Yoyo closes £2.8 million seed investment round

RNS Reach

22 May 2014

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Imperial Innovations portfolio company, Yoyo, closes £2.8 million seed investment round and secures two further University customers

Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, "Innovations" or 'the Group') has completed a £2.8 million seed investment round in mobile payments and loyalty company, JustYoyo ("Yoyo"). This completes the second tranche of the round, with the first investment having been made in August 2013. Innovations has invested a total of £1.97 million in the round, with the balance made up by Firestartr and a number of angel investors.

Yoyo was founded in 2013 at Imperial Innovations by a team of highly experienced entrepreneurs including Alain Falys (Founder OB10, ex-Visa), Dave Nicholson (Founder Zopa, ex-Egg) and Michael Rolph (ex-Paypal, Barclaycard and First Data).

The company has created an app that offers a better experience for retail customers, simplifying and speeding up in-store transactions by combining payment and loyalty via one easy scan.

The app was launched earlier this year and currently handles more than 30,000 transactions per month across 32 food and drink outlets at Imperial College London. Yoyo is simultaneously announcing that it is rolling out the app across the Westminster University campus and the University of Greenwich.

Yoyo also provides a marketing platform for retailers than enables digital customer engagement in-store. Retailers gain access to a set of tools that enables them to better target their customers through loyalty rewards, offers and incentives.

Funds from the round will be used primarily to increase the number of retailers using Yoyo in-store, with a focus initially on University campuses and high street chains. Yoyo also intends to expand its partnership programme with Point of Sale software vendors and leading catering companies.

Jon Edington, Director of Technology Ventures, Imperial Innovations, said

"We have supported Yoyo since its formation and are delighted to see the progress the business has made so far at Imperial College London. Yoyo can be rolled out rapidly across University campuses, with the potential to expand rapidly from there into the wider market, and we are keen to support its experienced management team through the next steps of Yoyo's development"

Alain Falys, CEO of Yoyo, added

"Our fast early traction demonstrates that mobile payment combined with loyalty means value for retailers and convenience over cash or cards for consumers. To fulfil our global ambitions we needed the right level of capital from added value investors and that's what we have achieved with this initial round."

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Notes to editors

About Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Imperial Innovations creates, builds and invests in pioneering technologies developed from the academic research of the UK's four leading Universities. The Group supports scientists and entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas and intellectual property by leading the formation of new companies, providing facilities in the early stages, providing investment and encouraging co-investment to accelerate development, providing operational expertise and recruiting high-calibre management teams. It also runs an Incubator in London that is the initial home for many of its technology spin-outs.

Originally formed as the Technology Transfer office for Imperial College - a role it still carries out today, Innovations also invests in opportunities arising from intellectual property developed at, or associated with, Cambridge University, Oxford University and University College London. These are the top four research intensive universities in Europe with a research income of over £1.3 billion per annum.

Innovations invests in the most promising opportunities from whichever technology sector they arise, but has built particular expertise in the key sectors of: therapeutics, medtech, engineering and materials, and ICT.

Since listing in 2006, Innovations has invested a total of £160.9 million across its portfolio companies, which have raised collectively investment of over £750.0 million. Innovations' largest holding is in Circassia Pharmaceuticals, which listed on the London Stock Exchange main market in March 2014 with a market capitalisation of £581.0 million.

About Yoyo

Yoyo is creating a better customer experience via an app that simplifies payment & loyalty transactions. Founded in 2013 by a unique and highly experienced team of entrepreneurs, Alain Falys (founder OB10, ex Visa), Dave Nicholson (founder of Zopa, ex Egg) and Michael Rolph (ex PayPal, Barclaycard and First Data), Yoyo is now live in London

Users download Yoyo on the App Store or Google Play, and attach a funding method to top-up their account. Yoyo integrates into the retailer's till system and uses a unique QR-code for each transaction, which is scanned at the point of sale using a scanner. Users collect loyalty points automatically in the app and can receive offers and promotions from their favourite retailers direct into their app, thus removing the need for cash and loyalty stamp cards.