THE FUND

REPORT
2013 - 2014

MAKE IT HAPPEN.

WELCOME
UCLe Drinkabout

The Fund belongs to the University College

London Union (UCLU) Entrepreneurs Society
(UCLe), offering small amounts of grant-like
capital along with technical and non-technical
advice.
The Fund was created by members of UCLe
during the last 2012/2013 academic year to help
UCL students start businesses.
I have written this report to condense what
happened this in the 2013/2014 academic year primarily with The Fund, but also with UCLe and
the London startup scene.
Enjoy,
Henry Moulton
UCLe Investment Director 2013-2014

SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTS
UCLe Coding & Cookies

The 2013/2014 academic year was the first year

of operation for The Fund. Using the initial
16,000 that was awarded, 6,250 has been
granted to 9 UCL student led startups.
The 2013/2014 academic year was an incredible
success for the society. The society packed out
a lecture theatre with some having to sit on the
floor to have an introduction to website
development.
This was followed up by our first Hackathon
which was organised in conjunction with Tech
Society and Enterprise Society. The final
highlight was the talk and pitching competition
done by Nathan Blecharczyk co-founder of
Airbnb.

LONDON HIGHLIGHTS
UCLe & Airbnb

Just Eat IPO'd on the London Stock

Exchange.

King, the company that made Candy Crush

IPO'd on the New York Stock Exchange.

YPlan expanded into North America and

Scotland.

GoCardless is venturing into Europe.

CityMapper expanded into both.

TransferWise crossed 1 Billion in

transactions.

UCL ALUMNI SUCCESS

Deepmind

Google acquired DeepMind for $500 million. DeepMind was a

company started in 2011 reportedly looking to create artificial
intelligence that could think for itself. DeepMind was co-founded by
UCL alumnus Demis Hassabis.
Dropbox acquired Loom for an undisclosed amount. Loom was a
photo sharing and organisation company which was YC-backed. Loom
was co-founded by UCL alumnus Jan Sanderek.
Vungle a mobile advertising startup raised a Series B round of $17
million from Google Ventures and AOL, bring Vungle's total fundraising
to $25 million. The company says 100 million people see Vungle Ads
every month. Vungle's Co-Founder and CEO is UCL alumnus Zain
Jaffer.
Adnan Ebrahim, a UCL alum who helped setup UCLe, has raised a
seed round of investment to expand CarThrottle, which he started
while at UCL as a blog/side project and is now doing 2 million unique
views monthly.
BioBean won a spot in the Founder.org competition earning them
$100,000 in funding. BioBean was started by UCL alumni Arthur Kay
and Benjamin Harrlman.
KweekWeek has launched a London-wide marketing campaign to
encourage Londoners to never be bored again. Kweekweek is an
events discovery and ticketing platfom and was co-founded by UCL
alumnus Tina Mashaalahi.

FUNDING HIGHLIGHTS
Y Combinators Startup School in London

Y Combinator's Startup School came to

London.

Within the first half of 2014, investors put

nearly $1 billion into startups based in the
UK. Source: TechCrunch

Google Ventures has setup a European

fund.

Balderton and Index raised new funds of

$305m and $550m respectively.

Seedcamp raised a new fund.

Entrepreneur First has funded student/

recent graduate startups that are valued at
$80 million and are at the forefront of
creating resources to help tech-focused
student founders.

WHAT IS THE FUND?

The Fund Launch

Startups created by UCL students are able

to apply to the The Fund and can receive
250-2000.
Theres no equity stake and theres no loan. If
your startup succeeds in applying, your
startup keeps the funding - no strings
attached.
Whatever you need, whether its for online
marketing, printing or getting the website
done, we want to help you grow your
startup. - ucle.co/investment-fund/
When applications are open, students can
apply by filling out a form that asks questions
about their startup business. The forms are
reviewed by the Investment Team and
startups are picked for interviews.
Interviews are held by the UCLe committee
and last for around 15 minutes.

HOW DID IT START?

The Fund Godfathers

Two years ago, the President Will Jones and

Vice-President Will Hines alongside Edvard
Nore wanted to reduce the barriers to entry
and help UCL students start businesses.
There hypothesis was that with many types of
businesses there is often a small amount of
capital needed to be able to test the idea and
see if it could become a viable business.
If that small amount of capital was no longer a
burden, would more people test the idea they
had in the back of their head?
So they needed to raise a micro-fund; the
first of its kind. They did this by winning
8,000 from the NACUE Innovation Fund
which was matched by UCL Advances
bringing a total of 16,000.

VALUES

Transparency: As a student society, The

Fund should be 100% transparent about how
it operates, The Fund Report and conducting
interviews that are open to all members of
the committee helps us do this acheive this
goal. By being more transparent The Fund
will be able to take feedback and
suggestions from outsiders which is crucial
while still in its infancy.
Accessibility: Any UCL student should be
able to apply to The Fund. While many
Venture Capital firms work on a referral basis,
we think that restricting The Fund to a "its
who you know" model of contact would be
disadvantageous and may result in us losing
potentially great businesses.
Show & Tell: We want to see that youre
committed and passionate about your
business. Showing us a prototype, a detailed
business plan or something that proves
youre going to be successful will add to your
credibility as a founder.

2013-2014 TEAM

Henry Moulton
Computer Science

Tristan Al-Shehab
Economics

We need a new team. If youre

interested, send Henry an email to
henry@uclentrepreneurs.com with
subjectline The Fund.

Gabriel de Messiac
Economics & Finance

m Two

PORTFOLIO
Term Two
RunTroll

Nicholas Tenhue - ICT Innovation MSc

RunTroll: A multiplayer game and running
app for Android that makes it fun to run.
Max Blanshard - BioSciences PhD
Tutor Mapper: RightMove/Zoopla for Tutoring
agencies.
Oscar Robinson - Computer Science
MakeSense: Using sensors to monitor
conditions of buildings by collecting data that
is easily tracked and analysed in the cloud.
Alex Jones - Information Management for
Business
Scholarbox: A better and more social Moodle
or Blackboard.
Kesang Ball - Information Management for
Business
Harp: Social music discovery app.

m One

PORTFOLIO
Term One
Candlewick Candles

Catalina Jugravescu - Economics

CocosOffice: Bringing Eastern European
jewellery to the West and cutting out the
middle-man.
Arya Taware - Urban Planning, Design and
Management
Real Funds: Real-Estate crowdfunding.
Nathan White - Biological Sciences
Candlewick Candles: Beautiful hand-made
luxury candles.
Sean Davey - Philosophy
Grandad's Seasoning: Authentic Caribbean
sauces and seasonings.

TESTIMONIALS
Sean Davey - Grandads Seasoning
Grandads Seasoning
Photo: Jess Winwood

Almost exactly a year ago I started Grandads

Kitchen with 100 of my student loan and a
huge enthusiasm for Caribbean food. In the
early stages we asked friends for favours, fed
people instead of paying them and
bootstrapped as much as possible. Since
receiving a generous grant from UCL
Entrepreneur Societys The Fund we have
been able to step up our game and move
forward with new products and greater
attention to detail.
From the capital received we have invested
in a graphic designer who we worked with to
create labels for our Hackney HotSauces
complimenting the traditional Caribbean
seasonings which is where Grandads Kitchen
began. The investment also contributed
towards our launch event where around 200
people joined us at Dalston Eastern Curve
Garden to hear the story so far, sample our
products and support our moving forward. To
find out more check out:
facebook.com/GrandadsKitchen

TESTIMONIALS
Alex Jones - Scholarbox

Setting up a business is a race; a race against

the competition, the market and above all the
ticking time bomb of your dwindling pot of
cash. This is why the boost that The Fund
has given Scholarbox has been vital in our
early stage development.
Scholarbox is an application which connects
teachers with their students so classes can
be run more effectively online. Our ultimate
goal is to connect every teacher and student
in the world. The support from The Fund has
brought us closer to our lofty aim by allowing
us to outsource some of our development.
We will be going live in September 2014 so
please visit: www.scholarbox.co

TESTIMONIALS
Jonny Manfield & Oscar Robinson - MakeSense
MakeSense Hardware

Were developing software and hardware for

digitizing environmental space, allowing
users to gain new insights about the areas in
which they live and work. In an industry
where products are technically complex and
ordinarily reserved for enterprise scale
customers, we are offering an adaptable
alternative which will allow homeowners and
business owners to quantify alike!
The grant received from the UCLe Fund
accelerates the rapid prototyping and
research by providing the purchasing power
required to build and deploy a minimum
viable product. Prototype hardware is
expensive and without UCLe, we would not
have had the resources to get our idea off
the ground. Were aiming to install a system
at UCL this academic year, come and see our
first smart building then!
make-sense.co.uk

STATISTICS

3:1

3 applications for every business funded.

Business that recieved follow-on funding

from UCL.

8,250

Left in the piggy bank.

Interested in sponsoring The Fund?

Send an email to
henry@uclentrepreneurs.com

GOALS

By focusing more on marketing The Fund

in UCL we want to hit 50 applications.

50

Deeper connections with UCL

Advances,Venture Capitalists and
Angels to help follow-on funding.

Find more sponsors to help The Fund

have a sustainable future.

Interested in sponsoring The Fund?

Send an email to
henry@uclentrepreneurs.com

20,000

MAKE IT HAPPEN.

designed by:

M12K
m12k.co