⚡ How this Start-Up is Supercharging Insights with Instant Data Analysis

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 is Supercharging Data Insights
🗳 How you can use current events to show your value
📱 A design-first tool that enables non-engineers to build apps

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link to an article about Actor and Director, Olivia Wilde’s, new VC Fund.

Happy hustling,
Rich

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🏭 Start-Up Bootcamp are accepting applications for their Production and Industry Accelerator programme, with successful applicants receiving a €25,000 investment. You can apply here.

🧪 PI LABS are currently looking to back Seed - Series A stage Founders who want to take their company global and are looking for up to £3,000,000 in funding. You can pitch them here.

🌱 Seedcamp are looking to back ambitious Pre-Seed and Seed stage founders with cheques of $350,000 - $1,000,000, you can pitch them here.

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🏎 Full Stack Engineer, Carboodle
🏠 Product Manager, Flatfair
🧑‍🎨 Visual Product Designer, Tem

📦 British e-commerce fulfilment Start-Up, Hubboo, raises £45m. Sifted

🖨 Printful and Printify ink a merger deal. TechCrunch

🛸 Amazon begins delivering select products via drone in Phoenix. TechCrunch

🤖 GovGPT, British Government launches AI Chatbot for businesses. UKTN

Flare Data AI: Supercharging Insights with Instant Data Analysis

A Game-Changer for Data-Driven Teams
Flare Data AI is redefining how businesses interact with data by functioning as an AI-powered research department. By consolidating complex, scattered data from multiple spreadsheets and transforming it into actionable insights, Flare Data AI allows anyone—regardless of technical skill—to gain rapid, meaningful answers. It’s a game-changer for teams that need data fast without waiting months for an analysis team. Just ask a question, and Flare delivers insights in seconds.

The Perfect Team Connection: Co-Founders with Shared Vision
Flare’s team formed organically, starting when Magda Woods, a data scientist with entrepreneurial drive, reached out to Daniel Flatt after hearing that a finance and sustainability publication he was involved in launching might be on the market. Later, Sam Fairburn, a marketing and communications expert, joined to help steer business growth. Together, the team discovered their shared passion for solving the data bottlenecks that plague many industries, especially in fast-paced media environments.

Landing the First Big Client: Building Trust with a Strong Case Study
Flare Data AI's first major client was the Financial Times. Leveraging years of connections in the financial media sector, the Daniel knew that he wasn’t the only financial journalist struggling with quick-turnaround data insights. Delivering for the Financial Times was key to validating Flare’s business model, allowing them to showcase success and gain traction through word of mouth and appearances at conferences.

From Early Clients to Full-Scale Growth
Scaling took a unique path for Flare. Recognising that not every early method scales, they focused on automating data acquisition. By building scalable technology and integrating automated public data acquisition, they prepared for efficient scaling without needing to expand resources dramatically.

Learning Curves and Flexibility: Adapting the Vision as Needed
The founder’s advice? Stay flexible. Flare’s product has evolved in response to customer feedback, reminding the team not to be overly attached to a single vision. Similar to Matt Groening’s approach with The Simpsons, letting the product adapt and evolve has been crucial for building a solution that truly serves the clients’ needs.

Funding the Dream: Bootstrapping to Investment Readiness
Flare Data AI has been primarily bootstrapped, now drawing on its co-founders' strong networks to secure angel investment. One early client, EMAP, requested Flare’s help to build a data product, validating the MVP’s functionality and generating valuable revenue. Careful cash flow management and scenario planning helped Flare reach a sustainable point while positioning them for institutional investment.

Solving Scale Challenges: From Hands-On to Automation
Flare faced a common but tough challenge: scaling services initially built on hands-on support. They worked to make the product as autonomous as possible, reducing the need for intervention. With substantial progress made, they’ve shown they can scale within large organisations like the Financial Times and are eyeing new clients to fully automate the platform.

Lessons from the Journey: Boldly Knocking on Doors
Flare’s journey taught the team to engage widely and fearlessly—creating buzz, sparking interest, and sharing their story with everyone in their orbit. This approach built early momentum and primed potential clients to come on board when Flare was ready. Their commitment to client satisfaction set a high standard, fostering a reputation for reliability and customer care.

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 big fans of working current events into your marketing, and Calm have absolutely smashed that!

America have just gone through one of the nosiest elections in history, with the rest of the World consumed by it. For many, this has been stressful and disruptive. The feelings were exactly the same in the election 4 years ago. So, Calm decided to react and bring a sense of calm to the population of America. In 2020, whilst the Anchors for CNN were analysing the election results, there was 30 seconds of silence and an ad with the visuals above.

This was a perfect way for Calm to demonstrate their value, by using current events, to so many people who didn’t realise they needed it. How can you use current events to demonstrate the value of your business?

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

MindOne is an AI-native App builder. It is a design-first tool for non-engineers to build complex mobile and web apps. You can use AI to guide your building process or switch to manual editing in our interface at any time.

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…