Tuesday 25th September, 2018
FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE VENTURES
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Table of contents Albus Health ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Util ........................................................................................................................................................... 5 Scoodle .................................................................................................................................................... 7 Oxford Digital Healthcare ....................................................................................................................... 9 EcoSync ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Boresha ................................................................................................................................................. 13 PodHealth ............................................................................................................................................. 15 Metronome ........................................................................................................................................... 17 Veratrak ................................................................................................................................................ 19 The Demo Day app ................................................................................................................................ 21
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Albus Health “Personalised asthma care at home” Albus Health is developing an automated real-time home monitoring system to predict asthma attacks up to days before they happen, enabling patients to self-manage their condition at home and take measures to prevent an attack.
The Problem Over 150 million people in the world suffer from at least one asthma attack a year. In the UK, every 10 seconds someone experiences a potentially life-threatening Asthma attack, every 8 minutes someone is hospitalised and every 8 hours someone dies due to asthma. Preventable asthma attacks cause morbidity, mortality and serious deterioration in the quality of life for asthma sufferers. One of the key reasons for this is that patients are often late in detecting symptoms or assessing the severity of the risk. The resulting attacks lead to emergency medical visits and hospitalizations, costing over $4 billion in Europe and $8 billion in the US each year. Existing asthma monitoring methods require patients to proactively perform breathing tests and fill out symptom diaries every day. Because this requires patient adherence and change in patient behaviour, their adoption in practice is less than 20%, leaving the need largely unmet, especially in children and elderly - the two age groups where asthma is most burdensome. Moreover, besides being ineffective in clinical care, these monitoring techniques only provide subjective and limited symptom data in clinical studies, thereby making the process highly inefficient. As a result, drug development takes an enormous amount of time, delaying their market launch and delivery to the patients who need them.
The Solution Albus Health is developing a completely automated and real-time system to monitor respiratory symptoms at home, predict the risk of future attacks, and enable the patients to self-manage their condition at home to prevent an attack. Through a passive, non-contact and ambient home device, the system gathers objective and reliable monitoring data without the patient having to do anything, thereby overcoming the hurdle of adherence. This data feeds into machine learning algorithms to established personalised baselines, picking up subtle changes that predict the risk of an impending attack, up to days before it happens. If the risk of an attack is high, this information is conveyed to the patients and their carers, along with suggestions of clinically-guided interventions to help them manage their condition and prevent an attack. 3
The Albus Health Team Mikesh Udani (Co-founder, CEO) Mikesh is a graduate in Mathematics (IIT Kharagpur, India) and Computer Science (Oxford, UK), with a focus on the applications of Machine Learning and AI in healthcare and human data. Before coming to Oxford, Mikesh spent 3 years in the Derivatives Trading Team at Deutsche Bank. William Do (Co-founder, Medical Director) Will is passionate about improving healthcare through technology. He graduated from Medical School at the University of Oxford in 2014, and has worked in a variety of clinical settings. He co-founded and led ”Hospital in Hand”, an app delivering important information for the daily work of junior doctors. John-Paul (JP) Moszynski (Co-founder, Technical Director) JP graduated with a degree in Physics from the University of Prince Edward Island in 2008. He has worked as an engineer in industry and academia, producing new devices for medical sciences research at the University of Oxford. Professor Mona Bafadhel (Clinical Lead) Mona is an Associate Professor at the Respiratory Medicine Unit at the University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician. Dr. Richard Russell (Clinical Lead) Richard is a Consultant at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust and is the Clinical Director of the West Hampshire Integrated Respiratory Service, looking after COPD and asthma for 2.5 million people. He is a member of the National Asthma Guidelines Committee, and is the editor and founder of the International Journal of COPD.
While the complete system delivers asthma care that is personalised and optimized for each individual, the monitoring device in itself allows objective and reliable symptom data collection in clinical trials for new drugs. This would lead to significant efficiencies and economic savings in monitoring and research.
Competitor landscape There are 2 broad categories of emerging competitors. On one side are generic home devices (such as Amazon Echo and Google Home) and monitoring systems (such as baby monitors). While easy to adopt/acquire, these are only equipped to provide some vital signs monitoring at best, which are not specific markers of a worsening respiratory condition. The second category includes digitised breathing tests and wearables. These provide a much more informative view of the individual's lung function but still rely on patients actively performing these tests each day. Through 2 years of primary and secondary research, and consulting with some of the best respiratory researchers in the world, Albus Health have identified symptoms that are specific and sensitive markers of worsening asthma. Their technology allows them to monitor these symptoms continuously without the patients having to do anything, thereby working around the issue of adherence.
Revenue model Albus Health's route to market aligns with stages of development. The revenue models and channels would be specific to each market, with a subscription model for the consumer market.
Traction Albus Health have received strong interest from industry and academia, as well as asthma sufferers and their carers, for using the service. The results of testing, including comparison with best products in the market (monitoring a subset of metrics), have been highly positive and they are excited about the start of their clinical study in October 2018.
Investment raised They have received InnovateUK Investment Accelerator funding of ¬£150,000 which is part grant (70%) from InnovateUK, and part convertible loan (30%) from Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI). They have also received Oxford’s University Challenge Seed Fund of ¬£45,800 as a convertible loan. Their clinical collaborators have secured further grants to support joint research on asthma attacks.
THE BIG ASK Albus Health are looking to raise between £1.5 to 2m in Q1 2019, and seek strategic partnerships and industry advisors.
The long-term vision Albus Health want to fill the gap in clinical monitoring with reliable technological solutions to keep people healthy at home. The platform technology they are developing is applicable to a range of cardio-respiratory conditions, not just asthma. Over the next 3-5 years and beyond, they want to build on this technology to develop a system that provides personalised care to every individual that needs it, from children to the elderly. They envision a healthcare monitoring system that can act as a reliable personal carer, providing state of the art clinical monitoring in a domestic setting, and overseeing interventions to empower everyone to self-manage their health at home.
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Util www.util.co Util is building a new way to analyse company and fund performance, incorporating financial and nonfinancial performance metrics into a new bottom-line metric for the responsible investor. Util uses a wide range of data and machine learning capabilities to provide investors and analysts with quantified, comparable performance metrics aligned to specific impact themes and UN Sustainable Development Goals. For the first time, investors will have insight into how investment products contribute to key impact themes, allowing them to track products on an annual total returns basis, comparing performance with comparable investment opportunities.
The Problem Util was created to help investors make better decisions. The responsible investor has, to date, relied upon patchy company disclosure, data providers that use non-financial data to better understand risk, and in-house qualitative industry and company analysis to formulate an investment thesis. This is problematic for four reasons: 1. Time consuming - with significant human resources aligned to qualitative industry and company 'impact' analysis 2. Zero comparability - across companies and funds 3. Lack of transparency - in existing data providers and inhouse methodologies 4. Not performance based - with existing analysis conflating company policies, actions and outcomes.
The Solution Util exists to create a new industry standard for sophisticated and scalable holistic performance analysis, providing responsible investors with a critical 'third lens', in additional to traditional financial and risk analysis. They are building a new economic map of the world. Using very large datasets and state of the art machine learning we are building a series of interconnected knowledge graphs which intimately analyse and quantify the relationship between companies, their supply chain, their actions (selling products, employing people), their geographies and their impact (positive or negative) on key impact themes.
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The Util Team Stephen Barnett - CEO & Co-Founder A Cambridge graduate, Stephen has worked for HSBC across two continents and multiple divisions. He has taken numerous advisory, fundraising and mentorship positions across the investing landscape, and is part of the Diversity.vc think tank. Abdel Wahab Turkmani - CTO & Co-Founder Abdel is a computer science graduate from the University of Oxford. Previously Head of Data Science at Namur Capital Management, Abdel brings a combination of financial knowledge and advanced technical skills to the team. David Calfo - Non-Executive Director David Calfo has over 25 years' experience in Financial Services in the US, UK and Continental Europe, including positions at Fidelity, Capital Group and BNY Mellon. Richard Barnett - Head of Operations Richard is an experienced Chartered Accountant with a background in auditing. He takes care of all matters financial and regulatory for Util. Jose Maria Lopez - Machine Learning Engineer Jose has a degree in engineering from Barcelona, and a Master's in Robotics from King's College London. Alex Thoma - Machine Learning Engineer Alex works on building Util's machine learning pipelines and methodology, and on developing Util's core responsible investment products. He has a Masters in Chemistry from Cambridge University.
By developing this comprehensive map of company interactions and actions, Util can deliver an accurate, quantified analysis of the extent to which companies contribute to, or detract from, key non-financial themes, articulated through the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Many products can be built from this core competency, however we are focusing on building a dashboard for investment managers to screen companies, monitor company performance, and report fund performance, relative to key impact targets.
Competitor landscape We are positioning ourselves as an important third lens for the responsible investor. All investors undertake robust financial analysis (first lens), comprehensive Environment, Social and Governance integration (second lens), and a robust understanding of how their investments perform across nonfinancial metrics and themes (Util's third lens). No other company is contemplating this necessary third lens in an automated, scalable and quantified way, therefore our main competitors fall into adjacent categories: - ESG providers: MSCI, Sustainalytics, TruValue labs - risk, exposure and controversies based - rely on manual data gathering and company disclosure, very high fees - Industry standards: SASB, Integrated Reporting - principles based, standards without actionable metrics or data. - Consulting 'holistic value' frameworks: KPMG's True Value, PWC's TIMM - very resource intensive, not-comparable consulting frameworks to understand total company performance.
Revenue model Utils’s revenue model focuses on three core streams: 1. Sell dashboards and data to asset managers and asset owners. 2. Develop industry leading indexes - based on the UN SDGs 3. Build bespoke ETFs based on client thematic preference.
Traction Util has two partners, Hermes IM and ACTIAM, investment managers with a collective $130bn under management. Both parties perform methodology audits and product development support in exchange for Util’s insight and analysis of sample securities and funds.
Investment raised Util have recently raised £820,000 from Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI) and a syndicate of Dutch Investors in May 2018.
THE BIG ASK Connections to the right people within large global asset managers and owners. Not seeking investment yet, but interested to know who would be keen to be involved in a Series A in 12-18-months’ time.
Long-term vision Util seeks to become an essential service for anyone involved in investing, and to be integrated into the daily activities of consumers, companies, governments and investors, helping each of them to make better investing decisions.
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Scoodle “Everyone has the ability to teach something, and the desire to learn something. Scoodle brings the two together” Scoodle connects people who want to learn, with people who can teach. Students can ask questions on any subject, get answers from tutors and follow up by booking lessons or joining online or face-to-face classes.
Problem When students need extra help when studying or doing their homework, they will often search for answers online, unearthing information from multiple sources and platforms. By doing so, they risk finding information of low quality which lacks credibility, and which will damage, rather than enhance their academic success. Students find it difficult to get the support they need and to learn in an effective way. Meanwhile, talented tutors find it incredibly difficult to acquire new students and gain visibility, in a tutor market that is complex and saturated. Tutors often lack the capacity and resources to develop and grow their client base for online tutoring work, or for face-to-face group classes.
Solution Scoodle is a mobile app and web platform that connects people who want to learn, with people that can teach. Students can ask questions on any subject via the app, and get answers from tutors, then follow up by booking lessons or joining classes if they are keen to do so. Scoodle provides carefully selected tutors who provide sessions either online or in person. Students can also receive both text and video answers, free at the point of access. Scoodle also makes life easier for both sides of the marketplace, providing a completely automated platform for tutors that takes care of payments, reminders and communications, so that tutors can focus on what really matters. Tutors receive more bookings as they answer more questions. Win-win.
Competitor landscape Scoodle’s biggest competitor is word of mouth tutoring and tutoring companies. These include Tutorful, FirstTutors, TutorHunt, Wyzant (USA), Gooroo (USA). However, Scoodle is the only company that doesn't make money by charging booking fees on 1:1 tutoring, which means their talented tutors are retained, as are the tutor-student relationships they attract.
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The Scoodle Team Ismail Jeilani - CEO Graduated from King’s College London, furthering his learning with programmes at Oxford & Harvard before joining Google. While funding his degree, Ismail built Satifs and helped raise over £900,000 for charity and interest-free funding. He has been featured in Buzzfeed, Business Insider, BBC and Vice News, and ranked as one of the ‘100 coolest people in tech’ by Business Insider in 2017. Ahmed Kerwan - Head of Partnerships Ahmed is currently reading Medical Anthropology at Oxford University. He is the Founder of the Whitefield Access Project: a student-led initiative to widen participation. Ahmed has received the highest prize from his university’s student union, the Honorary Life Membership, for his extraordinary efforts in student leadership. He is also a member of the Said's Business School's Leading for Impact cohort. Ahmed received a Fulbright scholarship to investigate the relationship between education and health, presenting his research to State Officials in Washington, D.C. Mujavid Bukhari - Head of Mobile Engineering Mujavid is a software engineer and designer, with 5+ year’s experience as a teacher and a private tutor. He developed his experience at multiple companies including: Google, Microsoft, Codecademy and Adzuna. Imdad Ahad - CTO Imdad was a Developer at the U.K. Government Digital Services, specialising in large-scale web system development. He has worked for multiple FTSE 100 companies including BT, BAE Systems, Royal Dutch Shell, GE and Accenture. He graduated in Computer Science from King's College London and has a YouTube channel with 500,000+ views across 140 countries.
Revenue model 1. Classes - Scoodle charges for additional services that will allow tutors to create classes. Students pay 3x less, and tutors can earn 10x more. On average, gross bookings per 10-hour class range from between £300 - £1000. 2. Ads - Newsfeed generated ads.
Traction So far, the service has achieved: - 5.5k app downloads (increased 2.5x since joining the OXFO L.E.V8 accelerator) - £22k in bookings (increased 2x since joining the OXFO L.E.V8 accelerator) - 10,000 answers viewed - 1000 hours booked - 20% to 25% MAUs
Investment raised £205k at a £1.4m valuation. Investors include: - CEO at Morgan Stanley, Taiwan - Wallace Ko - CAO at Miniclip - Pieter Kooyman - CCO at Miniclip - Saad Choudri - Head of Business Intelligence at Miniclip - Paul Bugryniec - Head of Games Design at Miniclip - James Russell Miniclip is a games company acquired by Tencent.
THE BIG ASK Scoodle are now looking to raise £550k - £650k at a £2.5m - £3.2m valuation. They are also currently seeking key advisors to help and guide them with building out marketplaces, digital marketing strategy and growth.
Long term vision: Scoodle are going to help 100 million students learn something new in the next 5 years. Teachers will be content creators, and they'll be recognised for this, building global brands for the value they add to the world. LinkedIn has a platform for professional identities. Facebook is for social identities. Scoodle will create a platform for teaching identities.
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Oxford Digital Healthcare “Helping patients to enjoy pain-free movement.” www.oxforddigital.healthcare
Oxford Digital Healthcare (ODH) has developed a medical device to improve the access and equality of healthcare. They focus on the number one cause of global disease burden: musculoskeletal disorders. Their app and webbased interface is currently in clinical use to help patients recover after surgery, and They're developing hardware which uses sophisticated machine learning techniques to diagnose joint pain and start treatment promptly - changing the face of healthcare. The Problem 1. Musculoskeletal disease is a big problem: according to the Gates Foundation, it is the number 1 cause of disease burden in the world. It costs the UK economy tens of billions of pounds in direct healthcare costs and lost productivity, and has a significant burden on patient quality of life. 2. There is not enough staff to keep up with demand: as the global population has aged, and these diseases become increasingly common, shortages in clinical staff are apparent – we’ll need an extra 500 physios per year to keep up with current demand. 3. Accurate diagnosis is difficult and takes a lot of time: Recent studies have shown that primary care doctors have low confidence in diagnosing musculoskeletal pain, and are likely to refer for further specialist opinions and physiotherapy input. The Solution Oxford Digital Healthcare provides wearable technology which integrates into mobile platforms for diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal health problems. The solution starts by giving the patient a diagnosis of the cause of their pain in a fraction of the time that it currently takes. It can go on to start physiotherapy treatment, monitored through the mobile app, with engagement with clinicians throughout this process.
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The Oxford Digital Healthcare Team Dr Nav Nagra, CEO Nav is a Clinical Research Fellow (University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals) with a Masters in Medical Science with Distinction (University of Manchester). He has several years of clinical experience working in a musculoskeletal tertiary referral centre, seeing patients in clinic, operating with surgical colleagues and working closely with physiotherapists. Maciej Mackowiak, Lead Hardware Engineer Maciej has a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from the Poznan University of Technology, Poland, and has a decade of experience in process engineering, and has previously worked with Adlens and other medical device companies. Will Guest, Lead Software Developer Having completed his Bachelors degree in Physics (University of Birmingham), Will has led the creation and validation of a number of software solutions for medical devices. He now holds an MPhil from Oxford Brookes University and is studying for a PhD with its Performance Augmentation Lab. Dr Fridolin Wild, CTO Fridolin is a Senior Research Fellow, leading the Performance Augmentation Lab (Oxford Brookes University). Fridolin is responsible for the project’s technical delivery and has led numerous EU, European Space Agency, and nationally funded research projects.
This service is paid for by doctors to improve the accuracy and timescales of diagnosis, and is free for patients; it will help to save the healthcare system money, reduce waiting times, and to improve delivery of care. Competitor landscape Currently, two companies that are using tracking/wearable technology for physiotherapy purposes: HingeHealth (USA) and Flex (Romania), which both help patients by using sensors to produce a visual representation of the patient’s movement, displayed on a mobile device. Both companies give patients feedback on their progress with their physiotherapy, with limited detail on how this affects outcomes. These companies don’t hold patents on their technology, and after taking legal advice, the team believe it is unlikely that a patent can be filed for this technology. There is no company that seeks to use prospective data collection and supervised machine learning through wearable devices for diagnostic purposes in this application area, which is ODH’s specific proposal, and this can constitute intellectual property that can be protected through patents. Revenue model The ODH business model is a B2B2C subscription service with initial purchase of hardware for a nominal fee. They will primarily sell to primary care (GP) services to help provide improved diagnostic accuracy and speed, a process which is currently lengthy and inaccurate. They will perform market validation after product piloting with strategic partners who are currently using their mHealth solution. This will enable them to define their target market, pricing model and entry strategy. This will also confirm product efficacy, distribution channels (e.g. via an in-house sales team) and identifying key decision makers to aid wider product uptake. Currently, competitor pricing data is unavailable, but estimates fall in the region of ¬£5,000/device with ongoing license fees. ODH would undercut that price for one device (¬£3,000/device), with license fees of ¬£20/patient/week, maintaining profitability. Main customers will be CCGs, or hospital departments via Innovation and Technology Payments (ITP). In keeping with the company mission, the NHS would receive preferential rates. Traction The service is currently being trialled in a multi-centre physiotherapy clinics, with a large private orthopaedic hospital and an NHS hospital in the pipeline for trials of their app based solution. This will also undergo clinical testing this autumn/winter. Their diagnostic device is undergoing development, with basic functionality to support physiotherapy already achieved. Investment raised The team has currently bootstrapped the majority of development. They have been awarded grants from Fujitsu/CAE (UK). THE BIG ASK Oxford Digital Healthcare are currently looking to raise £500,000 in Q4 2018. They are also seeking strategic partnerships in healthcare and deep-tech. Long-term vision Oxford Digital Healthcare want to transform the face of healthcare and reduce the burden of musculoskeletal disease. Within 5 years they aim to have a diagnostic and treatment machine for a range of joint diseases, and be the gold standard, worldwide, for diagnosis and management of musculoskeletal diseases.
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EcoSync “On a mission to reduce the carbon footprint of large organisations and institutions.” www.ecosync.energy
EcoSync optimises buildings’ performance, and reduces their energy consumption by software-hardware integration while addressing the 3 issues of pollution, cost and wasted energy. EcoSync is a (patent pending) cloud-based platform synchronising the existing building technology. It harvests occupancy data from the room booking system and sensors, and controls heating with retrofitting hardware (IoT technology). This way the system finds empty rooms and heats only the occupied areas, saving 40% on the energy bills.
The Problem: Large organisations spend millions of pounds on their energy bills and create tonnes of CO2. Meanwhile, 70% of their heated rooms are empty, and 40% of the energy is wasted. Currently, 39% of our energy consumption (and CO2 emission) is from heating buildings, and this is expected to reach 50% by 2030. Large commercial buildings have 70% of their rooms empty but heated, increasing their energy bills significantly. Current practices within large buildings only allow consumers/tenants to have either full or no control of the room temperature, leading to discomfort and further energy wasting practices such as opening windows in overheated areas. Excess energy use also has an impact on a building’s energy rating, which can often lead to financial penalties for the owning/managing organisation.
The EcoSync Team Dr Zsuzsa Mayer - Co-founder & CEO Zsuzsa is a chartered engineer and scientist with an MSc in chemical engineering (2008) and a PhD in renewable energy (Birmingham, UK, 2012). She also holds several patents on biofuel production. She has 10+ years of R+D experience. Prior to founding EcoSync (2018), she was also the youngest (and first woman) laboratory manager of Oxford University. Yoav Gross - Co-founder & COO Yoav studied Environmental Change and Management (MSc) at the University of Oxford as a Frost Scholar and Rivka Carmi Scholar. Prior to his studies in Oxford, Yoav led technology development at the Elite Technology Unit of the Israeli Intelligence Force. Greg Cziva - CTO Greg Cziva has two Masters degrees in computer science (app and web development), and 8 years of industrial (IoT) development experience.
The Solution EcoSync helps building facilities managers control heating from one central location/device, using a combination of hardware and software. EcoSync is cloud based, and their technology is easy to install. Their platform allows existing building technologies to synchronise and communicate, identifying empty rooms to create responsive heated zones, and promoting more efficient use of heating. Comfort levels in the occupied areas are increased, while the energy consumption of the buildings is significantly reduced – in some cases by up to 40%. EcoSync also harvests information from room booking systems, dynamically updating and crosschecking with data from occupancy detection technologies. They then use the information to adjust the temperature of the rooms by controlling the individual radiators through smart valves and IoT technology, and provide additional data on the consumer behaviours and utility of the building. 11
Competitor landscape Competitors in the B2C market include Nest, EvoHome and other products, but those are only suitable for smaller, domestic buildings, with a maximum of 10-15 rooms. They are also not compatible with the network security of a commercial building, and they lack the capacity to control heating systems: domestic systems control the temperature settings of the boiler, EcoSync’s solution controls the flow of hot water in pipes. In this way, Ecosync’s system is suitable for any boilers, even those that are older and need to be controlled manually. EcoSync is the only smart heating technology company that is currently suitable for commercial buildings and that can provide data analytics around the building energy utility. As a result, they are focusing on large energy consumers, e.g. higher education institutions and commercial office buildings, where it is crucial to use occupancy detection and to predict occupancy to build an effective smart heating system. EcoSync does this without installing expensive sensors, detectors or hardware. Their technology is patent pending.
Revenue
model
EcoSync's revenue comes from two sources: (i) initial hardware purchase and installation/configuration of EcoSync’s retrofitted heating control technology, followed by (ii) an annual subscription to their platform, which provides full data analytics and includes an annual maintenance contract servicing the buildings. EcoSync are also testing a "Mobile plan" model, that would allow customers to choose subscription only and leasing (not buying) the hardware parts of the system.
Traction The team of EcoSync has made enormous progress during the last 12 months. With minimal (pre-seed) investment received in August 2017, plus small grants (Low Carbon Hub, Social Enterprise Award, Thames Valley Tech Award) the team has developed a prototype, set up their MVP (Exeter College, University of Oxford), and secured their first paying customer (a 3-story accommodation building, set up and managed by EcoSync since early 2018).
Investment raised as at September 2018 Equity free grants and funds: 1. Private, New York-based hotel developer - £20k 2. Low Carbon Hub research grant - £22k 3. Social Enterprise Award - £2.5k
THE BIG ASK EcoSync are currently looking for investment of £500k, which they calculate will give them a 12-18 months of runway. They are also keen to find additional advisors who understand the sector, the specific markets that could be a good fit for this technology, and who can connect them to potential clients and open more doors for their service. They are also looking for mentors to help them as they advance and scale.
Long term vision: EcoSync want to be Europe’s primary energy-saving technology system for all older commercial buildings. Their vision is for their solution to facilitate a significant reduction in carbon emissions all across Europe.
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Boresha "Digitizing food supply chains. Unlocking finance for agriculture.” www.boresha.tech
Boresha offers a user-friendly digital tool for East African farmers, traders, and processors to manage their supply chain while providing real-time alerts and business intelligence reports. Through client profiling and partnerships, the service connects farmers with goods and financial services at prices that are a best fit for each client’s needs.
The Boresha Team
Problem The milk industry represents ¬£5 Billion of East Africa’s booming economy, yet farmers, traders, and processors are severely restrained by poor information management. Without structured records, these agribusinesses lack business intelligence, and struggle to access essential equipment, inputs, and credit. Meanwhile, retailers and banks struggle to profile and engage this enormous base of customers. Traders track the milk they purchase in disorganized paper ledgers, often not understanding why they suffer losses or large decreases in supply, while feed retailers, agri-vets, and lenders struggle to find new customers, despite growing demand.
Solution Boresha provides an extremely simple app to track produce along agricultural supply chains. This lightweight Android application is tailor-made specifically for East Africa’s dairy sector, and provides clients with business intelligence and daily alerts. The tool mimics the prevailing system of paper-based record keeping, so the intuitive user training takes only a few hours. With minimal delay, detailed reports of supply trends can be delivered directly to clients’ mobile devices. As Boresha profiles the traders they work with, and learns more about their business needs, they have the capacity to connect them to goods and financial services at competitive rates.
Competitor landscape
James Thorogood, Founder and CEO (Green Templeton College) James is an engineer and Rhodes Scholar at Green Templeton College, with experience in Kenya's dairy sector. He is currently finishing an MSc in the school of geography, studying the impacts of climatic variability on agricultural supply chains. He has significant experience selling supply chain management software in East Africa. Sahabu Gateja, Country Director, Uganda Sahabu has 10+ years of experience building and managing milk trading businesses in East Africa. He was also instrumental in building the networks of farmers and traders which Boresha is targeting in Phase I of its roll out. Louis Slade, Director of Business Development (Wolffson College) Louis is reading an MPhil in International Development, and has previously led corporate engagement efforts for SparkNews, a large social enterprise in France. Louis has conducted research around agricultural supply chains in Malawi and Uganda. Andrew Mamawi, Software Developer Andrew is an Android and web developer with a Software Engineering degree from East Africa's top university. With 3 years of full-stack developer experience and project management, Andrew leads rapid prototyping for our pilot clients.
The only direct competitor is a UN-funded project, Emata, providing a similar solution for dairy cooperatives. However, despite receiving $500,000 worth of grant funding over the last year, they have not moved beyond the pilot phase, and nor do they have Boresha’s uptake and waiting list of clients. Like other software companies in this market, Emata prioritizes technology over service, and adoption is very low. Conversely, Boresha supports users throughout their adoption of their platform, and through their strong field presence, they provides hands-on support including training, regular visits and phone calls. This ensures successful customer acquisition and appeals to a customer segment which places value on trust and personal relationships. As they rapidly expand their network, 13
we plan to build a defensible advantage by linking clients to discounts and opportunities through exclusive partnerships with retailers and lenders. Other competitors are earlystage and operate in different geographies and verticals.
Revenue model Boresha has two main sources of revenue: - SaaS subscriptions - Commission-based model on services sold on behalf of third party suppliers. Boresha’s farmer, trader, and processor clients pay a monthly subscription fee totalling 1% of their revenue to use the software and receive alerts and reporting. Boresha’s retail, banking, and nonprofit partners can also subscribe to an observer platform to identify customers, monitor loan recipients or beneficiaries, and appraise borrowers. Boresha then charges commissions on sales and loans that they facilitate.
Traction In July 2018, Boresha carried out paid pilot testing of their data entry tool for one month with two clients. They ended the pilots at the beginning of August and are now using data collected from those pilots to build an improved product and service model. They are currently working with a network of Uganda’s top 40 traders to identify five lead clients for a product rollout in early October 2018. Boresha have also partnered with two of the largest dairy farming and trading networks in Uganda who are actively providing details about their businesses and feedback on their systems. They also have requests from additional national dairy networks in East Africa and across different agricultural verticals. They have also developed a significant interest from banks, NGO’s and services companies surrounding their data and network.
Investment raised They have raised £20,000 in grant funding, as winner of the Skoll Venture Awards in 2018.
THE BIG ASK Boresha is seeking advisors or introductions that will support their strategy in these areas: i) Developing marketplace and network effects with a mobile and web platform ii) International food supply chains (coffee, tea, cocoa, vegetables through multinationals such as Unilever, Starbucks, Tesco, etc.) Our target seed fundraise is £400,000 in the form of Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFE), which do not require valuation at this stage.
Long-term vision Boresha’s long-term vision is to be the largest virtual marketplace in African agriculture. Within three years they expect to have scaled to every country in East Africa, covering all major commodities including coffee, tea, and cocoa, and serving as the primary channel for retail and investment on the continent. From then, they will begin managing money on their platform, offering a payments service alongside working capital loans, asset investments, and insurance from Boresha’s balance sheet. The economic impacts will be significant, generating growth across a range of sectors and significantly improving the economic opportunities of smallholder farmers and agri-business owners. The social impact will be widespread, with increased investment in rural communities, improved access to services such as education and healthcare, as well as improved food security and farmer resiliency.
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PodHealth
"Introducing a more predictive and proactive approach to personal health" www.podhealth.co.uk @PodHealthUK
The Pod Health Team
Pod Health is pioneering a prevention-led approach to healthcare that gives people greater control over their well-being and optimism about their future. They provide users with their own Health Advisor supported by Artificial Intelligence, using advanced statistics to predict disease development and help them avoid becoming unwell.
The Problem The way in which people currently manage their health and wellness is fundamentally flawed. While increasingly sophisticated diagnosis and treatment models and methods are being developed, a different approach to care is needed that prioritises prevention over cure, identifying and addressing risks before patients are affected and disease occurs.
The Solution The Pod Health solution provides patients with their own ecosystem of knowledge, support and guidance to enable them to monitor and manage their health. It combines the expertise of a strong network of qualified healthcare professionals with best-in-class Artificial Intelligence to provide comprehensive and highly-personalized tracking, analysis and advice on a wide range of health issues.
Competitor landscape
Dr Zeeshan Akhtar (CEO) Zee has been on the NHS front line for over 11 years. He has a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Physiology from Oxford, and is MRCS (England). He is an abdominal surgeon and scientist, with a specialist interest in organ Transplantation. He has received numerous awards for his research including from the Royal College of Surgeons and the Medical Research Council. Dr Antony Malloy (Medicine) Tony is an experienced primary care physician with a passion for innovation and advancement in primary care and health more widely. An Oxford medical graduate and GP, he has worked at the front-line of the NHS for over 11 years, and has experience in integration of new technologies into medicine. Dr Rafik Salama (Technology) Rafik is former lead data scientist of Energy Systems Catapult and is a physicist and computer scientist by background. He has worked closely with Zee in the Welcome Trust for Human Genetics for over 5 years.
There are a number of med-tech companies that operate AI-based GP services such as Babylon Health and symptom checkers such as Ada. There are also online medical services and blood based diagnostic services such as Thriva and Medichecks. However, no competitor currently offers the blend of predictive medicine, personalized service, comprehensive tracking and expertise that Pod Health is offering.
Dr Danae Maragouthakis (Business Development and Doctor) Danae has a Masters degree in Public Health, with a specialist interest in epidemiology and biostatistics. Having transferred from the US, Danae has spent over 3 years working on the NHS front line, mainly in Emergency Medicine.
Revenue model
Tim Gosman (Brand and Marketing) Tim is former Strategy Director of Brand union and has 15-years’ professional branding and marketing experience. He has worked extensively in the health and tech spaces in both the UK and US, and enjoys the challenge of making companies stand out in complex categories.
The Pod Health revenue model focuses on a subscription-based app service, with additional revenue streams from the sales of diagnostics and testing kits. The client focus is predominantly B2B, with a future strategy to move into B2C. Businesses with large budgets to maintain the health of their staff and improve staff retention will be a primary target. With the
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partnerships they are developing, Pod Health will leverage their relationship with the NHS to have a greater focus on B2C over the next 1-2 years.
Traction Pod Health has established contracts with a number of businesses in London including a large technology firm and a number of co-working spaces. They have also established partnerships with some of the leading gyms in London to offer our services. Since their launch in April 2018, Pod Health are changing the lives of the hundreds of people who have downloaded the app and joined the service.
Investment raised Pod Health has ÂŁ500K investment from an angel investor who is passionate about disrupting the healthcare space.
THE BIG ASK Pod Health are currently seeking to connect with industry influencers, leaders and investors who are interested in joining their journey.
Long-term vision To make a disruptive med-tech company that tackles healthcare in a new way, focusing on preventive medicine and combining clinical knowledge with AI. Pod Health aims to give its users the ability to live to over 100 good quality years, and intends to become the gold standard ecosystem for healthcare delivery in the UK, Europe and US.
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Metronome “We make it cheaper and more efficient to scale and balance a renewable grid via unique demandside response technology.” www.metronome.energy
Metronome is an energy intelligence company that aims to be the world’s largest green energy supplier. The company has developed a combination of hardware and software solutions for farmers to manage energy usage in real-time, avoiding use when electricity is expensive or carbon intensive. Their solution also matches use to on-site generation, running equipment when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
The Problem Both Solar and Wind energy are powered by the weather, but of course, weather in the UK is unreliable at best. To solve this we need storage – LOTs of it, and more than the grid can currently provide. The grid is hanging together by a thread, and it isn’t scalable, meaning that currently there are huge inefficiencies in energy production and usage. By using digital technology we can bring the grid and its management into the 21st century, reducing the cost for all.
The Solution Metronome is building the world’s largest thermal battery, using existing cold storage facilities on farms across the UK. Metronome’s technology and scalable platform puts farmers in control, by turning existing cold storage units into giant batteries through their unique technology, using sensors that they optimise for the process, the farm, and the whole network. By storing energy in innovative ways and using clever predictive models, Metronome can shift their consumption to reduce the amount of energy they have to buy, and make it quicker and far more cost-effective for farmers.
Competitor landscape While energy providers, DSR companies, renewables and energy management companies are all in the mix, nobody else is directly addressing the issue.
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The Metronome Team Josh Burton – CEO Josh holds a degree in Engineering Science from Oxford University. He project managed the installation of 1.8MW of solar over 20+ separate sites on his family farm from 2009-2012. In 2013 he designed and installed a 500kW plug flow anaerobic digester which runs over 8000hrs a year. He joined CTO Daryl at pitop, a London based start-up, where they were employees 1&2. They helped this company grow to a c.£80m valuation (as Lead Engineer and Head of Software respectively) with 6 successful hardware production lines before starting Metronome. Daryl Rodrigo - CTO Daryl graduated from the University of Southampton with a Masters in Electronic Engineering, obtaining a first class degree and winning the Captec Prize for an Entrepreneurial Industrial Innovation project focused on IoT. He joined pi-top as their lead software engineer, building out the software and product team and eventually rising to Vice President, helping pi-top towards its mission of empowering young learners. Zsolt Gaspar - Hardware Zsolt is a highly experienced embedded engineer with 13 years experience developing hardware/firmware. He has extensive experience with TI and ARM processors in low powered wireless environments for the consumer, medical and safety markets.
Revenue model The Metronome business model is B2B, where the clients are farmers. Metronome charges a monthly subscription fee, but the bulk of the financial movement is to the farmers. By reframing energy contracts and helping National Grid, Metronome gets paid, and splits this down the middle with the farmer, creating a new revenue stream for them.
Traction Metronome currently have a sales pipeline of over 50 farmers, with predicted revenue of £300k in year one. They are focusing on meeting supply and refining product.
THE BIG ASK Metronome are currently seeking a £50k investment to enable them to close off a £300k seed round.
Long-term vision Metronome want to be the world’s largest green energy supplier, and to reduce the price of electricity to all consumers in the UK by effectively managing renewables. They also intend to explore expansion into the electric vehicles and air conditioning markets.
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Veratrak “Increasing visibility, trust and efficiency between supply chain companies.” www.veratrak.com
Veratrak is a document collaboration and workflow management platform that allows pharmaceutical supply chain companies to communicate sensitive documents and work together with greater efficiency, security, and auditability.
The Problem Efficient pharmaceutical supply chains are essential for delivering high quality and cost-effective healthcare. Currently, business-tobusiness collaboration and the sharing of documents in the pharmaceutical supply chain is done via email, with approvals being printed, signed and scanned. Email is not collaborative, which leads to delays in the supply chain, increasing working capital requirements and time to market. Companies lose sight of the security of the storage when critical sensitive docs are transferred over email. There is a lack of an audit trail, with document events spanning many inboxes. This leads to regulatory and reputational risk, as well as the opportunity for fraud.
The Solution Veratrak is a web based platform for supply chain partners to share and collaborate on critical product related documentation (i.e., artwork files, batch documentation, certificates of analysis). A Veratrak user can create a custom document workflow including sharing and approvals, and invite all relevant partners onto the platform to collaborate on that workflow. All document events, such as document uploads, sharing, and approvals are recorded on the platform and all permissioned partners can see these changes via a blockchain-backed immutable audit log.
The Veratrak Team Jason Lacombe, CEO (Co-founder) - Jason has a Bachelors (high honours) and Masters of Science degree from the University of Toronto. Upon graduation, he worked as a health economist with pharmaceutical companies and the Canadian government. This experience gave him valuable insights into the pharma and healthcare industries before starting a PhD at the University of Oxford (Hertford) in Population Health Matthew Wilson, CPO (Co-founder) Matt studied an undergraduate Physics degree and Masters in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford (New College). Matt worked for AND Digital, a digital consultancy based in London, for a couple years before cofounding Veratrak. While at AND, Matt gained experience working on a consumer healthcare blockchain project, as well as leading big product builds for large corporate enterprises. Roland Becsi, Full-stack Developer Roland earned an undergraduate degree in Engineering IT at Pollack Mihaly (Hungary). Roland has over 8 years of experience as a software engineer. He previously worked at AND Digital, where he met Matt, and also helped execute a blockchain project in the consumer healthcare space.
For example, a key activity for outsourcing packaging is the Dan Moor, Corporate Development - Dan approval and versioning of product artwork. Errors in artwork graduated from Queen’s University are the number one cause of recall in the European Union. (Canada) with a dual degree in Commerce Using the Veratrak platform, a user at the packaging provider (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts (History). can create a workspace, specifying the artwork files they need Upon graduation, Dan worked for Canada’s leading mid-market private before a packaging run can take place. They then invite the equity firm, Birch Hill Equity Partners. He other participants responsible for collaborating on this process is currently an MBA candidate at the onto the platform. All document changes such as document University of Oxford (Christ Church). uploads, sharing, and versioning is recorded on the platform, and critical changes and sign-offs are verified using an industry compliant e-signature protocol. Additionally, all document events (upload/new version/comments) are hashed and added to public blockchains. This provides an iron-clad audit trail of all 19
documentation processes, with the immutability of the blockchain, proving that the documents and audit trail information haven’t been tampered with after the fact. With Veratrak, customers can: - Extend cyber security beyond the walls of their business; - Improve efficiency, saving time and decreasing working capital; - Improve collaboration, with customers and suppliers on a shared platform giving visibility of document processes; - Iron-clad auditability for seamless regulatory compliance.
Competitor landscape There are a number of players doing document-sharing with non-blockchain solutions, but they are all sector agnostic, and as a result, are not regulatory compliant for the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical software has to be built to GAMP 5 standards in order to be regulatory compliant. Softwares such as MasterControl, Sapphire Systems and Accellion are GAMP compliant, but address other areas of pharma, such as payroll and invoicing. We believe this presents a real opportunity for Veratrak to create a moat around its product.
Revenue model Veratrak charge a one-off implementation fee to their customers for training, integrations, and recurring customer support. After the one-off fee, the platform is priced using a per-user/month model. The solution ramps up or down based on the number of users at the organisation.
Traction They have submitted formal commercial proposals for engagement with 10 companies including 4 which are in the top 15 in terms of global revenue. They have secured their first paying customer (recurring revenue) and a number of this client’s upstream big Pharmaceutical companies are using the platform, with the aim to convert 60+ of these companies into commercials by end of the year.
Investment raised Veratrak raised an initial pre-seed round in early 2018. The investment round was£175k in total led by Seedcamp and followed by Deep Tech Ventures. Both investments are structured as convertible notes at a £1.9 million pre-money valuation. Additionally, they were awarded funding by the Oxford Seed Fund (£25k) that is structured as a 10% discount share purchase at the next round valuation.
Investment seeking We are raising £1.5 million at a £6.5m pre-money valuation. We already have an offer but are interested in exploring other options to ensure that we have the right investment partner to help us grow.
THE BIG ASK We would like to raise £1.5M in funding and recruit 3 more members to join our senior advisory board.
Long term vision: Veratrak aims to capture the complete E2E value stream to give pharmaceutical companies a real time performance overview of how their supply is performing. Most importantly, they believe that their software and the additional features over time will create better outcomes for patients of the pharmaceutical industry.
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