GoodBox
Transforming the giving landscape with contactless solutions and more - we are GoodBox.
- Location
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Manchester,
United Kingdom
Categories: Finance & Payments Mixed Digital/Non-Digital Mixed B2B/B2C
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Investment
sought: - £2,408,418
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Equity
offered: - 23.21%
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Investment
amount: - £2,644,420
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Valuation
(pre-money): - £7,968,277
Idea
Introduction
How often do you pay with a card instead of cash? Debit Cards alone have already overtaken cash, and by 2021 only 27% of transactions will involve coins or notes. This is a major problem for charities as more than half of donations made are cash. An alternative means of giving is urgently needed.
Enter GoodBox.
GoodBox is a technology company solely focused on building solutions that effortlessly connect donors and causes. Our flagship product modernises a familiar but dated form of donating: the coin collection box.
Interest has been overwhelming. Over 180 charities, 40 museums (including 5 of the top 7), 11 hospitals and several high street brands are engaged. We are ready to transform the £9.7bn UK charity sector with the right product at the right time.
With cutting edge and purpose-built technology the charity sector can play a giant role in changing the world for those most in need.
Intended impact
As we move towards a cashless society, cash dependent charities with limited technological capabilities are in a death spiral of declining cash donations, losing both revenues and donors.
Founded in 2016 by Andrew O’Brien (CEO) and Francesca Hodgson (COO), GoodBox combines 4 crucial elements – hardware, software, payments and big data – to provide a fully integrated technology based donation solution. GoodBox allows charities to capitalise on how we technologically organise our money today.
During our trials, we found people will donate larger amounts more often when contactless is available. Our data shows an uplift of at least 20% in total funds raised by charities, while street fundraising data alone suggests a unit cost ROI of less than one day.
GoodBox is a double bottom line business that provides you, as an investor, with the opportunity to monetize this technology driven change whilst leaving a positive footprint socially, environmentally and in your community.
Substantial accomplishments to date
• Incorporated in July 2016, GoodBox secured £100,000 in seed funding, our founders dedicated themselves full-time and we began defining our systems and payment architectures.
• November 2016 - a further £500,000 of funding secured, CTO hired, development team and prototype development identified and kickstarted. Charity & museum presentations began.
• January 2017 - “Tap to Give” Trademark (owned by GoodBox) approved by UK Cards Association. Guidelines issued that all contactless fundraising in the UK should use our trademark.
• April 2017 - initial trials of our MVP units commenced. Having hired a CFO, we identified strategic payment partnerships and commenced the process of defining our strategic architecture and designing our data portal.
• Summer 2017 - our museum trials began. We are engaged with Natural History Museum and are in talks with Tate Galleries, V&A, National Portrait Gallery, and the London Transport Museum. We began beta testing our data portal, achieved FCA Registered Payment Institution status, launched our website and secured key partner agreements.
• September & October 2017 - secured Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) approval. CCO hired. £4m Debt facility agreed.
• Interest in GoodBox has continued to grow, creating a strong opportunity pipeline including 100+ charities, Co-Operative Bank, Church of England, Costa Coffee, TOPSHOP, and major hospitals. “GoodBox could be the breakthrough we have been waiting for.” - Costa Coffee Foundation.
Monetisation strategy
We believe a fair and balanced pricing model that works for both fundraisers and GoodBox is a sensible approach to this sector. We have achieved this through a simple and straightforward blend of fixed and shared success fees as set out below:
1) We charge a commission on donations collected on any GoodBox product.
2) In addition, we apply a monthly service charge to cover support and connectivity. We have found this encourages charities to seek optimal locations for their GoodBoxes and also promote their use.
3) We also plan to receive income through our mobile app and web platform which allows users to establish campaigns, build a profile around their activity and invite friends to donate.
4) Further revenue is achieved by charging for premium analytics, renting of units and creating bespoke designs.
Finally, please note that there are a number of other products in the pipeline, both physical and platform based, where we plan to apply to the same pricing model.
Use of proceeds
• Direct box costs & capex £0.39m (17%)
• Staff costs (including tech team & developers) £0.86m (35%)
• Office, warehouse & distribution costs £0.1m (5%)
• Marketing & PR costs £0.33m (14%)
• R&D costs £0.48m (20%)
• Other costs £0.24m (9%)
Total £2.407m
Please note that the Company currently has loan facility of £4m available. This has not yet been drawn down on.
Market
Target market
Our target sectors are charities, museums, religious organisations, individuals and for-profits (retailers, banks, etc) - effectively anyone relying on altruistic impulses that generate donations to benefit a cause and, in the case of for-profits, to also augment brand value. To all of the above sectors we will supply a complete cash-free suite of donation solutions, including contactless payments.
Looking at the individual target market specifically, we believe there exists an opportunity to add rich value-add services via our online platform and mobile app. Not only is the data opportunity meaningful, but GiftAiding or extracting individual tax relief will be transformed into an effortlessly simple process.
Characteristics of target market
Contactless donations are currently an underserved market in the UK. Growth of contactless in the UK is surging, showing year-on-year growth from £7.75 billion in 2015 to £22 billion in 2016.
We intend to help charities harness this growth for their own benefit. Currently, there are over 167,000 charities registered in the UK. Between them, they receive over £10 billion annually in donations. Despite the growth of cashless spending, over 58% people who donate choose to use cash, whereas 42% of general spending is currently contactless alone.
Many charities do not currently use contactless payments primarily because technology is not their key competency but also due to substandard mainstream offerings. We provide a user-friendly, end-to-end donation solution which can increase donation volumes and eliminate cash-handling costs to this substantial, untapped market.
Marketing strategy
Demand for GoodBox has well outstripped supply. Charities we have spoken to are keen to get their hands on our products while we are also seeing significant interest from retailers keen to collect donations at their checkout points. These brand relationships should also incentivise charities to join our platform. Our initial priority is to satisfy the demand that we already have.
Going forward, we plan to balance our marketing focus between a) actively sourcing new business with marketing and joiner incentives and b) leveraging our impressive existing client and management network to grow through referrals.
We also intend to start marketing ourselves directly to consumers so that our “Tap to Give” trademark becomes a well known and trusted brand. We will invest in growing our social media presence through a combination of original content, interaction with followers and paid ads, including promoting ourselves on Google Ads.
Competition strategy
We quickly realised that existing contactless payments solutions aren’t suitable for charities. They’re expensive, difficult to adjust and monitor, too complicated to set up, lack any personalised elements and suffer from poor connectivity. On top of this, they give charities no means of collecting Gift Aid, which can add 25% to their donations.
We now offer a number of unique features which include a large screen for displaying personalised campaign messages, extending battery life so that the units are suitable for a full day’s collecting, detailed analytics about amounts and locations, self-connectivity, status notifications to mobile, and offering a single point of contact for charities (something they’ve told us is incredibly important to them).
Competitors are now starting to notice that there is a huge gap in the market here, both Barclays and BT are now adapting existing products for charitable fundraising. By investing in our future we can seize true first mover advantage.