Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
10TH SEPTEMBER 2020
INVESTING IN LONDON’S
SUSTAINABLE TECH INNOVATORS
“London’s tech sector is the envy of cities around the world.
It makes a massive contribution to our economy and plays a crucial role in London’s
international reputation as a hub for innovation. I’m proud to launch my TechInvest events,
in partnership with the UKBAA, and to lead by example in supporting this thriving sector.
These events will showcase the fantastic creativity of these companies and will enable the
city’s tech entrepreneurs to connect with leading investors. I’m confident that by helping
them access much-needed investment they can realise their potential to grow and develop.”
#MOLtechInvest
SADIQ KHAN | Mayor of London
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
What better time to be focusing on innovation to
tackle sustainability, but during London Tech Week,
as we join with tech leaders from around the world
to celebrate the vital importance of technology and
how we can tackle some of the most pressing topics
facing us, not just here in London but globally.
With London constantly growing as a global urban hub, the
Capital has increasing challenges for sustainable growth
and effective use of its resources. To meet these growing
challenges new digital technologies are needed to offer
game-changing solutions that can significantly improve the
quality of life for all those who live, work and play in our City.
We have been delighted by the wide range of projects
put forward by leading founders from across London.
After a competitive application series, our esteemed
judging panel selected an impressive group of businesses
covering such areas as renewables, low carbon, electric
vehicles, and waste reduction to pitch to you today.
I should like to congratulate all those who made it
through to this event, and to express my thanks to all the
entrepreneurs who participated in the competition.
I would especially like to express my appreciation to our
fantastic panel of judges drawn from investment and industry:
Stephen Price, Clean Growth Fund, Susannah McClintock,
Sustainable Ventures, Saffron Myhill-Hunt, Low Carbon
Innovation Fund and Cameron Ross, Green Angel Syndicate.
As we emerge from the impact of the pandemic, we
know that sustainability is a vital area for our investment
community to back and so this event provides all of our
investors joining us today with opportunity to see some
fantastic innovators who are showcasing their technologies
and I hope that you will identify opportunities to invest
and enable these great entrepreneurs to further grow
and scale their businesses in the months ahead.
Jenny Tooth OBE
Chief Executive
UK Business Angels Association
WELCOME
On behalf of UK Business Angels Association, the trade
body for angel and early stage investing, we are delighted to be
partnering with the Mayor of London to present our 14th TechInvest
event in the series. I would like to start by thanking the Mayor of London,
Sadiq Khan, for his vision in instigating this exciting four-year initiative
and also to the GLA for their support with these investor showcase events.
The information contained within this document is not intended to constitute a financial promotion for the purposes of Section 21 of the
Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Financial Promotion Order 2005 and does not amount to a personal recommendation
or advice on the merits of the deal. All investment decisions are made at the risk of the individual investor.
THE PITCHING BUSINESSES
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
SUSANNAH MCCLINTOCK
sustainablevdp
INVESTMENT DIRECTOR, SUSTAINABLE VENTURES
At Sustainable Ventures Susannah leads investment and accelerator activities
for early-early stage start-ups. Susannah holds more than 20 years’ experience
in start-up development and finance. Prior to Sustainable Ventures, Susannah
held cleantech finance and operations roles at Tamar Energy, where she worked on
anaerobic digestion projects, and Carbon Trust Enterprises, where she successfully
created a low carbon property fund. Susannah has also worked as a venture
capitalist for Impax Asset Management, a private equity fund dedicated to changing
resource economics, and as an International Manager at HSBC Bank Plc.
SAFFRON MYHILL-HUNT
lowcarbonfund
INNOVATION FUNDING MANAGER, LOW CARBON INNOVATION FUND
Saffron is Innovation Funding Manager at Adapt Low Carbon Group, UEA
and has worked on the Low Carbon Innovation Fund since 2012. During this
time she developed the LCIF Smaller Investments Scheme which has invested
amounts of £25k – £75k in over 25 businesses since 2014 and has played a key
role in over 90 investment rounds up to £1M. Prior to joining UEA, Saffron has
founded and is an experienced manager of SME businesses, particularly in the low
carbon consultancy, manufacturing, installation and energy service sectors.
JUDGES
STEPHEN PRICE FLinkedIn
INVESTMENT DIRECTOR, CLEAN GROWTH FUND
Stephen Price is an Investment Director at the Clean Growth Fund. He has 10 years
of experience in early stage investing and has completed investments in dozens of
companies across multiple technology domains and industry verticals, providing
hands-on support to these throughout the early stages of their development.
CAMERON ROSS
gas_investments
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, GREEN ANGEL SYNDICATE
Cam Ross co-founded, jointly ran and raised 2 rounds of Business Angel funding
for a contact centre payments business, with an exit by sale to AIM-listed Eckoh
plc. Cam is an Aeronautical Engineer by training, and has experience in creating,
commercialising and patenting new technology. He has twelve granted patents in
the fields of telecommunications, payments and customer authentication. He has a
practical ability to analyse and improve complex processes, from manufacturing to
software systems. Cam manages Technical Due Diligence for Green Angel Syndicate.
RODERICK BEER @UKBAngels
MANAGING DIRECTOR, UK BUSINESS ANGELS ASSOCIATION
Roderick’s career spans over 15 years of managing, founding and growing angel
groups and investment platforms that have collectively deployed over £100m of
equity investment in more than 500 startup and scaleup businesses. He started
his career at Beer & Partners, one of the first and largest angel groups in the UK, and
later helped form and grow a corporate finance firm as their COO. He is now the
Managing Director of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade body for angel
and early-stage investing, representing over 200 organisations and 15,000 investors
around the UK that collectively deploy over £1bn p.a. in early-stage businesses.
JENNY TOOTH OBE @UKBAngels
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, UK BUSINESS ANGELS ASSOCIATION
Jenny is CEO of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade body for angel
and early-stage investing, representing over 15,000 investors around the UK.
Jenny has over 20 years’ experience of facilitating SMEs’ access to investment,
both in the UK and internationally. Jenny is an angel investor and in her role at
UKBAA she focuses on building the angel community around the UK, connecting
investors to good deal flow and assisting entrepreneurs to attract investors.
Jenny was awarded an OBE in 2015 for services to small businesses.
SPEAKERS
#MOLtechInvest
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
Cutting-edge fault detection technology for the
next generation of smart, sustainable appliances
The white goods industry is becoming increasingly
competitive, margins are tight and there are high
business costs associated with repairs in warranty
(50% of engineer call-outs can turn out to be
unnecessary). White goods are one of the biggest
contributors to our e-waste problem. New laws
are coming to ensure white goods last longer.
In addition to real-time energy monitoring
analytics and remote control, Verv has developed
cutting-edge predictive maintenance technology
for white goods manufacturers. Verv can
locate faults that are occurring or are about to
occur, in the utmost detail, providing remote
diagnostics right down to component level.
The detailed diagnostics improve first-time-fix rates
and reduce business costs associated with repairs
in warranty. Earlier stage identification of issues
provides more opportunities to repair vs replace,
extending the life of appliances and reducing
environmental impact. The consumer experience
is enhanced with less machine downtime, and
live in-field insights open up opportunities for new
business models including product-as-a-service.
Verv has raised over £10m of investment on its
journey to date and has multiple patents to its
name. The company has gathered a wealth of
knowledge and a plethora of unique data sets
through projects in the UK, Europe, UAE and
Thailand, winning multiple awards including
Business Green’s Technology of the year award
and the Meaningful Business 100. Verv has
proven its predictive maintenance technology in
both the domestic appliance and HVAC space,
most recently through the delivery of a project
with a leading European appliance manufacturer
that demonstrated the technology’s ability to
predict a variety of faults in tumble driers. Verv is
at various stages of engagement with appliance
manufacturers that make up around 50% of the
appliances sold worldwide. Verv has also recently
been awarded a grant to further the development
of its technology to continuously monitor
appliance performance, delivering improved
safety, energy efficiency, and sustainability for
households and the white goods industry.
Funding Required:
2020: £1m (of which 500k
is secured) 2021: £3m
Funding Secured To Date:
£11m
Website:
verv.energy
Tel No:
+44 (0)800 907 0006
Name:
Maria McKavanagh
Email:
maria.m@verv.energy
@verv_energy
#MOLtechInvest
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
Giki builds digital products to help people
live more sustainably.
The problem:
People are worried about climate change but don’t
know what to do. They’re also ready for change.
Our solutions:
Giki Zero is a step by step guide to a lighter
footprint on the planet. It helps people understand,
track and reduce their carbon footprint with
personalised steps to help them plan out a
path to Net Zero. https://zero.giki.earth/.
We have a free version for individuals and a Pro
version for companies. This allows companies
to create teams, run campaigns and generate
data that can be shared with key stakeholders.
Giki Badges helps users find sustainable and
healthy products in the supermarket by rating
280,000 products on 15 different issues including:
responsible sourcing; sustainable palm oil and
carbon footprints. We analyse over 10million data
points, using over 100 proprietary algorithms, to
provide users with an easy to understand badge
about whether a product fits their values.
Since its launch in 2018 over 50,000 people
have downloaded Giki Badges and, crucially,
of the users surveyed over 80% of them have
changed a shopping decision. Information to live
more sustainably, presented at the right time
and with the right tone, can change behaviour.
We’ve been able to generate this growth thanks
to strong partnerships, for example with WWF,
and word of mouth marketing. We have received
national radio and press coverage as well as
local community support across the country.
Giki Zero launched in May 2020 and in just a few
months we’ve worked with community groups,
schools, universities and movements such as the
Youth Climate summit and UN Global Champions.
Giki Zero Pro was launched in August 2020 and
we’ve already started 4 pilots and are in discussions
with a number of large companies who want to
find a way to help their employees reach Net Zero.
Funding Required:
£450k
Funding Secured To Date:
£382,500
Website:
giki.earth
Tel No:
07765898805
Name:
James Hand
Email:
james.hand@giki.earth
#MOLtechInvest
@gikiearth
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
Circulor provides an enterprise software-as-a- service
solution that enables businesses to monitor and track
the provenance of the raw materials used in their supply
chains to drive responsible sourcing and recycling.
Manufacturers want to demonstrate that the
raw materials used in their products have been
sourced ethically and sustainably produced. The
upcoming EU Conflict Minerals Regulations requires
manufacturers to demonstrate the provenance of
materials in their supply chains. As such, responsible
sourcing and responsible recycling are now firmly
established as mainstream business issues.
Circulor empowers manufacturers to fully manage
their supply chains and demonstrate provenance
by creating an immutable record of the chain of
custody of materials, linking the end products
to their source. The system provides materials
with a unique identity (a ‘digital twin’) and
then tracks the flow of this material, even as it
changes state through processing and manufacture.
The system uses IoT and machine learning to
identify anomalies or combat fraud and identify
supply chain weaknesses to target due diligence
and compliance activity. This traceability data
also enables organisations to make informed
decisions to reduce their carbon footprint.
Circulor’s system is used by Volvo Cars and
Daimler to track the provenance of cobalt and mica
through their supply chains during the production
of electric vehicle batteries. Circulor has recently
commenced projects with a global mining company
to track CO2 emissions in their Nickel supply
chain and tracing Cobalt for a global consumer
electronics client. The company is in advanced
discussions with many other clients including a
global motorcycle manufacturing company.
Circulor has established partnerships with SGS,
the world’s leading verification, testing and
certification company and Kumi Consulting, a
supply chain consultancy. In addition, Circulor has
been selected to participate in three programmes,
the ATI Boeing Accelerator, the London and
Partners Business Growth Programme and the
Female Founders Mission to Silicon Valley.
Circulor currently has contracted Annual Recurring
Revenues of £1.3m, with a target of £1.7m
contracted ARR by Dec 2020. The customer
pipeline is global and across multiple sectors.
Funding Required:
£2m
Funding Secured To Date:
£2.65m (with a further
£850k committed)
Website:
circulor.com
Tel No:
07725063836
Name:
Veera Johnson
Email:
vj@circulor.com
@Circulor1
#MOLtechInvest
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
The intelligent control system that saves
companies 15-30% on energy costs and emissions.
Companies currently waste a lot of energy, wasting
money and causing unnecessary carbon emissions.
The obvious solution would be to automatically
switch appliances off out of hours, saving 20-30%.
But only 14% of commercial buildings
have a Building Management System. The
remaining 86% don’t have the means to
automate and manage their appliances.
They are our target market.
We have launched a wireless cloud-based
system for companies to manage their energy.
It is cost-efficient and easy to install/retrofit.
We have built an intuitive dashboard, an intelligent
software back-end and a software interface (API)
for 3rd party systems. We have also integrated
a range of wireless sensors and switches, plus
smart thermostats, car chargers and batteries.
We are now evolving our technology into a self-
learning system that supports time-of-use tariffs,
demand response and renewables balancing.
This is how we can reduce energy wastage and
bring more renewable energy on stream.
We are currently running in over 100
sites (50 paid), including bars, schools,
offices, factories and a fruit farm.
Just in early September we have been installed
in 5 regional government offices by a facility
management contractor to reduce their labour
costs and energy costs for the government.
We launched in April 2019 and have
earned £50k in revenues since, but without
much formal marketing and sales.
That’s why we now want to hire expert
salespeople to further develop our sales pipeline
and convert it into recurring revenues.
We take cybersecurity extremely seriously. We
regularly undergo expert external penetration
tests and our information security system is
audited and certified as ISO27001 compliant.
Winner, Rushlight Energy Reduction
Award 2019/2020, Commended, 2018
Business Green Technology Awards.
Funding Required:
£300k
Funding Secured To Date:
£600k
Website:
gridduck.com
Tel No:
07740023578
Name:
Gregor Hoefter
Email:
gregor@gridduck.com
@GridDuck
#MOLtechInvest
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
SharingOS provides a TurnKey Platform
for Shared Micro Mobility
Our cities are facing air pollution and congestion
problems made worse by ever increasing
deliveries of goods purchased online. Shared
micromobility and IoT fleets of vehicles can collect
valuable data for smart city implementations,
but expertise is needed. SharingOS is a leading
turnkey solution provider for shared micromobility
operators, with integrated design of hardware,
software, battery and smart IoT devices.
Over the past 3 years SharingOS and its operator
partners have launched shared micromobility
services in 30 cities across Europe, a small step in
reaching a global market forecast to be $500bn by
2030. Our operator partners use our market proven,
modular and plug-and-play solution, including:
1. A fleet of beautifully designed IoT-
enabled vehicles, ranging from kick-
scooters, bicycles, electric bicycles, electric
motorbikes, and easily extendable to small
personal electric cars or delivery robots;
2. Integrated charging solutions based
on swappable smart modular batteries
and battery vending machines, for the
most efficient connected energy;
3. All operator and consumer software and tools to
serve any size of micromobility fleet, combined with
AI to optimize charging cost and fleet management;
4. Travel route planning and user engagement data
based on location and time of day to provide user
behaviour insights in the future of personalized
city transportation and last mile deliveries.
SharingOS has raised £1.5 million in VC
investment and achieved sales of $4.5
million and 300% Y/Y growth in 2019, close
to reaching operational profitability.
The business operates in 30 cities in 10
countries. These fleets complete more than
400,000 monthly rides. The platform has over
1 million registered users with more than 14
million kilometers travelled in the past year.
Funding Required:
£3m
Funding Secured To Date:
£1.5m
Website:
sharingos.com
Tel No:
+1 703 928 5700
Name:
Terry Hsiao
Email:
i.terry.hsiao@gmail.com
@Sharing_OS
#MOLtechInvest
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
Chant Live Ltd – An Audience Interactive
Pro-Social Music Retail App
CHANT is a platform for artists and audiences
to engage directly with the climate crisis, to
participate directly in creating change, but
to do so through their passion for music.
Through engaging the artist community, CHANT
will enable fans to participate in the music of their
heroes, and in doing so they will “sing trees to
life”. CHANT will create an authentic movement:
coming out of the artistic community, with the
legacy of founder Dan Morrell and his life’s work,
CHANT is organic, real and deeply-rooted.
CHANT creates a new direct revenue
stream for artists & facilitates a new, deeper
relationship with fans. 20% of the revenue
is spent on tree planting making the music
in ‘balance’ with the environment.
CHANT will be a significant part of the
global movement to plant 1 trillion trees.
To date we have secured £130k funding. In writing,
we have support from, subject to contract: Queen,
Rolling Stones, Lily Allen, Robbie Williams.
Funding Required:
£150k
Funding Secured To Date:
£130k
Website:
chant.live
Tel No:
07798558866
Name:
Dan Morrell
Email:
dan@chant.world
#MOLtechInvest
@ChantLiveUK
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
Zeti is a digital financing platform for vehicle fleet operators
to support their switch to zero and ultra-low emission
vehicles through a pay-as-you-use model.
Traditional vehicle finance (leasing) is unfit to
support the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) by Fleet operators.
Fleet operators require finance aligned
to operational performance.
Leasing has been reliant on major
manufacturer discounts, maintenance
revenues, aggressive residual values and
fixed payments. EVs and MaaS do not offer
these traits, negatively impacting Funders.
Furthermore, Funders have been taking utilisation
risk without realising it or being rewarded for it.
Zeti is a digital financing platform for EV fleets.
Zeti deploys and manages institutional capital
on behalf of Funders; financing vehicles,
infrastructure assets and ancillary services.
Zeti’s proprietary digital platform enables
automated monthly billing of Fleets
based on actual usage: pay per mile
or kWh (similar to energy bills).
The result is: the accelerated adoption of EVs by
Fleet operators, improving cash flow and gaining
operational insight; and Funders receiving attractive
risk-adjusted returns for demonstrable ESG assets.
The MVP was developed and incubated at
Octopus Investments to prove model and market
fit, with £10m of commercial EVs financed to
date and £8m institutional capital deployed.
This in turn has led to 2,000 tonnes and
500 kg of NOx being avoided annually.
Zeti has built an investment pipeline >
£150m with no marketing spend: word of
mouth from Fleets, vehicle manufacturers,
infrastructure and ancillary suppliers.
Zeti was incorporated in May 2020 to further
develop digital platform and attract asset
multiple Funders (amicable separation from
Octopus which has no shareholding).
Zeti secured annual recurring revenues
secured from Octopus for managing its
transport investments, and has been awarded
UK Government grant funding for further
development of the digital platform.
The Zeti model was also winner of the Commercial
Fleet Awards 2019 Innovative New Product
of the Year category and finalist of ICAEW’s
global Finance for the Future Awards 2019.
Funding Required:
£1.5m to £2m
Funding Secured To Date:
£100k
Tel No:
07740639899
Name:
Dan Saunders / Ernie Richardson
Email:
investor@zeti.co.uk
#MOLtechInvest
@Zeti_transport
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
BioPaxium are a UK based technology company that
have developed a proprietary range of sustainable
eco-friendly packaging formats, that can replace and
provide a direct alternative to existing single use plastic
packaging used in various markets and applications.
Leveraging over 50 years combined sector experience,
BioPaxium has developed a sustainable food
packaging solution, initially focused on ready meals,
using a novel application of existing manufacturing
technology, and combined proprietary bio-polymer
coatings. BioPaxium’s technology solution is price
competitive with existing plastic packaging options
and is fully recyclable, compostable and meets
circular economy requirements. The technology
can expand into alternative products including
Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP), coffee
cup lids and wider premium packaging goods.
The Problem:
Ready-meals trays and single use packaging has
historically been dominated by plastic and other non-
recyclable materials. Concern and awareness of the
environmental implications of conventional plastic
food packaging is rising amongst consumers and is
being supported by legislative change. Lack of waste
management infrastructure means we are adding
more plastic waste to our landfill and even worse to
incineration facilities, which pollute the environment.
The Solution:
BioPaxium utilise proven technology for producing
tray formats for the food packaging market using
sustainable, certified starch fiber and proprietary bio-
coating formulations, which is applied to the tray using
an innovative spray gun technology (global exclusive
rights obtained) adapted from the aerospace industry.
The specific bio-coating exhibits the necessary barrier
properties and complies with food contact regulations.
BioPaxium have already received interest for our
products from two UK prospects – receiving a
purchase order from both for samples for them
to trial in-house. PCC (commercial team) are in
discussions with one of the UK prospects who have
submitted a term sheet in regard to purchasing 1 x
complete production line – this is under review.
We have exclusivity agreements in place with
our coating specialist, dry thermoforming
machinery and automated spray gun system
and an IP application for the end to end
process – complete by end of Sept 2020.
BioPaxium were pleased to win 1st place in
Wales Top Tech 50 award 2020, we were also
awarded Most Exciting Company by the Insider
2019, and named as Finalist for the Green
Start Up Award – Wales Start Up 2019.
Funding Required:
£3m
Funding Secured To Date:
£700k
Website:
biopaxium.com
Tel No:
07872 824205
Name:
Peter Davies
Email:
pete.davies@biopaxium.com
#MOLtechInvest
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
Sennen develops next generation, cloud-based
software systems to enable safer, more efficient
operation of renewable energy projects.
Sennen develops next generation, cloud-based
software systems that combine asset management
with live monitoring, data analytics and control
room systems, to enable safer, more efficient
operation of renewable energy projects
Problem
The operations and maintenance (O&M) of
offshore wind turbines presents a new challenge
in a nascent industry. Highly complex logistics and
unforgiving environments located in remote, windy
areas demand workplace practices and solutions
to help mitigate the risks and drive down costs.
The industry must be more proactive in addressing
the hazards that come with any burgeoning
industry and there is an unfulfilled requirement
to implement industry wide standards.
Solution
Sennen sees a major opportunity for its technology
to take a leading role in establishing a new
benchmark for excellence in safe and productive
operations in the sector. An offshore wind farm
typically uses multiple, separate, often generic,
software products to manage its workflow leading
to disjointed, inefficient, and cumbersome
management. Sennen is the only software provider
to centralise all key wind farm operations. By
combining these functions and site data through
configurable real-time dashboards, Sennen users
work smarter, boost production and ensure safety.
Sennen software is deployed on 3.5GW of
clean energy capacity, a footprint which is
growing exponentially. Clients include London
Array, until recently the largest offshore wind
farm in the world, and Foresight Group, a
leading investor in clean infrastructure.
In October 2019, Sennen secured financial backing
from investment firm Sustainable Ventures in its
first round of seed funding. The Sennen team
has grown quickly over the past eight months,
doubling in size to welcome several developers, a
marketing manager and a business development
director to drive brand and business growth.
Besides equity investment, Sennen has attracted
grant funding from Offshore Wind Growth
Partnership, an industry funded body mandated
to support innovative UK companies aiming
to increase the performance of the sector.
Sennen has been invited to tender for numerous
large wind farm developments in UK and Europe
that will be operational in 2021. Sennen’s turnover
exceeds £500k/annum and has seen recurring
revenues grow 600% in less than 12 months.
Funding Required:
£1.5m
Funding Secured To Date:
£400k
Website:
sennen.tech
Tel No:
07733119449
Name:
Gaby Amiel
Email:
gaby.amiel@sennen.tech
#MOLtechInvest
Fsennen-tech
The trade body for
early stage investing
PROMOTING
Raising awareness of
early stage investing
Representing over 200 member organisations and around 15,000
investors, we strive to build an effective and connected ecosystem
for angel and early stage investment across the UK.
b learn more at ukbaa.org.uk
EDUCATING
Setting the industry
standard on best practice
CONNECTING
Helping our members
develop valuable
relationships
REPRESENTING
Championing the
views and interests
of our industry
1
DEALSHARE
PLATFORM
T H E U K B A A
He l pi n g t o for m c o - i nv e st m e nt r e l a t i o nshi p s a r o u nd
d eal s i n a f r ee, o n l i n e en v i r o n m en t
Share your deal with fellow investors
to help build and close your round
A D D D E A L S
Search for deals by key criteria and
reach out to discuss details
B R O W S E D E A L S
B UKBAA.ORG.UK/MEMBER-LOG-IN
Investing in London’s Sustainable Tech Innovators
WITH THANKS
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
SUPPORTED BY