Role No 1210
To apply for role click 'HERE'
With the surge in retail investors directly investing in listed companies, this creates a huge challenge for PLC’s to engage in a meaningful way. Our client has created a SaaS product designed to bring investor relations teams at publicly listed companies (PLCs) closer to everyday retail investors. They leverage Generative AI, LLMs and the latest Open Banking technology to make shareholder engagement accessible to all stakeholders and enable PLCs to directly connect with previously unknown retail .
The company has raised over £200K to date, including a successful Innovate UK grant application.
They are looking to raise an additional £100K to increase their current 12-month runway supporting working capital and development costs, to accelerate progress towards full commercialisation.
We are seeking up to three investing Non-Executive Directors with the following areas of expertise:
- Business Strategy/Growth Expert – experience with business strategy and B2B SaaS sales.
- Proven entrepreneurial expertise, ideally with a fintech or financial services background.
- Legal expertise with bringing fintech products to market.
- Strong network into PLCs and/or past experience in investor relations within PLCs.
It is expected that the role will require approximately 2 or 3 days per month – potentially more in the early stages.
The incoming Non-Executive Directors will be encouraged to become shareholders in the Company with an initial investment of £30k to £50k to align their interests with that of the existing Board Members.
Market and Opportunity:
- The Problem: PLCs are currently faced with huge challenges to connect to their retail investor base despite these investors often owning more than 25% of shares. This is a result of complex nominee share ownership structures and a lack digital support for retail investors. This problem is now becoming a compliance risk for PLCs, as regulations such as the EU’s Shareholder Rights Directive II and the UK’s Digitisation Taskforce are increasing expectations on PLCs to be connected to their retail investor base.
- Our Solution is a SaaS platform that enables PLCs to directly reach and communicate with their verified retail investors. The use of certain APIs will enable PLCs to easily overcome the complexity of nominee ownership and connect to retail investors in real time. This enables PLCs to gain valuable insights into the preferences of their retail investors, while understanding opportunities to leverage future retail investment to enhance share liquidity.
- The company’s USP lies partly in its unique databases leveraging AI and LLMS, which summarises and simplifies shareholder engagement information for retail investors, such as AGM resolutions, topics, voting and shareholder campaigns. Though its core USP is its strategic use of APIs to enable PLCs to bypass nominee structures that have hindered communication to verified retail investors in the past.
- The founding team have worked together for over a year already, winning multiple awards and bringing the product to life for launch in April 2024. All three founders have a wealth of sector relevant experience and have previously launched successful startups in the retail investor sector.
- Business Model: the company will operate on a monthly subscription model, targeted at PLCs and shareholder campaigner customers that pay a fixed fee for access to the platform and a variable fee based on retail investor connections made. First customers are being targeted within the UK, before scaling to the broader European market in the next 2-3 years.
- They are going to market in H1 2024, with their first product being launched directly to retail investors to begin onboarding. They have ensured that the product will get off the ground quickly by building relationships with shareholder networks within the UK and Europe to directly market to first users.
- The market opportunity for providing solutions for shareholder democracy is huge and remains virtually untapped in Europe. Incumbents in investor relations management, such as Computershare and Equiniti have failed to create solutions for retail investors, despite rapidly growing demand. Though solutions are evolving faster in the US, with Say Technologies exiting for $140M in 2021.
- They anticipate a robust pipeline moving forward, thanks to their unique and untapped market. Customer discovery calls have already taken place with investor relations stakeholders of major listed companies and shareholder campaigners in the UK. These are to be turned into following product launch.
Timelines:
- Nov 2023 – successful grant application and initial VC investment
- Feb-Mar 2024 – partnerships and marketing channels established
- Apr 2024 – Launch of first product iteration during proxy season
- Aug 2024 – First 5-10 pilots with PLC customers
A copy of the pitch deck will be provided to candidates who meet the criteria and on signing an NDA. No Remuneration will be paid to the incoming Non-Execs until the company is cash positive and profitable which is expected to be within 18 months.
The company is in the process of registering for EIS & SEIS tax relief with this expected to be complete in the next month.
Closing date for applications: Friday, 22nd March 2024
