Ferris

Idea

Introduction

86% of people in the UK are concerned about their day-to-day living costs. Meanwhile, 350,000 tonnes of clothing goes to landfill every year. That’s not even counting furniture, toys, electronics, books or anything else.

WTF!....This makes no sense. That’s where Ferris is making a difference. We're here to make the circular economy fun and rewarding.

We’ve developed an app for giving and getting stuff for free! No haggling, no bidding, no postage and packaging, just super simple and sustainable sharing.

It takes 30 secs to post something, and less to request an item - three clicks!

Goodbye Landfill. Hello Planet.

Substantial accomplishments to date

🚀 12x user growth between Jan 2022 and Jan 2023 to over 20,000 members, with customer acquisition costs down over 50% within the same period.

💷 Early revenue generation*. 2 pilot campaigns with 2 national brands.

🤝 Paid contract signed with the Mayor of London’s office to roll out behaviour change in one of London’s first ever ultra low waste zones.

💡 Backed by greentech leaders with decades of experience in the industry.

🌍 Ferris members have shared more than 3000 items (saving CO2 estimated equivalent to half a million km of car journeys).

❤️ Saved an estimated £802k for our users. This is more important than ever during the current cost of living crisis.

🏆 Winner of £20k Climate Innovation Grant from Imperial College (the same accelerator as Earthshot prize winner Notpla).

*Based on unaudited management accounts

Monetisation strategy

We are generating early revenue via advertising in the app. In August we signed a revenue share agreement with TheGoodnet, a sustainable advertising network. The GoodNet has allowed us to get early access to many of London’s top ad agencies, and because of this we're currently replying to advertising briefs from national brands and already generated early revenue from in-app ad pilot campaigns with the likes of Holland & Barrett. TheGoodNet: "when we've been talking about Ferris to advertisers and advertising agencies we've been getting an incredibly positive reaction".

Ferris recently signed a paid contract with the Greater London Authority (Mayor of London’s Office) to roll out one of London’s first ultra low waste zones. The aim of the ultra-low waste zone is to “create a replicable model for neighbourhoods that genuinely transforms residents and business' relationship with stuff and sees wider social and economic benefits as a result."

At Ferris we aim to create a behaviour change blueprint that can be rolled out at borough level, and then ultimately at city level. We are already having discussions with another borough about how we can use our digital capabilities to change behaviour elsewhere in London. If Ferris cut waste costs by just 1%, the UK would make an annual saving of £110m.

In addition, we will also look to launch premium features in future to increase revenue per user. We plan to charge for a group of premium features e.g. additional search functionality and personalised notifications of items of interest. We will also look to charge for one off services such as waste pickup. We believe this is perfect for well worn and larger items that are hard to give away on the app.

The founders have spent 20+ years managing these revenue streams for leading companies in the UK and Europe.

Use of proceeds

Growth - we will use the same digital marketing channels that have driven an efficient return for us to date. We aim to reach over 70,000 users this year, which we believe will allow us to open up new brand and government partnerships, improve our advertising yield and create a better experience for our existing community.

Technology - we are planning to launch new features that will focus on improving app engagement and churn rates. We will also ensure that the platform is set up to support reaching over 100,000 users.

Resourcing - we aim to have the appropriate blend of people, automation and AI to support our growth and productivity. We have already increased our efficiency through new tools including Chat GPT, allowing us to stay lean and focus on our top priority actions.