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There may be a distressing absence of cereal cafes up North, but there’s a
startup scene, and it’s expanding faster than you can say ‘Winter is Coming’.
There’s a few key players of course, the rocks upon which this Northern
community is built. Hmmm Northern Rocks… that’d be a good name for a bank.
Nostrum Group. software development company, specialising in fintech /
lending platforms. A committed supporter of Dot Forge.
Dot Forge: the incubator.
In partnership with the Key Fund, The Royal Society for the Arts, and part of the
Cabinet Office's £10M Social Investment Fund.
Operating in Sheffield and Manchester, specialising in Tech Social Ventures, Dot
Forge offer a £20,000 preseed investment plus office space in Central Working,
plus all the usual incubator advantages of access to decision makers at their
commercial, tech, and third sector partners. DF run a thirteen week ‘curriculum’,
then after a nine month gestation, companies can apply for a further £500,000.
Yikes. You could buy half of Barnsley for that and still have change for a packet
of Bensons. The latest teams to benefit from Dot Forge include: Limitless Travel,
School of Code, Cathartic, Kaini Industries, Kuorum, Textocracy, Foodbank app
and Litmus
Central Working. The collaborative work space, always at the front of what’s
happening. Latest offices in Deansgate, Manchester. Home to Dot Forge
Manchester.
The Startups. How about this for a successful tech start-up that came out of
Sheffield Dot Forge last year:
PIP (Pay In Person)
A new payment method to help tackle financial exclusion; PIP allows customers
to make cash payments for online purchases. In addition to the £20k from Dot
Forge, PIP have secured an additional £200,000 in funding and are looking to
raise a further £2 million.
Ollie Walsh, Founder of PIP, shares the market
potential. “Five million people cannot or will
not shop online in the UK, 2 million of those are
financially excluded, meaning they don’t have bank
accounts, credit or debit cards.”
So how does PIP work?
At an online check out there will be the opportunity
to pay via PIP.
The shopper is then sent a bar code to their mobile
phone, or it can be printed.
They take the bar code to their local post office and
pay for their items with cash (It’s the same market as
people who pay their utility bills at the post office, or
collect pensions / benefit payments there.)
The goods are then delivered to their home.
PIP has already contracted with the UK and Irish
Post Offices as payment points and developed a
Payments Module for the Magneto website platform
which is ready to launch. They’re also in advanced
discussions with established e-commerce payment
platforms for PIP to be an option at the point of
purchase.
“The social element of this program was very
important to us” says Ollie, “as we see PIP as much
more than a tech start up, we see it as a genuine
opportunity to enfranchise people who are currently
excluded from online payments. This has great
potential in developing countries such as Kenya,
Nigeria, India and South East Asia. In Kenya for
example 90% of the population have a phone and
only 10% have a bank account.”
Disrupts reckons that’s a decent startup by any
standards, as good as any in TechStars, Mass
Challenge, or Barclays Accelerator in London.
Watch this space.
PIP. PIP. PIP.
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