Thyngs

Idea

Introduction

Thyngs' platform enables marketers to transform any of their physical marketing assets into an instant point-of-sale.

Consumers can simply tap their smartphone on enabled products, packaging, signage or any branded thing at all to make simple, secure transactions in seconds... all free of the need for an app or expensive payment terminal.

Thyngs' self-service platform is used by charities, retailers, publishers and re-seller partners to create new services in minutes. Printers and manufacturers embed specially designed hardware, stickers or cards (thyngs) into their existing print production processes with an incremental cost of pennies.

Customers are able to measure all of the physical world interactions with their audience in real-time, showing unique insights. Thyngs show conversion rates and customer acquisition costs over 10x better than much digital marketing activity.

Wasabi, MacMillan, Warner Bros, National Geographic, Royal British Legion, Monster Energy, ANZ Bank already work with Thyngs.

Funding Round Details

Please note, that this round forms an extension of an additional £334,000 raised between June and October 2019. Share price for this raise remains the same.

Intended impact

E-commerce has a huge impact on physical world sales, but still represents less than 20% of commerce. In the circa 80% world of bricks & mortar, there is a significant need to create better engagement via smartphones at maximum point of impact. With the decline of cash & growth of Apple Pay, there is a strong opportunity to provide quick & simple cashless payments.

In the digital world, sales are predictable via cost-per-click, conversion rates and cost per acquisition. Thyngs uses the same principles but with higher conversion rates (60% vs <3%) … all driven from a brand’s own existing physical assets.

Over £5 billion in UK cash donations creates an opportunity for a simple & secure payment method with the ability to add 25% extra Gift Aid... all from a simple upgrade to any physical fundraising product.

Beyond the charity sector, the same platform & technology can also be applied to hospitality (loyalty & table ordering) and magazine publishing (subscriptions & instant purchase from ads).

Substantial accomplishments to date

Thyngs was founded in 2016 by Dr Neil Garner, a global pioneer in NFC (Near Field Communication) wallet technology, which is now commonly known as Apple Pay. Neil conceived the idea of a ‘3 tap’ payment that works exactly like contactless Apple Pay but without an expensive point-of-sale terminal.

The first adopters of our tech were Royal British Legion, RBS and Worldpay for Poppy Day in 2016. It is now being used by over 500 charities and re-sold as an option by Charity collection box manufacturers like Angal.

Thyngs recently enabled 120,000 collection boxes for Macmillan's Worlds Biggest Coffee Morning.

Our typical ROI is over 500%, with less than 21% of consumers using payment methods like Apple Pay to donate this way

Wasabi has rolled out Thyngs across all UK stores for their app-free loyalty stamp card, building a new audience of >100,000 unique customers. Thyngs is now deploying an instant purchase/table ordering solution via re-seller partners like First Payments & ePay.

Thyngs' platform is also used in the magazine publishing sector (National Geographic, Hello!, Bauer, Archant, Conde Nast, etc) via a partnership with CDS Global, a leading global distributor of magazines.

Thyngs tech is expected to be in millions of monthly magazines by the end of 2019.

Thyngs was a Tech Nation Rising Star finalist and in 1st Fintech Cohort. DIT selected Thyngs for the UK-Australia Fintech Bridge, before enabling ANZ bank to create the smart donation Daffodil!

Monetisation strategy

Thyngs aggregates various payment partners including PayPal, Worldpay, Apple Pay and Google Pay. A sales commission fee is charged per transaction (eg 2.5% for charity donations).

Customers use the platform to quickly create templated digital experiences for interactions with their physical thyngs, and then measure in real-time all of the interactions. We charge this on a monthly SAAS basis based on the number of thyngs or locations.

Printers and manufacturers can create 'thyngs' with existing printed products by using batches of our hardware stickers, chips or cards. This hardware is produced by approved suppliers including a factory in Shenzhen. Thyngs charges a margin on the hardware but will be moving towards a model where hardware is bundled free with a platform contract as the cost in mass-volume is a mere 5p each.

Thyngs works with a number of leading sector re-seller partners where the partner marks-up volume pricing and bundles with their existing products & services.

Use of proceeds

Thyngs has been working with PWC as part of their Raise programme and is actively engaging with a number of Series A VC funds with an aim to raise £3-4 million in early 2020 to significantly scale the business.

This smaller investment round is intended to raise enough finance to increase monthly recurring revenues and business KPIs to the level required by most VCs in order that Thyngs can select the right partner to work with the next stage of growth.

Money raised will be used to improve our company website, bolster sales & the account management team while focusing on significantly increasing our presence in existing sectors with the current product & platform.

In addition, the tech team are working on an integration with a new charity partner to allow any corporate fundraiser to use Thyngs for any of 18,000 charities. Thyngs is also working on a new open banking payment option ready for a first pilot for charity donations and subscription purchases by instant secure direct debit.