IE Hub Obtains Seed Funding of £1 Million

ScaleUp Group (SUG) has announced the completion of a £1 million Seed Funding round for IE Hub, c.25%  co-invested by SUG Partners.

IE Hub’s Income and Expenditure fintech platform addresses the crisis of overdue Consumer Debt, which is increasing exponentially in the UK, by streamlining the process by which Lenders help Consumers in financial difficulties to manage their way out of debt, utilizing ‘Open Banking’ when appropriate also.

The majority of SUG’s Partners collectively committed to £260,000 of the Round co-investing alongside existing and new Angel shareholders. The funds will be used to continue the growth of IE Hub by increasing resources in Sales and Marketing, Technology and Product Development including broadening its products and markets. Part of this wider go to market strategy was announced earlier this month with the integration of IE Hub’s online affordability platform with C&R Software’s Debt Manager, which is a standard across a number of industries, giving more and more people under stress from excessive debt a clear path to good financial health.

The UK Dept landscape is rapidly worsening with 1 in 3 adults in the UK (16 m consumers) considered financially vulnerable. For instance, HMRC tax debts have increased from £26bn to £42bn since January 2020. Forecasts show further warning signs of additional financial pressures in the post-pandemic recovery period as energy prices increase and government support ends in a number of areas.

Lenders employing thousands of Agents are under severe strain already coping with a ‘tsunami of debt’ and are having to re-engineer their processes to streamline Call Handling Time, improve their ratio of debt recovery whilst attempting to reduce their costs – even before impending Government legislation stipulating greater fairness to consumers in such processes.

IE Hub’s streamlined debt management platform is a readymade enterprise wide SaaS solution to achieve all of these goals quickly as well as providing a much-needed social service by relieving the extreme stress from millions struggling with the misery of excessive debt.

John O’Connell Executive Chairman of SUG commented “We have participated in a Seed Funding round, unusually for ScaleUp Group, because it was a rare opportunity to support a tech business providing both a compelling business proposition and also an invaluable social benefit. These twin attributes bode well for the expected rapid growth in IE Hub’s business, which we look forward to continuing to support as both an Adviser and Investor later this year.”

Commenting on the investment, Dylan Jones, CEO of IE Hub, said “It has been a pleasure dealing with John and the SUG members working through some extensive due diligence and experiencing the calibre of individuals at SUG. What was important to us at IE Hub was to have an investor partner totally aligned to not only our unique technical proposition but to our social standing of helping those in debt.”