Idea

Introduction

Light switches and plug sockets have been around for over 100 years and have hardly changed since. They are extremely dated.

Although some wireless light switches and plug sockets do already exist, we've found they are all really complicated products that no one really understands how to use. Many of these have replaced the familiar rocker-switch with high-tech touch pads and buttons, making them complicated, unfamiliar and essentially not mass-market.

At Den, we're reinventing the light switch and plug socket, and we aim to wipe out the existing standard of switches around the world.

We're building products that we believe are far more intelligent than other wireless switches available, however as you can see in the photo above, our products still look and work in the exact same way an ordinary switch would - our products provide various benefits including energy saving, convenience, security and safety - see examples of use cases below (intended impact).

Intended impact

Leaving appliances on standby amounts for up to 16% of our energy bill. In the UK alone, we're wasting £1.3b in energy every year, which is enough to power almost 2.5 million homes.

- Turn off all your chosen lights and appliances before going to bed or leaving to go to work, with one simple tap.
- Monitor how much energy your lights and appliances are using in real time, making sure no energy is being wasted.
- Connect up an occupancy sensor to our switches within seconds, without the need of an electrician; so your lights will only be on when they need to be.

- Receive a notification next time you forget to turn your iron or hair straighteners off.
- Receive a notification if a loved one hasn’t been active for a worrying amount of time.
- Next time your child stumbles out of bed in the middle of the night on their way to the toilet, Den’s occupancy sensor will automatically activate your lights to keep them safe.
- Elderly/disabled can control their light switches and plug sockets remotely, reducing the amount of movement required.

- Your lights can automatically flick themselves on and off when you're away, giving off the impression your home is occupied to help prevent burglaries.
- If we detect activity or motion in the house while you're on holiday, we can send you a notification to let you know

- No more arguing over whose turn it is to turn off the light before bed
- You can reposition a switch that was previously in a hard-to-reach spot
- Works with Alexa: you can use voice to command the Den products

Substantial accomplishments to date

- We recently hired Bob Watkins as CEO. Bob was previously CEO at Amstrad where he worked alongside Alan Sugar for 25 years. While under his directorship, Amstrad generated £4b+ in revenue.

- We've commenced commercial discussions with some of the biggest retailers, homebuilders, distributors and energy companies in the UK including Argos, Amazon, Berkeley Homes, Taylor Wimpey, Crest Nicholson, Maplin, British Gas, BEW Electric and Smith Bros, YESSS Electrical, CEF, Electric Centre and many more.

- We have a Granted European Patent for our unique manual/remotely operable switch. Also granted in Saudi Arabia and pending in 9 other countries.

- After 2 years of development, we've completed development for our 11 products, we've developed a smartphone app for iOS and Android and we've developed our own cloud infrastructure - all in house from scratch.

- We've partnered with a manufacturing firm in China. We began producing tooling in December 2017, conducted our engineering pilot run in January 2018 & pre-production run in February 2018. Mass production is scheduled to begin in April with products expected to be available to the public early May 2018.

- We received investment from the YESSS Group. YESSS are a major electrical wholesaler with over 100 branches across the UK and 400 across Europe.

- To date we've raised £3m+ in funding via Seedrs, making Den the most overfunded campaign to exist on Seedrs and making our founder Yasser Khattak the youngest to raise funds on the platform

- We have received international publicity from the likes of Financial Times, Bloomberg TV, Sky News, BBC Radio, TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Times, Mirror, and lots more.

- We've built a great team of 24 people who've previously worked at companies like Google and Amstrad.

- We were nominated for Product Of The Year by London Innovator Awards, making it into the top 5.

Monetisation strategy

1) Hardware: As a manufacturing business we will generate revenues by selling our hardware (physical products). We plan to sell via wholesale at 40-50% off RRP.

We will be selling our products at the prices shown below:

– 1 gang light switch, RRP £35
– 2 gang light switch, RRP £45
– Single plug socket, RRP £50
– Double plug socket, RRP £60
– Occupancy Sensor, RRP £30
– Remote, RRP £20
– WiFi Hub, RRP £60

2) Subscriptions: our iOS and Android app will be completely free for the first 6 months, we will then charge £1 per month for particular premium features.

3) Data: Long term, we plan to generate additional revenues by monetising the data that our products will be capturing. (Google acquired Nest, the smart thermostat for $3.2b; one of the main reasons for this was due to the data that could be captured from their thermostat).

Use of proceeds

April to May 18
- Mass produce Den products in China, ship to UK
- Launch marketing campaign for UK product launch
- Launch in UK, products publicly available from early May 2018

June to December 18
- Grow in the UK
- Complete development of our US product offering
- Produce tooling for US offering
- Build a US team

2019
- Launch in US