Case Study: Start-up - Invested Partner

Novus helps Emoquo create a compelling investment opportunity

Emoquo is an innovative cloud-based HR 2.0 digital coaching and people analytics platform for everyone at work, providing an end-to-end solution for employee engagement and emotional resilience.

According to Gallup, 68% of employees are disengaged in the workplace. This costs the UK economy an estimated £44bn and 70 million lost days each year. The evidence is clear: improving ‘employee engagement’ at work results in reduced staff turnover, improved productivity, profitability, innovation and better business performance.

The Challenge

As for many technology start-up businesses, the challenge was how to combine an exciting product idea with a strong Management Team to create a compelling investment opportunity.

Without a completely joined-up and well-articulated investment proposition the Management Team found it difficult to attract further investment for the commercialisation of their products.

The Solution

Novus made an initial direct equity investment to support the research and development of the technology. Once the proposed product solution had been validated by a prototype product, Novus as an Invested Partner then worked with one of its funding partners, NCL Innovations to support management to produce a complete, joined-up and exciting investment proposition.

The tendency with a business start-up is to focus on just the next business funding requirement rather than developing a funding/capital strategy to deliver the complete commercialisation of the business.

Novus and NCL Innovations helped management to develop a capital strategy that was aligned to the business commercialisation and growth objectives. A well-constructed capital strategy also provided greater confidence to potential investors that the opportunity could be commercially realised.

For this seed funding round Novus and NCL introduced Emoquo and their investment opportunity to its network of angel investors and the Syndicate Room, an equity crowd funding platform for sophisticated investors.

The Outcome

Having established a strong investment proposition and robust capital strategy, Novus and NCL Innovations have successfully raised an initial £500k+ of seed capital, which included an additional direct investment from Novus.

With this seed capital, the business is now completing the product development and preparing for a commercial launch later in the year.

The Emotional Intelligence learning market in the UK & USA is worth more than $125bn and the company is already receiving significant interest from many global organisations, this is an exciting opportunity, which we are delighted to be partnering.