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 to make simple, secure transactions in seconds... all free of the need for an app or payment terminal.

Thyngs' self-service platform is used by charities, retailers, publishers and re-seller partners to create new services in minutes. Thyngs’ approach is especially relevant in our corona virus world, as consumers transact via their own smartphone without needing to touch anything and socially distanced.

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.

Substantial accomplishments to date

Neil (our Founder) is a global pioneer in NFC 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 without a point-of-sale terminal.

The first adopters of our tech were charities like Royal British Legion. It is now being used by over 500 charities and can support up 18,000 charities via partnership with Charities Trust.

Thyngs is proving the cashless donation platform for 210,000 fund raising events for Macmillan's Worlds Biggest Coffee Morning, which raised £27m in 2019. 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 developing an instant Covid19-safe touch free ordering solution for UK city centres and retailers.
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 was deployed into over a million homes by Shelter, Conde Nast, Royal Mail and other during the lockdown and is now available for use in Video calls.

DIT selected Thyngs for the UK-Australia Fintech Bridge, before enabling ANZ bank to create the smart donation Daffodil and was voted by Retail Week as at top 50 global startup.

Monetisation strategy

Thyngs aggregates various payment partners including PayPal, Worldpay, Apple Pay and Google Pay. A sales commission fee is charged per transaction (2.5% for charity donations - predicted to lose £4billion due to corona virus).

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. 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 can be a low as 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 £4-5 million in late 2021 to significantly scale the business.

This smaller investment round is intended to raise enough finance to accelerate growth quickly due to the immediate market need for safe touch-free commerce. This will also significantly increase Thyngs’ ability to select the right funding partner for international scale-up.

Money raised will be used to enhance marketing, bolster sales team to more rapidly close deal, expand account management team to increase customer success so we can become the goto company for touch-free app-free commerce.

In addition, the tech team are going to be working on multiple integrations for new partners, additional functionality for our OrderMy retail solution and enhancing the platform for scale, security and data protection processes under the direction of our new Scale-up CTO, Jeremy Glenn.