Devon, UK based tech start-up, Powered Now, has announced the launch of its investment pitch on Crowdcube equity crowdfunding platform. Aiming to raise £350,000 from the crowd, the pitch is open to anyone interested in supporting Powered Now’s new technology. The young company will use the capital for marketing and further development of its award-winning mobile business administration apps for small firms of trades people, such as builders, plumbers and electricians.
Powered Now is described as a mobile admin application aimed at sole traders and small firms of plumbers, electricians, builders, and the like, who are mostly in the field at customers’ premises and working from vans rather than offices. These types of small companies often struggle with paperwork and payment which wastes time, and therefore money.
The app runs on iPads and iPhones (with an Android version in beta) and computerises administrative tasks including customer communication, quoting, invoicing and taking payment by card or PayPal, as well as providing help with some of the complex regulation in this space. All information is held in one place and automatically backed up to the cloud whenever there is a connection, so even if you damage or lose your device, you can download the data to the replacement.
The app was Soft-launched at The Next Web startup rally in 2013, and won best mobile app in the Microsoft Bizspark Startup Rally. The platform has already attracted over 3,000 user registrations worldwide.
“The field trade industry is one of the last to see the real benefits of the computer revolution,” says Benjamin Dyer, co-founder of Powered Now. “And this is despite the fact that there are more than 900,000 such businesses operating in the UK alone. By providing our apps to help these companies and individuals manage their paperwork we have already demonstrated that we can make them more productive and profitable.”
Self-funded to date, Powered Now is looking to raise £350,000 on Crowdcube in return for 20.59% equity. The money will both scale the already successful marketing strategy and increase the rate of product development. New functionality can be added and further apps developed to suit larger field trade firms.
The team of six are based in the UK and Hungary and have been developing the technology for the past 18 months. The equity crowdfunding offer is open for a month and will close on 31 July.
“We chose Crowdcube because it’s very accessible, being open to anyone who wants to get involved with innovative and disruptive businesses like ours,” says Chris Barling, Powered Now’s other co-founder. “We think the public will be keen on investing as lots of them use tradesmen and know, for instance, how they struggle to get quotes out quickly. The campaign will also help Powered Now get the message out through a crowd of enthusiastic ambassadors, so it’s all very exciting for us.”
Established in 2011, Powered Now was co-founded by Chris Barling (who set up Actinic in 1996) and Benjamin Dyer, a software developer and former director at Actinic (and SellerDeck). In 2013 and 2014 the company has been on the Startups 100 list of innovative young businesses.
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Powered Now – Crowdcube pitch from Powered Now on Vimeo.
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