Investment in new mobile payments business

29 August 2013

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Co-founds and leads investment in new mobile payments business, Yoyo™

Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, "Innovations" or "the Group"), the leading technology commercialisation and investment group, has co-founded and is leading an initial investment in Yoyo™, the company developing a completely new smartphone application uniting customer loyalty programmes and payment. Innovations is investing £250k ($380k) and bringing in additional external investment to raise the total funding to over £780k ($1.2m).

The Yoyo™ technology platform can be used by consumers as part of a common loyalty programme with their chosen retailers, and which also accepts and processes payments through a simple, fast mobile app without the need to carry multiple loyalty cards. Retailers benefit from simpler, streamlined transactions with a reduced need to handle cash, less customer queuing and importantly, no debit or credit card charges. The Yoyo system settles accounts directly using bank transfer.

The system comprises an app that is downloaded by the consumer, and a mobile payments processing mechanism with a consumer analytics back end. This last feature allows retailers to analyse data on their customers' spending patterns and to devise more personal sales promotions via the Yoyo™ mobile app to drive revenue growth.

Yoyo™ was founded in 2013 after Alain Falys, Entrepreneur in Residence at Innovations, developed the concept and assembled an experienced team of entrepreneurs with senior-level experience at Visa, PayPal and Barclaycard, and with backgrounds in building global venture-backed businesses in financial services and online payments. Innovations also provided initial financial support whilst the opportunity was researched and planned.

Alain was co-founder of OB10, the world's largest e-invoicing business, and his team includes Dave Nicholson, co-founder of Zopa, a leading peer-to-peer lending platform, Michael Rolph, who ran merchant acquisition teams at PayPal, BarclayCard and First Data and is a strategy advisor to a number of payment companies and Daniel Maurice-Vallerey, who has developed payment solutions that are now part of some of the world's largest processing platforms. Professor Chris Hankin of Imperial College London will hold an advisory position on matters of security and individual privacy.

The initial target market for Yoyo™ is high volume, low value transaction retailers, specifically in the food and drink retail sector, where according to the UK Payment Council, combined payments by cash and card amount annually to over £2 billion. Yoyo™ will launch in autumn 2013 at Imperial College London,

where over 30 retail outlets serving 20,000 students and staff on its main London campus will accept payment through YoyoTM.

Russ Cummings, CEO of Innovations, said:

"This is a very good example of how our flexible approach of attracting entrepreneurial management such as Alain and his team - and supporting them as they develop innovative approaches - can result in the formation of an exciting young company leveraging the university relationship.

"This is a management-led, market-pull solution with significant end user benefit and a very large potential customer base. Innovations is committed to helping encourage the entrepreneurial culture in UK universities."

Alain Falys, CEO of YoyoTM added:

"There is a significant, untapped market opportunity to revolutionise the buying experience. We are delighted that Imperial Innovations has invested in YoyoTM supporting us in building the world's preferred buying method for retailers and consumers. Something that everyone thought already existed, we have actually created. We are excited about making YoyoTM the smart way to buy, get rewarded and share for everyone."

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Notes to editors

Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Innovations creates, builds and invests in pioneering university technologies addressing global problems in healthcare, energy, engineering and the environment. It combines deep understanding of science and technology with commercial acumen and strong investment expertise. Innovations acts as the Technology Transfer office for Imperial College, providing IP protection, licensing and business-building services, giving it very early access to research outputs from this leading research university. 

Innovations invests in companies based on technologies from or associated with four universities: Imperial College London, Cambridge University, Oxford University, and UCL, supported by collaborations with Cambridge Enterprise, OSEM and UCL Business. These are the UK's leading research intensive universities, measured by research income.

Innovations supports scientist-entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas by:

· leading the formation of new companies and providing facilities in the early stages

· providing significant investment and encouraging co-investment to accelerate the transition from R&D to products

· providing operational expertise

· helping to recruit high-calibre industry figures and experienced entrepreneurs as executive management and Board members

Innovations raised £140 million in January 2011. In the year to 31 July 2012, it invested £37.9 million (2011: £35.1 million) in 29 ventures, and made 11 investments in new companies. In July 2013, Innovations obtained a £30m, 12-year loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to invest in the biotech and therapeutics sectors.

In its current portfolio of around 80 companies, Innovations' assets include Cortexica, a visual search company developing products for retail and other applications including the visually enabled eBay Motors app, and Acunu, a Cambridge-associated business specialising in 'big data', with technology that enables its customers to create large, quickly accessible databases using low cost hardware.