Den

Idea

Introduction

Light switches and plug sockets have been around for over 100 years and have hardly changed since. They are extremely dated.

Although some wireless light switches and plug sockets do already exist, we've found they are all really complicated products that no one really understands how to use. Many of these have replaced the familiar rocker-switch with high-tech touch pads and buttons, making them complicated, unfamiliar and essentially not mass-market.

At Den, we're reinventing the light switch and plug socket, and we aim to wipe out the existing standard of switches around the world.

We're building products that we believe are far more intelligent than other wireless switches available, however as you can see in the photo below, our products still look and work in the exact same way an ordinary switch would - our products provide various benefits including energy saving, convenience, security and safety - see examples of use cases below (intended impact).

Intended impact

Leaving appliances on standby amounts for up to 16% of our energy bill. In the UK alone, we're wasting £1.3b in energy every year, which is enough to power almost 2.5 million homes.

- Turn off all your chosen lights and appliances before going to bed or leaving to go to work, with one simple tap.
- Monitor how much energy your lights and appliances are using in real time, making sure no energy is being wasted.
- Connect up an occupancy sensor to our switches within seconds, without the need of an electrician; so your lights will only be on when they need to be.

- Receive a notification next time you forget to turn your iron or hair straighteners off.
- Receive a notification if a loved one hasn’t been active for a worrying amount of time.
- Next time your child stumbles out of bed in the middle of the night on their way to the toilet, Den’s occupancy sensor will automatically activate your lights to keep them safe.
- Next time your smart smoke alarm detects smoke in the middle of the night, our light switches will automatically turn themselves on to guide you out of your home in safety.
- Elderly/disabled can control their light switches and plug sockets remotely, reducing the amount of movement required.

Security
- Your lights can automatically flick themselves on and off when you're away, giving off the impression your home is occupied to help prevent burglaries.
- If we detect activity or motion in the house while you're on holiday, we can send you a notification to let you know

- No more arguing over whose turn it is to turn off the light before bed
- You can reposition a switch that was previously in a hard-to-reach spot

Substantial accomplishments to date

- We recently hired Bob Watkins as Managing Director. Bob was previously CEO at Amstrad where he worked alongside Alan Sugar for 25 years - he adds a huge amount of value to Den having already successfully developed and shipped millions of products around the world

- We've commenced commercial discussions with some of the biggest retailers, homebuilders, distributors and energy companies in the UK including Argos, Amazon, Berkeley Homes, Taylor Wimpey, Maplin, British Gas, BEW Electric and Smith Bros

- We have received international publicity from the likes of Financial Times, Bloomberg TV, Sky News, BBC Radio, TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Times, Mirror, and lots more

- We've built a great team of 11 engineers and designers who've worked at companies like Google

- We've developed a fully functional range of prototypes for our initial product offering that are now nearly ready for manufacturing - we plan to begin the manufacturing process in April, with the aim of shipping products to customers in September 2017

- We currently have a patent pending in 10 countries for our switching mechanism, and have the patent granted in Saudi Arabia

- To date we've raised £1.1m in funding via Seedrs, making Den the most overfunded campaign to exist on Seedrs and making our founder Yasser Khattak the youngest to raise funds on the platform

- We were nominated for Product Of The Year by London Innovator Awards, making it into the top 5

- We've built a solid investor/advisor network, including Mark Davies who was on the founding team at Betfair, and Julian Nebreda who is the CEO of the AES Corporation Brazil.

Monetisation strategy

1) Hardware: As a manufacturing business we would generate revenues by selling our hardware (physical products).

We will be selling our products at the prices shown below:

– 1 gang light switch, RRP £30//Wholesale £17
– 2 gang light switch, RRP £35//Wholesale £19
– Single plug socket, RRP £35//Wholesale £21
– Double plug socket, RRP £40//Wholesale £23
– Occupancy Sensor, RRP £25
– Remote, RRP £20
– WiFi Hub, RRP £60

2) Subscriptions: although our iOS and Android app will initially be free, we are currently exploring the opportunities to receive a reoccurring revenue via a £1 monthly app subscription for particular features,.

3) Data: Long term, we plan to generate additional revenues by monetising the data that our products will be capturing. (Google acquired Nest, the smart thermostat for $3.2b; one of the main reasons for this was due to the data that could be captured from their thermostat).

Use of proceeds

April to August 2017
- Make final adjustments to design of UK products
- Build sales team, continue building sales pipeline
- Produce pre-production tooling
- Receive necessary certifications
- Conduct an extensive 30-home user trial
- Sign deals/confirm pre-orders with initial customers
- Produce full production tooling

September to December 2017
- Product/Marketing Launch
- Ship products to homebuilders, retail stores and electrical distributors

January to June 2018
- Aim to close £20m in Series A funding
- Complete development of our US product offering
- Build a US sales team
- Launch products in the US

2018-2020
- Look to exit via acquisition, or IPO