We use cookies so our website works and is secure, to analyse our traffic, and to personalise content and advertisements.
By clicking "Accept all" you agree to these purposes and the sharing of your data with our trusted partners and affiliates. You can find out more and withdraw or manage your consent at any time here.
Accept all
Choose cookies
Close

Jump to:

  • Navigation
  • Content
  • Footer

NearDesk

Follow

Follow-on - Pre-emption
Ndsq

The oyster card for desks: rent desk space by the hour at various locations around the UK!

EIS

Location
GB London, United Kingdom
www.neardesk.com

Categories: Property Mixed Digital/Non-Digital B2C

Investment
sought:
£600,013
Equity
offered:
14.88%
Funded 2 Jun 2014
Investment
amount:
£1,000,012
Valuation
(pre-money):
£3,431,860
  • Idea
  • Market
  • Team
  • Updates
  • Investors 346
  • Discussion
  • Documents

Idea

Introduction

NearDesk lets users touch-in, touch-out and rent desk and meeting space by the hour at different locations around the UK. They only pay for the time they use - with a single monthly invoice for the whole company.

Cards are issued by NearDesk - and by partners who issue co-branded cards in return for commission (5% of spend for two years)

As a result of £184,500 seed funding via Seedrs, we are now live.

We are now doing this larger growth funding round. The equity percentage shown is, like all other campaigns on Seedrs, fully-diluted including a 10% option pool for staff.

1.reader

Intended impact

We want to let people work productively anywhere.

In particular, our ten-year mission is to enable a million people to work near home one day per week.

We believe workers would combine working at the office, home, coffee shops - and hot-desks.

Working near home would significantly reduce the time, stress and pollution associated with daily commuting.

Companies would be able to reduce costs by cutting empty desks whilst retaining and attracting great people (Average Central London Workstation: £12,400/year).

We believe the other benefits of our system would include:
> A hundred million hours saved commuting each year
> A less stressed, more productive work force
> More dynamic, more profitable companies
> More vibrant communities with people able to shop on their high streets
> Reduce carbon from commuting (According to research carried out by O2, 52% of their carbon emissions came from staff getting to work each day)

2.85hours

Substantial accomplishments to date

> We are now live. You can now register for a card, touch-in, touch-out at NearDesk locations around the UK and get billed the next day

> 150 locations now live on our website.

> Developed and tested the software to be easy to use. Added functionality for booking meeting rooms and monthly subscriptions to meet user demand and increase revenue per user.

> Early Partnerships live through our website include trade body "Business Centre Association", CEO network "Supperclub" and landlord "BizSpace" with over 7 million square feet.

> Key new team members include:

> Chairman (and investor) Harry Platt (previously CEO Workspace Group PLC)

> Partnerships and corporate team (start May 27th, 2014)

> Nick McCormack (previously Head of Partnerships, Tesco ClubCard)

> Michael Ambjorn (previously Head of Fellowship, RSA)

7.reception

Monetisation strategy

Members pay for their usage at rates set by the operator of the location (For example London is generally £2.50 to £10/hour with a daily cap). Now added monthly subscriptions and meeting rooms using the same revenue model.

Of that spend the breakdown is:

> 87% goes to the location
> 5% goes to the card issuer or referral partner
> 8% goes to NearDesk

In a member's first year, we keep the first £20 they spend in a location. In future years, we plan to charge members £20 per year for the card.

5.location

Use of proceeds

Funds are needed to cover salaries and developers.

Now we are live with a clear revenue model, we are focused on rolling-out out to:

More users:
> See Marketing Strategy
> Four new hires focused on user acquisition via partnerships
> Technology and tools to support this

More locations
> New hire focused on location recruitment and support
> Letting locations add/manage their own profile
> Using our demand mapping of users to focus our efforts

More usage:
> Emails and social media to encourage members to become active users and advocates

Faster development:
> Growing the development / technical support team from two to six
> In particular, creating mobile apps and specific features for partnerships

To maximise scalability and reduce the need for NearDesk to hire staff, we plan to let stakeholders (Employers, Locations and Affiliates) manage their own profiles.

6.map

Market

Target market

Initially freelancers and small companies through partnerships.

Our initial marketing strategy is to target those who belong to partner networks and attend networking events.

We find that they currently work at home which can be lonely - or pay to use coffee shops which can be less productive - and involves piles of receipts.

We believe the mass market will come from employees of larger companies working near home part of their week. According to CBRE's report "The Work Shop", Companies currently have larger offices than they need - and not everyone is able to work from home.

Commuting is not a purely London centric problem - with the national average commute being 50 minutes each way (8.5 hours per week) - most of it in cars.

10.cbre

Characteristics of target market

3.7 million people now work at home part of their week. But home working can be lonely and not suitable for all, leading to the growth of hubs and business centres to enable hot-desk working in professional shared workspaces.

There are now 2,000 business centres and at least 129 UK work hubs (up from 24 in 2008). The market is still very fragmented; the largest, best known provider has 160 UK business centres. Similar trends are happening globally.

In our opinion property is one of the largest costs for many companies – and the cost and stress of commuting artificially increase salaries commanded by talented staff. Technology now allows flexible working – combining time in the office with home, coffee-shops and flexible work hubs. With 100 million square feet empty in the UK, we believe the trend to shift from 25 year to 3 month to hourly leases will continue. UK Government plans to start hot-desking to reduce their £25bn/year property costs with an “8 desks for 10 staff” guideline.

9.whosherenow

Marketing strategy

Three areas:
1 - Partners
2 - Corporates
3 - Viral

We expect our primary customer acquisition tool to be affiliate partners with existing databases. These can be simple referrals - or co-branded cards. We can track different partners and issue different brands of card.

The incentives for a partner organisation to promote NearDesk cards are:
> To earn 5% of spend for the first two years (£100/yr for a user spending £20/week)
> To bring their network to life and drive traffic to their website by connecting their members when they are in NearDesk locations
> To get their users carrying their card. We plan to add simple tools to let these cards be used for other purposes so that more groups issue them

We plan to target large corporate accounts. Our partnership model allows partners to be rewarded for recruiting corporates as well as small companies.

We expect to increase these activities by promoting viral (refer a friend) behaviours.

4.cards

Competition strategy

The primary competitor is Regus BusinessWorld offering a network of 160 Regus locations around the UK for a single annual fee (Often given free). Because there is no marginal cost for these spaces, users tell us they are often overcrowded. Their day offices are a great offering - but some find them expensive and anonymous. Regus are just one of many operators - and we hope to offer their spaces alongside many of the 2,000 non-Regus locations in the future. We are not relying on this partnership in our planning.

There are other alternatives such as:

Working at home - Which can be great for some - but not for people without somewhere productive, with distractions such as children at home - or simply for people who find themselves less productive alone.

Coffee shops - Which are not designed to be productive for extended periods of time and involve at least one payment/receipt per visit.

Other competitors include: YourWorkspaces, LiquidSpace, HandyForWork, WorkSnug, ShareDesk, DeskNear.me
(Most of these are search sites, some offer a pre-book, pre-pay model - but none currently offer a "touch-in" or "one click reserve" service)

We hope to beat our current and future competitors through a combination of:

> Using our revenue sharing business model to partner with networks, locations and search sites
> Building better technology to give a better user experience and create loyalty
> Focusing on the UK market initially – expanding overseas from a strong base Our own experience suggests that a "pay as you go" service which does not require pre-booking or paying only for full days would be very useful - and we hope you do too.

3.cardinaction

To access the NearDesk team biographies, including current ownership

Sign up

Already have an account?

Login

To comply with financial regulations, we can only show full campaign details to registered users

To find out more

Sign up

Already have an account?

Login

To comply with financial regulations, we can only show full campaign details to registered users

To find out more

Sign up

Already have an account?

Login

To comply with financial regulations, we can only show full campaign details to registered users

To find out more

Sign up

Already have an account?

Login

To comply with financial regulations, we can only show full campaign details to registered users

To find out more

Sign up

Already have an account?

Login

To comply with financial regulations, we can only show full campaign details to registered users

Share on:

Investing carries risks, including loss of capital and illiquidity. Please read our Risk Warning before investing.

Investing involves risks, including loss of capital, illiquidity, lack of dividends and dilution, and should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. Please read the Risk Warnings before investing. Investments should only be made by investors who understand these risks. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future.

This webpage has been approved as a financial promotion by Seedrs Limited ("Seedrs"), which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. It is not intended to be a promotion of any individual investment opportunity and is not an offer to the public. The summary information provided about investment opportunities on this webpage is intended solely to demonstrate the types of investments available on the Seedrs platform, and any investment decision should be made on the basis of the full campaign. Full campaigns are available to investors who have become authorised to invest on the Seedrs platform. All investment activities take place within the United Kingdom, and any person resident outside the United Kingdom should ensure that they are not subject to any local regulations before investing.

Seedrs does not make investment recommendations to you. No communications from Seedrs, through this website or any other medium, should be construed as an investment recommendation. Further, nothing on this website shall be considered an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security to any person in any jurisdiction to whom or in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful. Seedrs does not provide legal, financial or tax advice of any kind. If you have any questions with respect to legal, financial or tax matters relevant to your interactions with Seedrs, you should consult a professional adviser.

  • About Seedrs
  • Our Team
  • Careers
  • Partnerships
  • Contact us

  • Invest
  • Raise
  • Referrals
  • Tax Relief
  • Types of Equity

  • Case Studies
  • Guides
  • Blog
  • Investor help centre
  • Entrepreneur help centre
  • Glossary
  • Feedback

  • Risk Warnings
  • Privacy Notice
  • Security
  • Terms of Service
  • Referral Fee Terms
  • Campaign Terms
  • Secondary Market Terms
  • AutoInvest Terms

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google Plus

For information about how we use your personal data please see our Privacy Notice.
Seedrs small logo

Seedrs Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (No. 550317).

© Seedrs Limited 2019. All rights reserved. Seedrs is a registered European Community trademark (No. 008771537) and registered United States service mark (No. 85423072) of Seedrs Limited, a limited company registered in England and Wales (No. 06848016), with registered office at Churchill House, 142-146 Old Street, London EC1V 9BW, United Kingdom, VAT No. GB 208 3065 32. Seedrs.com is a website owned and operated by Seedrs Limited.

Trustpilot rating
Trustpilot Stars

Trustpilot Logo

Company

  • About Seedrs
  • Our Team
  • Careers
  • Partnerships
  • Contact us

Get Started

  • Invest
  • Raise
  • Referrals
  • Tax Relief
  • Types of Equity

Learn

  • Case Studies
  • Guides
  • Blog
  • Investor help centre
  • Entrepreneur help centre
  • Glossary
  • Feedback

Legal Info

  • Risk Warnings
  • Privacy Notice
  • Security
  • Terms of Service
  • Referral Fee Terms
  • Campaign Terms
  • Secondary Market Terms
  • AutoInvest Terms

Get Social

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google Plus
For information about how we use your personal data please see our Privacy Notice.
Seedrs small logo

Seedrs Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (No. 550317).

© Seedrs Limited 2019. All rights reserved. Seedrs is a registered European Community trademark (No. 008771537) and registered United States service mark (No. 85423072) of Seedrs Limited, a limited company registered in England and Wales (No. 06848016), with registered office at Churchill House, 142-146 Old Street, London EC1V 9BW, United Kingdom, VAT No. GB 208 3065 32. Seedrs.com is a website owned and operated by Seedrs Limited.

Trustpilot rating
Trustpilot Stars

Trustpilot Logo
This business is eligible for SEIS relief - providing qualifying investors with income tax relief of 50% of their investment and certain other tax reliefs. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future. Click to learn more.
This business is eligible for EIS relief - providing qualifying investors with income tax relief of 30% of their investment and certain other tax reliefs. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future. Click to learn more.