Mercia Fund Management has unveiled two SEIS seed investments of £150,000, one in smart security firm Kibbi and a second in social-driven credit checker Friendly Score.
Kibbi, which provides motion detectors, cloud-based video surveillance and an app for home security, raised an early crowdfunded round on Indiegogo and was a finalist in the British Inventor Award 2015.
Startup Bootcamp Fintech London alumnus Friendly Score uses natural language processing to build credit risk profiles of people via their social media accounts, with plans to offer this B2B to banks, mobile phone companies and other credit providers. The company says this will be of particular use to people under 30 who are yet to build up good credit history.
Mike Hayes, investment director and head of digital at MFM, said: “We are pleased to invest in Kibbi, which provides customers with an inexpensive, discreet and highly effective alternative to traditional home security systems. Kibbi is part of a fast-growing industry for the UK – The Internet of Things – a fertile ground for start-ups which was predicted by Cisco systems to be worth around £12 trillion by 2020.”
Rob Johnson, investment director and head of electronics and hardware at MFM, said: “Friendly Score has an exceptional development team who, in the five months since launch, has already signed pilots with major players. We are delighted to invest in this highly scalable company.”