Propello Cloud, a Manchester-based online customer rewards SaaS platform, has secured a £250,000 loan from NatWest using its intellectual property as collateral.
The platform allows business-to-business and business-to-consumer client companies to easily build their own fully branded yet quick to implement ‘plug-and-play’ rewards and partnership programmes.
This adds value for the clients’ end-customers and reduces churn. Users include retailers, financial services providers, insurers, telecoms companies, utilities, health and fitness operators and membership bodies.
The business was founded by CEO Mark Camp and COO George Charlesworth as a spinout from integrated marketing agency Workhouse in 2020.
“In the last year, we’ve really seen significant growth and working with global clients such as JD Sports, Lebara Mobile and HelloFresh is testament to the effectiveness of our solution,” said Camp.
“However, working with large clients like these requires investment – there’s both human and technology overheads.
“The funding we’ve secured from NatWest won’t just go on growth in sales and marketing support, it will allow us to invest in our product and bring in extra developers to build our roadmap, drive competitive advantage and think about things like AI.”
The company expects to recruit five new staff, increasing total headcount to more than 20.
When Camp heard about the new IP-backed loan at a NatWest event, he saw it as “perfect stepping-stone funding, allowing us to get the money to grow without another funding round and founders or existing investors having to sacrifice any more equity at this point”.
“This is absolutely the best solution for companies that won’t traditionally get standard debt – and the cost of getting the IP-backed loan is cheap money in this day and age,” he added.
NatWest launched its IP-backed loan for high growth companies in January 2024, for loan amounts from £250,000 up to £10m. Up to 50% of the value of the firm’s IP, as assessed by IP evaluation experts Inngot via its online IP identification and valuation tools, can be used as security.
The IP-backed loan targets growth companies which are rich in intangible assets, but have few tangible assets, making it difficult for them to get traditional lending from banks.