YOUR INV EST ME N T
When the business reaches its minimum fundraising goal and all legals and conditions precedent are satisfied, you will receive a Completion Notice. From this point, you will have 14 days to transfer the funds.
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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 &
© Smith & Williamson Holdings Limited 2018. Smith & Williamson LLP Regulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales for a range of investment business activities. A member of Nexia International. Smith & Williamson Corporate Finance Limited authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. A member ENVESTORS 28 of the London Stock Exchange. A member of Oaklins International Inc. The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate all of the services referred to here.