UK households are facing an unprecedented cost of living driven by soaring energy prices, increased transportation and fuel costs, thereby rising prices of everyday goods and services, claim reports. It is estimated that the average UK household expenses may be around £3,000 in the next 12 months, which is the worst squeeze on household incomes.
A London-based fintech Nous was founded to help households get smart and stay vigilant as they face the rising cost of living.
$9M investment
Now, Nous has nabbed $9 million in a seed funding round led by Mosaic Ventures. The round involves participation from over 65 leading angel investors, including renowned tech entrepreneurs such as Tom Blomfield (co-founder of GoCardless & Monzo who invested in London startups PEEQUAL and theUp.co), Marc Warner (co-founder & CEO of AI pioneer Faculty.ai), Dan Hegarty (founder & CEO of leading digital mortgage company Habito), Eamon Jubbawy (co-founder of fintech unicorn Onfido), serial entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, ActiveHotels (Booking.com) co-founder Andy Phillipps and others.
Nous will use the proceeds of this round to scale up the product team and build an automated service to help households navigate the cost-of-living crisis. Currently, the fintech startup is hiring senior full stack engineers who share its passion for building products from the ground up to improve people’s lives.
Greg Marsh, founder & CEO, said, “At a time when UK citizens are facing the worst inflation crisis for 30 years, household expenses are the largest component of people’s living costs, and yet most of us are routinely exploited by companies who hack our inattention to sneak in loyalty taxes at every turn. Nous will change that. Unlike anyone else in this field, we’re on the side of households, and we’re building a service to make people’s lives simpler and fairer.”
Toby Coppel, co-founder & General Partner, Mosaic Ventures, said, “Having worked with Greg before, we are absolutely delighted to support him and his outstanding team as they build a service that deploys sophisticated tech in a robustly ethical way – it’s like a cross between Which and Google! Nous can deliver a really positive impact on people’s lives during a time of mounting stress and anxiety. It’s tremendously exciting to invest in such a huge commercial opportunity which also has such enormous potential to do good.”
Brainchild of experienced serial entrepreneurs!
Nous was founded in 2021 by a team of serial entrepreneurs headed by former venture capitalist and onefinestay founder & CEO Greg Marsh. The other co-founders include Christian Hølmer, Glen Walker and Jon Rudoe.
They are joined by a growing group of elite senior engineers, designers and marketing specialists with prior experience from companies such as Brainlabs, Deliveroo, Disney, Emma, Facebook, Flatfair, GDS, Habito, Just, McKinsey, Ocado, onefinestay, Tandem and Tails.
Save £1,000 per year
It is estimated that the average UK household expenses could be £3,000 for a year. With the intention to help users save a considerable part of the same, Nous uses its proprietary tech platform available on mobile, tablet and desktop.
It aggregates the first and third-party data feeds to power a real-time personalised dashboard of a household’s finances along with actionable insights. By monitoring vendor activity, the service will provide vigilance to protect consumers from vendors who would otherwise cost more. Nous will help a typical household over £1,000 per year across energy, insurance, mortgages, broadband and other subscriptions.
As more people join the platform, it gets smarter and trains its models to progressively automate routine household decisions such as when to renegotiate a contract or execute a switch. Nous will offer a free dashboard with the option to upgrade to a paid subscription service for its premium automation service.
