Tennis star Andy Murray has shown his commitment to British entrepreneurship by investing in three UK tech start-ups.
Murray has sunk an unspecified amount of money into pet monitoring app Dog Tracker Nano, which featured in the June edition of BusinessCloud, cycle navigation app Beeline and blow LTD, a ‘beauty on demand’ service.
The Scot has been in a “strategic partnership” with crowdfunding platform Seedrs for the last 12 months and so far invested in 15 start-ups.
“Giving recognition and support to British entrepreneurs is really important to me, especially those who are the driving force behind growth-focused businesses,” Murray said in a statement.
“Every one of these entrepreneurs is passionate and dedicated to succeeding and I’m excited to have invested in their future growth.”
The Dog Tracker Nano allows owners to track a dog on a map, with real-time street view and a viewcam with compass directions. Owners can set geofences around their home, which send alerts to a mobile phone if a dog breaches the boundaries.
John Wisbey, head of business development at Berkhamsted-based Retrieva – the company behind the Dog Tracker Nano – says customer demand and the rise of obesity in dogs led them to add health and wellbeing features.
“The technology is moving on now but our customer is still the dog owner worried about loss or theft, which is what motivates them to buy something like this,” he said.
“In addition to this, what we’re trying to do is to get people to think personally about their pet rather than about pets in general, so that they know exactly how many minutes’ exercise their dog is doing, what their weight should be and how much food they should be giving them.”
Murray, a former Wimbledon, US Open and Olympic champion, reached the final of the French Open recently but fell to Novak Djokovic.
Fiery on court, he has a reputation for being level-headed away from the spotlight.
Seedrs founder and CEO Jeff Lynn added: “It’s great to see Andy supporting entrepreneurs so actively on Seedrs by investing in another three businesses today.
“Andy is a great example of an investor who understands early stage investment and the importance of building a diverse investment portfolio aligned with a wider investment strategy.”