West Yorkshire moneysaving app firm secures £2m funding deal

yboo, the West Yorkshire-based technology firm, has agreed heads of terms of up to £2m in growth funding to support its growth requirements over the next twelve months.

Established in 2016 by Martyn Gould and Paul Doyle, yboo is a mobile phone app that compares SIM only deals from the UK mobile market by measuring consumer usage to match them with the best deal.

The Holmfirth-based company has received equity investment from Angelfish Investments Plc.

Angelfish and yboo are continuing negotiations with the aim of further increasing the equity holding and to provide a debt facility that will allow yboo to continue with accelerated product development as well as beginning its UK and international roll-out campaign.

Andrew Flitcroft, finance director of Angelfish, said: “Angelfish is delighted to increase its holding in yboo and to be negotiating the potential injection of substantial funds to secure the roll out and expansion of the yboo model.

“In the last few months, since the initial funding, yboo has significantly advanced the technology behind the model and attract considerable trade interest within the price comparison sector.’’

As part of the negotiations, Richard Walker, non-executive director of Angelfish, has been appointed as a director of yboo.

Richard’s role will be to support the team from a financial standpoint; negotiating any trade sales, supporting the business for an IPO in April 2019 and tracking overall revenue projections.

Over the course of the next 12 months, yboo will be launching its B2B portal, providing UK mobile operators with anonymised data allowing them to understand their target audience’s behaviours, rank their products against the rest of the market and create products that increase connections.

yboo are also in negotiations with partners to launch yboo in the Middle East and Australia.

Martyn Gould, founder of yboo, commented: “We are absolutely delighted to announce the investment yboo has received; we have some incredibly exciting developments, which includes our B2B portal that we will be rolling out at the end of July.

“This product has a strong future roadmap and we anticipate that it will have a huge impact on UK mobile operators and their propositions.”

“The future for yboo looks incredibly bright. We have always been committed to bringing job opportunities into the Holme Valley and as the business grows we hope to see our winning team expand as well; we are dedicated to providing training and development to our staff as well as offering our staff share options which equate 5% of the total company shareholding.”