We Build Bots

Idea

Introduction

WBB is a GovTech company, creating multi-award winning, AI-Powered automation software for the public sector. Our core product, IntelAgent, is a cloud-based customer service platform combining bots, voice, AI, and analytics to help the public sector deliver better, faster, more efficient, customer care, and leverage the data they collect.

Why can't we pay our council tax as easily as we book a cab? Or report a missed bin collection as easily as we order take out? Having grown used to apps like Uber and Just Eat, we have rising expectations of our public service providers - but we're regularly frustrated by long telephone hold times, and rubbish websites. Well not anymore! Welcome, to We Build Bots.

GovTech is changing the way local and central governments engage with citizens. Increasingly, younger, smaller, entrepreneurial startups like us are disrupting the traditional models for delivering public services, offering more agility, creativity and innovation than traditional suppliers.

Intended impact

We started WBB having experienced first hand how repetitive, inefficient and frustrating customer service channels can be.

We are focused on the public sector for these reasons...

1) Continued budget cuts force public bodies to rethink how best to cost-effectively deliver public services. IntelAgent aims to help organisations deliver faster, cheaper, better customer services.
2) Citizens have rising expectations of their public service providers, having grown accustomed to the seamless experiences afforded by platforms like Uber, Just Eat and Monzo.
3) Falling technology prices allow smaller companies like us to deliver enterprise-level cloud-based, mobile & voice-first services.
4) National policies are increasingly seeing governments engagement with startups and SMEs.
5) Demographic shifts inside public administrations are bringing younger and more tech-savvy officials into departments.

We believe we can have a huge impact globally in this £350bn sector, and have already made good inroads.

Substantial accomplishments to date

We raised our seed round in June 2018, and have since achieved a number of commercial and technical milestones. These include:

Grown sales from £80,000 (recognised) in 2018 to £425,000 (recognised) so far in 2019, and £238,000 contracted (payable in years 2 and 3 of license period).*

Grown team from 3 to 11 across development, data, sales and marketing.
Secured GoCompare Co-Founder as NED (to be appointed after the fundraising closes).
Won 3 awards for innovation.
Developed and launched 2 new products - Tickit and Triage.
Developed sector-specific Natural Language Processing engine.
Secured coverage across major outlets including BBC, ITV and Forbes.
Deployed IntelAgent with 10 new enterprise clients.
Deployed IntelAgent with 7 public sector clients.
Deployed IntelAgent in 4 languages (English, Welsh, Dutch, Italian).
Launched a successful podcast focussed on public sector innovation.
Secured G Cloud 11 accreditation (streamlining public sector sales).
Processed 5m messages (affording us lots of data for future monetisation).

*based on unaudited management accounts

Post raise we intend to continue our penetration into the UK public sector, scale our sales, development, data and C-Suite teams further, close existing pipeline opportunities, and continue European and US market research to help establish a global footprint in the coming years.

Monetisation

There are currently two revenue streams for IntelAgent...

1) Build/deploy fees
These vary depending on the complexity of integration, and the number of services covered (eg waste collection, tax payments, social care, travel etc).
NB: An encouraging aspect of our revenue model is that we rarely have to 'reinvent the wheel' for each client, as our framework becomes increasingly reusable over time. That gradually reduces development time and costs.

2) 3-year license/support.
Access to the platform and ongoing tech support for a minimum of 3 years.

Our revenues are currently split 70:30 between deploy and license.

Our strategy is to reverse this ratio over the next 12 months by reducing deployment times (and costs), and subsequently increasing our license fees to build a strong recurring revenue model.

New product launches
We also plan to introduce Tickit and Triage to create new SaaS revenues over the next 24 months.

Use of proceeds

The investment will act as a bridge round to our Series A later in 2020.

Here is the approximate breakdown of the use of proceeds:

Additional recruitment fees and salaries for:
- 2 new developers.
- 1 new sales.
- 1 Business Analyst.
- Legal and deal fees for raise (plus contingency).
- Increase marketing, esp live events and PR to complement digital activities.