⚡ How this Budgeting App went from Start-Up to Exit in 4 Years

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the start-up world
📰 The biggest news stories in the start-up world
💸 How this budgeting app went from start-up to exit in 4 years
🫧 How a giant washing machine helped this company go viral
🎙️ A tool to help you create high-quality podcasts

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link to Founder + Lightning who are offering successful start-ups an investment of up to £300,000.

⚡Also, last week, we held our second Start-Up Social on a rooftop in glorious sunshine, with an incredible speaker! Thank you to the 100+ of you who came and made it such an awesome night. We’ve already filled 80% of tickets for the next event. If you want to meet other cool founders in Cardiff, and hear from a great guest speaker, then sign-up now for our Start-Up Social 3! If you’re not in Cardiff, keep your eyes on these events as we start to move them across the UK.

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🌳 Applications now OPEN for NoBa Capital’s next Future of Work Pitch Day. They’re looking for UK-based businesses with; a clear vision for global expansion at Pre-seed and seed stage (S/EIS qualifying), Tech-enabled solutions with B2B SaaS, B2B2C, or marketplace business models, Early revenue of at least £50-£200k per annum, Funding round size up to £1m.

🌊 Sixth Wave Ventures are looking to invest £100k - £200k into Founders across: Sustainability/ Impact/ DeepTech/ Decarbonisation/ Tech4Good/ Robotics/ ClimateTech/ CleanTech/ HealthTech/ MedTech.

💸 Pitchdrive Early-stage VC have just raised a €40m (Fund III) for 30 new start-up investments in Europe. Their ‘sweet-spot’ ticket size is €500k, and they’re focused on B2B saas, marketplaces, ecommerce and software-driven hardware start-ups.

📦 FSG have launched a waitlist for founders for the opportunity to pitch your start-up to angel investors.

🫎 Antler are investing $1M into idea/MVP stage Australian start-ups by the end of July.

💼 Job opportunities

🧒 Product Manager, Tiney
❔ Full Stack Engineer, Lightdash
🔧 Product Designer, Budibase

🅰️ Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Instagram and, more recently, the co-founder of personalised news app Artifact, is joining Anthropic as the company’s first chief product officer. TechCrunch

🔎 At it’s annual Google I/O 2024 developer conference on Tuesday, Google announced that Project IDX, the company’s next-gen, AI-centric browser-based development environment, is now in open beta. TechCrunch

💸 Accel has raised a new $650m fund to back early-stage companies. Sifted

🧒 Childcare start-up Tiney, which recruits, trains and supports the establishment of ‘micro-entrepreneur’ child minding businesses, has raised £7.2m. UKTN

👀 Snoop: Revolutionising Personal Finance Management

Snoop is a multi-award-winning money management app that leverages AI and Open Banking data to help users track spending, manage budgets, and save money. The app provides personalised insights and recommendations to optimise financial decisions, aiming to save each household up to £1,500 per year. It connects all your bank accounts and credit cards, giving a comprehensive view of your finances in one place. Snoop is designed for anyone looking to improve their financial health, from everyday consumers to those managing multiple financial accounts.

Capturing early users

Snoop got its start in February 2019 with initial investment from Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia. By November 2019, Snoop had secured FCA approval and completed its core technology platform. The app launched in beta in January 2020, attracting over 5,000 customers who provided valuable feedback. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Snoop accelerated its public launch to April 2020, ahead of the planned May 2020 date. This early launch aimed to help consumers manage finances during the economic uncertainty. Snoop's strategy included leveraging open banking and AI to deliver personalised financial insights, driving early user engagement and growth.

Scaling Through Reputation and Marketing

Snoop scaled its user base through a highly targeted in-app user acquisition campaign run on a cost per event model. Partnering with mobile marketing agencies, Snoop utilised platforms like AppsFlyer to drive growth across iOS and Android. The campaign began with static banner ads to build brand awareness, followed by engaging video assets to boost user interaction. This approach resulted in a 15% share of first account connections across all paid channels and a 25% month-on-month increase in first account connections, all while maintaining their target acquisition costs. Weekly syncs and data-driven optimisations were key to the campaign's success.

Leveraging the community to raise awareness and funds

In September 2020, Snoop launched a £5M convertible round on Seedrs to further their mission of helping UK households save money. The campaign exceeded expectations, raising over £10M from 1,712 investors. Key proof points in their pitch included a growing user base, strong initial investment from notable backers like Lord Brownlow’s Havisham Group and Salesforce Ventures, and positive user feedback from their beta launch.

The successful campaign was driven by a well-crafted pitch, extensive pre-registration efforts, and strategic use of social media and PR to build momentum. By leveraging their engaged community and showcasing their potential for significant household savings, Snoop not only raised substantial funds but also expanded their user base and brand visibility. This crowdfunding success played a pivotal role in accelerating their growth and scaling their operations.

What crowdfunding advice would you give other founders?

From a technical standpoint, maximise your pre-registration period to build strong momentum before your campaign officially starts. I’d advise giving your all and then some—this is a significant opportunity and a prime showcase for your business.

From start-up to exit

Launched as a start-up in early 2020, Snoop leveraged open banking and analytics to provide personalised budgeting insights, helping users to save money. With a strong customer proposition and having successfully raised enough funding to rapidly achieve a good scale, the acquisition, follows a Series A round in 2021 that valued Snoop at £47 million. The purchase by Vanquis, will allow Snoop to access their 1.7 million customers and receive additional growth capital, enhancing its mission to empower people financially. Today Snoop has over 1m users!

Are you a new founder launching a start-up? The process of getting your product launched can be long and costly, particularly for those without a technical co-founder.

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Every company has a mission, but how can you use that mission to create a viral marketing stunt? Well, the team at Canopey have done just that!

They’re on a mission to stop greenwashing and to help people buy sustainably. So, what do they do to get that mission out there? Put a giant green washing machine out on the streets of London of course!

The interesting thing here is that they’re not promoting anything Canopey branded, just bringing awareness to the overall mission. As a result of this, people who align with their mission feel a connection to the marketing stunt, thus giving them a connection to the company. This works super well as it creates a big talking point on the street, but also mean’s you’re not hard selling anything. As a result, you start to build a connected following and position yourself as thought leaders.

We’re not saying you can put a giant prop in the streets of London, but how can you use your mission to create conversations on the street?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our innovator community have recommended.

Riverside.fm is a versatile online studio tailored for creating high-quality podcasts and video content. It enables users to record, edit, and share studio-grade audio and video, irrespective of internet quality, by recording each participant locally. The platform offers a range of features powered by AI, including automatic transcriptions in over 100 languages, streamlined editing via a text-based editor, and the creation of shareable, AI-enhanced clips. Targeted at podcasters, marketers, and video creators, Riverside.fm supports an array of users from individuals to large teams.

Next week we’ll be highlighting another awesome start-up (if you want us to feature you, drop us a message), as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.

P.S. Connect with us on LinkedIn…