Newsletters

On the 1^st December BRAN Investments held their inaugural Investor Event at The NED in London, hosting 50+ guests on the evening.

This was a first such event for BRAN Investments in bringing together like-minded investors and our portfolio companies to network, as well as being an occasion to celebrate 5-years of BRAN Investments being an investor into early-stage growth impact ventures.

There was a great buzz in the room with lots of networking between Investors and BRAN Investments portfolio companies, as well as talks from a number of guest speakers. The Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA) provided a fascinating overview of the current Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), noting the benefits to investors and the positive impact on the UK economy; as well as an overview of proposed changes to take effect in April 2023. Dan Morris and Scott Sinfield from the portfolio company Arrive shared their experiences of starting and growing the company, including the recent sale of their in-house start-up Found. And finally, there were inspiring talks from the Goyal Family on the creation and future of BRAN Investments by Ashish and Ram Goyal.  The photo below is of the whole BRAN Investments team enjoying time together.

We aim to host a number of similar Investor Events in going forward, which includes a next such event on the 2^nd February 2023.  This event will be the culmination of the Accelerator Challenge programme that we are taking forward with the charity Allia, with the finalists of the programme pitching to investors as part of their current funding rounds.  More details of this event and programme can be found in the dedicated Allia Accelerator Challenge Update News article on our website, of which do get in touch with myself for more details of this and if you are interested in attending our future events.

Since our last newsletter in July, we have been busy working with the inspiring team at Allia on a dedicated investment programme. Allia is a charity that has been at the forefront of impact innovation since 1999, with initiatives across the UK that include housing, cleantech and social innovation.

We are pleased to inform you that after the return from the Summer Holidays, a dedicated Accelerator Challenge programme was agreed and launched to market for early stage social impact ventures looking to raise their first / next investment round.

During September and October a call for such ventures resulted in over 40+ applications, of which it was a difficult challenge selecting the finalists given the quality of applications received.

On the 14^th November 2022, 12 impact venture finalists were inaugurated into the programme.  This kick started the formal business support offering in the programme, made up of workshops and 1-2-1 sessions, helping the ventures to progress their business plans and become the famous investor ready!  Workshops undertaken so far include: (i) Challenging the Business Model; (ii) Financial Narrative & Due Diligence; (iii) Product, Growth & Roadmap; (iv) and of course a Pitch Practice!  The 1-2-1 sessions have been held with an Allia team member coach and Martin Carruthers from BRAN Investments.

We are delighted to inform you that the 12 finalists that we will be supporting over time are:

• Beanbag Health – providing accessible, high quality and evidence informed support for all eating disorders and reducing inpatient admissions.

• In Good Company – a dedicated platform to help you find the best ethical and for-good local businesses and experiences around you.
• Mind Data – a digital platform simplifying the way therapists run their business, whilst transforming the therapy experience for their clients.
• The Nature Impact – building the future nature related intelligence, supporting governments and organisations to understand and mitigate their nature-related impacts.
• Snack Gusto – an award winning ethical focused company that uses farm rejected fruits to produce delicious snacks that are healthy alternatives to the general snack market, all the while reducing food waste and improving consumer wellbeing.
• SuperFi – empowering the ‘financially squeezed’; helping them to locate, manage and reduce their debts faster.
• Telmi – a podcast creation app for kids to create mini podcasts independently, in a meaningful and safe way to unleash kids’ creativity to boost kids’ curiosity, confidence and oral communication.
• Well Fruited – the first LiquidFruit drink that nutritionally replicates eating a piece of fruit, which reduces the sugar impact and captures nutrients that are only found in the fruit.
• Plant Nourish – delivering personalised ethnicity and disease-specific solutions so that no matter who you are, what you earn or where you live, you have access to the best, most innovative care available globally today.
• New Wave Biotech – addressing the sustainability of the food industry and food security, by developing technology to help animal-free proteins scale and reach price parity with animal-derived products.
• Circular 11 – transforming plastic pollution into a material solution. They take plastic that doesn’t get recycled and turn it into low-carbon building products that are designed to last a lifetime.
• Lylo – promoting water efficiency by offering products that find new and innovative ways to reuse water.

The culmination of this programme is an Investor Demo Day on the 2nd February 2023 (4-9pm), with the chance for the finalists to pitch to a number of investors as part of their current fund-raising rounds.  After the return from the Christmas holiday period, we will therefore be working with the finalists to complete business plans and perfect their pitch for the Investor Demo Day!

More details on the Investor Demo Day can be found HERE and we will be making pro-active contact with investors whereby we believe such ventures may be of interest.  Please do also register your interest for such an event at hello@alliaimpact.co.uk

We are thrilled to announce that in September 2022, BRAN Investments became an investor into Biff’s.  Biff’s is a veg-led vegan comfort food brand, led by an award-winning management team, that have gained significant traction within the first few years of launch.

Biff’s has created an innovative range of street food-inspired products using jackfruit as its primary ingredient, offering and ‘naturally naughty’ alternative to traditional gluten and pea-based alt-meats. Its flagship product is Europe’s first commercially available vegan wing with a sugarcane “bone”.  The range also includes burgers, loaded fries and sauces.

Initially starting out in London’s vibrant street food scene, with a mission ‘to make plants taste out of this world, so we can stay in it’, Biff’s early success saw them tour the UK’s biggest festivals and open locations in Shoreditch’s Boxpark, as well as collaborating to create BrewDog’s only fully vegan bar. After scaling their production capabilities in late 2019, Biff’s branded products have gone on to appear on the menus of 1000s of foodservice providers across the UK and Scandinavia, including restaurant chain Frankie & Benny’s and Greene King pubs, and are also available via Deliveroo and Uber Eats through their delivery-only kitchens.

As a unique offering in the plant-based market, Biff’s entered UK supermarket’s in 2022.  The Biff’s Plant Shack range launched several products into around 300 Waitrose stores across the country. Sainsbury’s was next to launch in September 2022, launching several of its products in around 405 stores across the UK.  With the UK plant-based market seeing huge growth and currently worth over £3billion, this puts the company in a strong position to capitalise and expand.

Our investment coincided with the company also raising investment from the Greater London Investment Fund, providing sufficient capital for the company to capitalise on short term opportunities in retail and beyond.  This will lead to the company being in a strong trading position before undertaking a larger fund raise during 2023, to undertake further commercialisation plans.

Commenting on the investment, Ashish Goyal said “There is an ever-increasing awareness of the impact our food choices have on the environment.  Biff’s have created a unique product and brand to have a significant impact on the growing vegan products market.  The team have created a unique street food themed brand with multiple routes to market already secured.  This positions the company well for their future expansion and we are excited to be an investor at this time, helping them to realise their ambitions for the brand.  Importantly the food tastes amazing and we are excited to see new products being brought to market in due course”

The BRAN Investments portfolio company Arrive are celebrating the sale of their in-house developed product and start-up ‘Found’.

Arrive is a design and innovation agency for brands that want to play an important role in people’s changing lives.  Arrive work with founders, leaders and organisations who share their belief in the power of design and innovation and who are working to have a positive impact in the world.

In 2019 Arrive themselves took on an innovative product design project called Found.  The project was to develop a pioneering Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for the Care Sector given that research had identified that Care Homes were struggling in that:

• 68% of all care enquiries aren’t responded to by Care Homes.
• 64% of digital enquiries weren’t responded to within 48 hours.
• Shockingly, 92% of enquiries weren’t followed up within a 7-day period.

Arrive undertook the whole product design and development process in-house. Arrive report that it has been quite the adventure since the launch in 2019. Tough decisions, mistakes and breakthroughs, and lots of hard work – but a whole lot of fun, too! Found now captures more than 10,000 enquiries each month and its partners have converted between 50-70% more of their enquiries.  This has made Found relied upon by some of the UK’s best care companies to connect quicker with care seekers and improve their overall customer experience.

Given the unique service offering and traction in the market, Arrive were approached with acquisition offers for Found.  In the Summer of 2022, Arrive identified the care platform Lottie as an ideal acquirer of which a full acquisition of the service was agreed. This merger allows Lottie to leverage the pioneering CRM software. With it, care home managers gain more oversight on what’s happening and can better manage, prepare and strategies operations. It gives oversight on live bed availability, and the ability to respond to queries and track what’s going on. Its software can help care homes improve compliance, sales, and most importantly the standard of care provided.

From strategy and creative to product and service innovation, Found is not only a success story but a perfect example of the breadth of Arrive’s capabilities.  More information on the Found acquisition can be found at London-based Lottie acquires Found to confront the social care crisis and enhance the quality of elderly care | EU-Startups and the services available from Arrive can be found at Arrive – Design & Innovation for changing lives (arrivecreate.com)