Mercia Fund Management (MFM), a leading investor in UK technology, has made SEIS investments into two innovative, digitally-focussed early stage companies. Kibbi, a smart home security system, received seed funding of £150,000, whilst Friendly Score, an online credit profiling company, also received £150,000 in seed funding. These two investments will further expand MFM’s digital portfolio.
The Kibbi, which was recently a finalist for the British Inventor Award at The Gadget Show 2015, provides an affordable alternative to traditional home security systems. It comes with a range of features, including a motion detector and high-definition camera, to visually identify an intruder and alert the occupants of the house. Further advantages include 1GB of free cloud recording, in contrast to other systems, which require a yearly subscription. Kibbi also uses “Advanced Object Profiling”, a unique combination of custom algorithms that help to discriminate between an intruder and a pet, meaning there are fewer instances of false positives.
Mike Hayes, Investment Director and Head of Digital at MFM, said:
“We are pleased to invest in Kibbi, which provides customers with an inexpensive, discreet and highly effective alternative to traditional home security systems.
“Kibbi is part of a fast-growing industry for the UK – The Internet of Things – a fertile ground for start-ups which was predicted by Cisco systems to be worth around £12 trillion by 2020.”
Founder and CEO Ronnie Nag said:
“We are grateful to MFM for this investment, which will help us move forward to larger scale manufacture of Kibbi.”
Friendly Score, which also received a £150,000 investment from MFM, is a credit profiling Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that uses a wealth of data across key social media platforms to help build credit risk profiles.
The sophisticated B2B platform, which will be provided to banks, mobile phone companies and credit service providers, uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) Technology to analyse a user’s interactions on social media to build a positive or negative rating.
The service will be particularly valuable to people aged under 30, who often have difficulty gaining credit through traditional platforms.
Rob Johnson, Investment Director and Head of Electronics & Hardware at MFM, said:
“Friendly Score has an exceptional development team who, in the five months since launch, has already signed pilots with major players. We are delighted to invest in this highly scalable company.”
Maciej Dolinksi, CEO of Friendly Score, said:
“We are very pleased to receive early stage funding from MFM, and look forward to working closely with them as we continue to grow.”