Oxford Early Investments: Current Investment Opportunities

Company A have developed an exciting new golf training system. The product is fun and easy to use, and gives you the opportunity to transform your golf game, whatever your age or handicap. Using its intelligent mat, the product trains you with a better swing using a correct golf stance, as used by top professionals like Tiger Woods and Michelle Wei.

Company A aim to partner this` unique product to market with leading golf industry suppliers in golf’s key global markets, leveraging value from the IP rights. Already, they have established excellent relationships with Europe’s no. 1 and Japan’s no. 2 golf range suppliers, and the product is due to launch soon in Japan. The patent pending system has encrypted software and a specially programmed microchip, ensuring excellent IP protection.

Following successful trials at driving ranges in the UK and Japan, in which 97% of golfers stated they will use the product, Company A have signed initial terms with Japan’s no. 2 golf range supplier. This company will manufacture and sell the product using their first-class network serving more than 250,000 driving range bays.

Company A seek to raise £30k initially to complete product development and fuel rapid sales growth in Japan under licence.

Company B is software for the millions of small businesses that dislike or even fear formal bookkeeping, but still want the benefits of effective cash collection, timely VAT submission, accurate knowledge of their business and good customer relationships.

For these people, the likes of Sage and QuickBooks seem too complex and too expensive; often their record keeping method is to ‘throw it in a shoebox and sling it at the accountant once a year’, and this approach costs them hundreds of pounds in fees. Company B's product is a new breed of business software that truly addresses this market for the first time.

It is able to do so because it is delivered to the user’s web browser - not as a boxed product for a PC. This is ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS), in which the application is hosted by the vendor in an environment optimised for performance and security instead of subjecting it to the vagaries of a million different users’ PCs. This model reduces cost/price by a factor, and also supports compelling new social & collaboration features.

The four founders have huge experience in software development and media production. They have designed and developed an easy-to-use consumer style product with a rich and satisfying user experience. Their aim is to build Isaacc into Britain’s leader of this burgeoning new sector.

The first module - Invoicing & Receipts - was launched in July 2009 to a small audience of alpha trial users. This will extend to public beta during September, with paid service starting thereafter.

Company C is an online film rental service a division of a traditional film distributor. It acquires high quality documentaries and delivers them in superior quality to a global audience. Many films are shown at international festivals, others win top awards (Bafta’s, Oscars etc). For modern audiences expecting to find what they want, when they want, they now come to Company C to watch them. Company C offers the best titles available, on demand without advertising.

In 2010 the existing platform will transform into a multi‐platform distributed service, offering films to customers on sites they are already using (eg telegraph.co.uk) and through TV. Company C are utilising a unique technology which allows films to be embedded anywhere on the web while simultaneously earning money from them. Revenue, reporting, and user behaviour flow back to the central website and facilitate transparent accounting. They are also developing ‘Product X’ which enables film‐makers to upload their own films and show them on their own websites, whilst transacting through the payment portal.

Company C is 50% funded by the EU and supported by Lord(David) Puttnam and Lord Carter (Digital Britain Author). Telegraph Media Group and Sheffield Documentary Festival are strategic partners.

Company D is spinning out to commercialise a high power high frequency diamond transistor for radar and other microwave applications. The company's product will enable defence, space and communications companies to replace heavy and expensive vacuum tube amplifiers with a cheaper, smaller, lighter solid-state equivalent.

The benefits to end customers are material in both cost savings and performance. The existing market for such vacuum tube amplifiers is large (>$1bn) and is one of the few vacuum tube areas that Silicon transistors have been unable to disrupt. The product is being developed in close partnership with a large defence company who has committed material funds to the project and will become the first customer. Company D has made breakthroughs in the technology, but some technology risk still remains.

However, if it is successful, the company forecasts sales of £70m by 2014. The company has recently won a £1.3m TSB grant and is seeking a further £1.3m in match funding. Oxford Technology ECF is leading the round and investing £650K and it is expected that a further £300K will soon be committed from another fund.

Company E is a new e-learning service for nurses. It allows nurses to do the courses they need online anytime anyplace anywhere. The site is up and running at www.preponline.net and there are 2 demonstration courses including the UK’s first e-learning course on Swine Flu

There are over 600,000 nurses in the UK alone who are doing 2.7 million study days per year to maintain their nursing registration. Our market research shows that over half of these are interested in doing these study days online generating a potential income of £23 million per year. We are looking for an investment of £95k for 20% equity and the exit strategy pays back £700k in 2014.

By 2014, the projected turnover is £1,090,153 and this is based on 14,400 nurses accessing the service (which is 3% of the UK nurses who have internet access). We already have direct email access to 11,705 nurses and this will be our primary sales route.

The CEO is a nurse, has run two companies and was one of the youngest NHS Chief Executives managing a £92 million budget. He was also the winner of the Institute of IT Training E-learning Project of the Year award in 2003 for producing e-learning for nurses which was used by 8,200 nurses.

Company F aim at delivering technical solutions tailored to the needs and requirements of research scientists. They firmly believe that their products will change how experiments are prepared and conducted in Life and Biomedical Science research laboratories worldwide.

Their lead product - part of a complementary three product pipeline - is a machine for automated preparation and mixing of chemical solutions specifically developed for our target market. By automating what is probably the most common procedure in Life and Biomedical Science, the product will be able to make it faster, more accurate, more tractable, and far less work intensive. The product is being designed with a focus on assisting researchers as much as possible during every step of this tedious procedure, freeing these highly educated and expensive resources from having to spend more time on preparing than actually doing research.

The product - winner of the entrepreneurial idea competition at the University Oxford (Idea Idol) - promises to create £billions in savings for universities, research institutes, hospitals, governmental agencies, and corporations while improving the quality and reproducibility of research in the process. With a great value proposition, a highly patentable technical implementation, and a top tier management team, a case study is currently being written about the company in anticipation of future success.