The Haatch Ventures HQ, The Hub based in Stamford, Lincolnshire also serves as a hot-desking and collaborative workspace for our portfolio companies and other small businesses in and around our town. At the start of February, Oliver (Community Manager at Haatch Desks) introduced me to the latest resident at the office, Peter Ridlington, Founder & CEO of Ningi.

Pete previously worked at Wealth Wizards (a Saas company making financial advice accessible to anyone) and has an extensive financial consultancy background where he discovered the issues small IFA firms face when accessing efficient tech to manage their clients for an affordable price.

I'm thrilled to announce that Haatch has now led a £250k pre-seed round in Ningi, a full-stack advisor tech platform integrating an advisory firm's client portals and CRM solutions into one place offering efficient, automatic and quality algorithmic financial recommendations avoiding systemic risk.

There is a lot that initially attracted me to Ningi but here are just a few to note:

1. The team: I've already mentioned Pete's background - relevant domain experience is invaluable at the early stages of building a company. Having a set network in place as well as having been so involved in the industry you're now building in gives you a completely different perspective on the issues experienced by your audience - a serious competitive advantage!
2. Traction: Every VC looks for traction. Proof of concept and early signs of product-market fit is unbelievably attractive in such an early-stage company. Ningi has managed to onboard 8 firms so far and they're all loving it! This gives us the greatest confidence in the product and the team's ability to convert prospects into customers.
3. Advisor feedback: When faced with an opportunity you may not fully understand, find someone who does! "The idea is superb", "Looking at other solutions in the market, they all seem to only offer 'part' of what Ningi are proposing". Having this feedback from our own IFA network gave me complete confidence in the product... now it's about execution!
4. They are local: As I said at the beginning, the reason Pete and I met is that we work in the same office! I love working with founders in person, I find you develop a much more meaningful relationship and become true partners rather than the standard founder<>investor relationship. Especially in the post-covid world where remote work is quickly becoming the norm (Haatch portfolio company Orbital, an audio only remote working tool, is in a great position to capitalise on this opportunity).