⚡ How this Start-Up has Changed the World of Consumer Lending

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

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
💸 How this Start-Up has changed the world of lending
🥤 How you can drop your brand new product and go viral
🤔 A tool that enables you to compare software products in seconds

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link taking you through to apply for Britains got Start-Ups’ pitch competition, which helped early stage companies raise £2.5m last year.

Happy hustling,
Rich

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🏔 14Peaks Capital have just closed a $30m fund to invest in Pre-Seed to Series A B2B SaaS Start-Ups in Europe and the US. You can work with them here.

🧠 KHP Ventures are just closing a £20m fund to give UK Mental Health Start-Ups a huge growth boost. You can meet the team and get in touch here.

🕊 Fly Ventures have just launched their 3rd fund, looking to deploy €80m into technical founders in Europe. You can get in touch with the team here.

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍🎨 Product Designer, GoCertify
📲 Product Manager, Fella Health
🧑‍💻 Full Stack Engineer, Greenspark

🏦 Start-Up associations call for the creation of a European Tibi to boost VC investments from pension funds and insurers. Sifted

🧳 United and Air Canada can now use Apple AirTags to track lost luggage. TechCrunch

📣 OpenAI-backed Speak raises $78m at $1bn valuation to help users learn languages out loud. TechCrunch

💳 Revolut boss says a UK listing is ‘not rational’ in blow to London Stock Exchange. UKTN

Credit Canary: Smarter Lending Decisions, Start to Finish
Credit Canary is a cutting-edge data platform designed to enable consumer credit lenders to make informed decisions throughout the entire loan lifecycle. From the initial lending decision to loan repayment, Credit Canary bridges the gaps in customer management, ensuring better outcomes for both lenders and borrowers.

Building the Team: A Perfect Founding Partnership
The co-founders of Credit Canary met through a professional networking group, bonded by their shared passion for transforming the credit industry. Shaun, with his background in lending, had firsthand experience lobbying for innovative tools within large organisations. Jim, meanwhile, brought deep expertise in consumer credit, offering the ideal complement to Shaun’s perspective. Together, they had insight into the challenges on both sides of the lender-consumer transaction, forming a balanced and dynamic partnership.

Landing the First Customer: Relationships and Focus
In its early days, Credit Canary relied on strong industry relationships to secure its initial customers. A critical component of their success was raising the company’s profile through thought leadership, which established credibility in the market. By maintaining a laser focus on specific customers and their needs, the team was able to identify and execute on mutually beneficial projects. These relationships proved crucial in persuading early adopters to take a chance on an untested startup.

Building the Product: Customer-Centric Development
The founders identified a major gap in the market: the lack of engagement between lenders and borrowers during the loan repayment phase. To address this, they prioritised customer feedback at every step of product development. Rather than diving headfirst into building a solution, they cultivated relationships with prospective customers to ensure the product met real needs.

This approach enabled them to secure access to valuable data and use cases. A limited free trial was offered to select partners in exchange for feedback, allowing the team to refine their product. However, the founders avoided handing out free trials indiscriminately, ensuring the partnerships remained strategic and value-driven.

Finding the First Employee: Timing and Teamwork
Credit Canary’s first hires came at a serendipitous moment. Shortly after the company raised its pre-seed round, Shaun’s previous company dissolved, allowing the team to recruit a group of highly skilled professionals who already had a strong rapport. This seamless transition gave Credit Canary a head start, with a cohesive team in place from day one.

Securing the First Investor: Leveraging Industry Networks
Much like their approach to hiring and customer acquisition, Credit Canary’s initial fundraising efforts relied on relationships. Early investors were individuals who had worked closely with the founders and were confident in their vision.

Moving into institutional funding, the team conducted thorough research on industry players, analysing cap tables and share issue statements to identify active investors in the space. Using their personal networks, they sought warm introductions to these investors, building trust and credibility before formally pitching.

Carta is a platform that helps people manage equity, build businesses and invest in the companies of tomorrow. Our mission is to unlock the power of equity ownership for more people in more places. Carta is trusted by more than 40,000 companies, over 8,000 investment funds and a million employees for cap table management, venture capital solutions and more. In the UK, we support founders who are raising money through SEIS/EIS, helping with Advance Assurance, round modelling and more. To find out more, take a look at their website, or get in touch with [email protected].

We’re so used to brands taking pictures of their products that make them look absolutely perfect, especially in the Food & Beverage industry. So, when Joe & the Juice released their ‘Just Dropped’ Campaign, it went CRAZY!

Joe & the Juice were dropping a collection of new smoothie flavours, so how did they announce this? They literally dropped them on the floor, spilled them everywhere, took photos and shared it across socials. The shock factor really took people by surprise and caused a mad rush to head to their local store and try the new flavours.

How can you disrupt the status quo when it comes to advertising your products? Instead of trying to make it look perfect, how can you shock your customers?

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

Stackfix enables you to instantly compare software prices and features. It allows you to get live prices, side-by-side comparisons and expert recommendations. Meaning no more endless reviews or sales calls.

Next week I’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up, 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 me on LinkedIn…