“We really are David against Goliath. To be honest we are not even David. The analogy I would use is the people are David, we are the slingshot. We are just building tools that help you with your data and take back control.”
Bournemouth entrepreneur Sam Jones believes an online “paradigm shift” is coming in terms of how people’s data is used online. And it seems he is not the only one.
Mr Jones has recently closed a £5.1m funding round which values his business, Gener8, at around £30m. Now with a headcount of around 25 staff and an app used by more than half a million people, the company has also been making some friends in high places.
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Mr Jones secured the backing of not one, not two, but three of the discerning panel of investors on BBC series Dragons’ Den, with what fashion mogul Touker Suleyman described as “one of the best” pitches he had heard in his six years on the show.
Gener8’s broad portfolio of celebrity investors has grown to include former football manager Harry Redknapp, rapper Tinie Tempah and West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle, while Mr Jones was recently invited for meetings with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to address MPs in the House of Commons.
Not bad going for a business founded five years ago in a shared serviced office by the Dorset seaside, located in the former premises of the Bournemouth Daily Echo newspaper.
“It’s all been pretty nuts” Mr Jones told BusinessLive down the phone from his hometown, where he has recently returned to live, having built up the company in a floor of Mr Suleyman’s London office building - which he managed to secure rent free for a year during his successful pitch on Dragons’ Den. “It’s been all so humbling and crazy in such a great rollercoaster ride”, Mr Jones said.
It all began when Mr Jones was working for Red Bull, where he oversaw one third of the energy drink brand’s advertising in more than 100 countries, with a budget measured in the “hundreds of millions”.
Mr Jones said: “What I realised was, at the heart of it, everything revolved around data. I recognised the fact that literally everything we do online is being tracked, every website we go to, every question we search for, every app that we open, every item we buy, tens and often hundreds of different companies are hoovering up this data, aggregating it, and selling it.
“I just thought, ‘isn’t this crazy’? Because fundamentally it’s our data, it’s your data, it’s my data, but we get nothing from it and all of these other companies are earning from it. At some point in the near future there is going to come a time where we realise that everything we’re doing online is being tracked and we recognise that our data is valuable.
“I thought that once a person realises this, inevitably they will want one of two things. That’s either the ability to stop this happening, so they can have more control over their data, or the ability to get something back from it, and to share in the rewards and the wealth which is being generated from that data.”
Mr Jones set about creating Gener8, a free platform which allows users to anonymise themselves while browsing the internet. Users can then opt in for a rewards scheme, where the app then aggregates their private data, combines it with information provided by other users, and then analyses information trends.
“For example, a new hair hair product that is starting to trend on Google searches or whatever it might be, and we do partnerships with different companies which basically pay for that information, so we can pass that on to you as the user,” Mr Jones explained.
The businessman said that Gener8 enables people to find out what information big tech companies, such as Facebook, Google, Apple, or Amazon hold on to them, and visualises it for them.
In exchange for opting in, the app’s users are given points which on a monthly basis can be exchanged for products, vouchers or donations to charity. Mr Jones said on average people redeem between £5 and £25 per month in value.
“We’re totally agnostic, so if we zoom out, we’re not saying that traffic is good or bad, all that we’re saying is, right now, by default, your data is being hoovered up and sold. So if you want to stop that, we will enable you to stop it, or, if you want to get something back from it, or earn from it, then Genr8 will put your data to work for you. We create partnerships with different companies and get to work from there.”
Mr Jones revealed he was approached on LinkedIn, to appear on Dragons’ Den by one of the show’s producers, who he said had been using Genr8’s platform for a few months.
The businessman went into the Den looking for £60,000, in exchange for a 10% stake in the business. After wowing the panel, he eventually cracked a deal on the show with Peter Jones and Mr Suleyman, with Tej Lalvani coming on board after the episode aired.
Mr Jones said his appearance on the show was when Genr8 really “took off”, with his personal Linkedin account attracting 145,000 new followers, He added that during the show, more than 600,000 people registered and created Gener8 accounts, with “nearly 10% of the UK population” visiting its website.
Having continued to develop its app and build out its operations from its new base on Edgware Road, Gener8 came to the attention of Number 10, when Mr Jones was invited to attend an event alongside 50 to 60 founders of tech firms, called the Great British Entrepreneurs Reception.
Mr Jones compared the “incredibly unique” experience of walking the corridors of power, lined with portraits of previous Prime Ministers to a scene from the film Love Actually, through which Hugh Grant famously danced around as a fictionalised version of the UK premier.
Mr Jones said he then enjoyed a private meeting with Rishi Sunak, who has previously outlined ambitions for the UK to become a tech “superpower” by the end of the decade, and has been attempting to encourage big tech firms such as microchip designer Arm to float on the London Stock Exchange.
Mr Jones said he had been inspired by the “pro business” tone Mr Suank rang during their discussion. “I think the most interesting thing he said was ‘wealth creation and growth can’t come from government, but it has to come from entrepreneurs’, Mr Jones said, adding “and as a result of that he wants to do everything he can to support entrepreneurs and small businesses, which I thought was pretty inspiring to hear straight from the top man.”
Mr Jones said while he felt the government had been “making the right noises” in setting out its vision for the UK tech sector, it would still need to “come through in action”.
Among the issues Mr Jones said he had raised during his discussions with the Prime Minister, and in a subsequent meeting with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, was what he perceived to be a lack of funding opportunities for scaling tech firms to access capital, an area he said the UK was “quite a way behind” other countries such as the US.
“There is one thing, which again I said to the Chancellor, which runs directly to the contrary of what they’re talking about, and that’s recently they’ve made sweeping changes to a tax relief, called research and development tax relief, which all tech companies leverage in the UK.
“Basically it gives you the ability to claim back a little bit when you have been spending enormous amounts on building risky technologies or things that might not work. But the changes they’ve made to that mean that for people like me and other companies, ultimately, you have to take less risk, because there is nowhere near as much capital available there.
“I did say to the Chancellor, it is ironic and it is counter intuitive, that change in line with some of the wording that he is putting out and position he is taking in being pro-tech when actually that runs counter. But he was very open to listening, which was great. I think he is aware of some issues and I think it will be very interesting to hear over the coming months how things materialise definitely.”
Among the biggest challenges Mr Jones said Gener8 faced came from larger tech corporations, some of whom he said are “not particularly fond” of the work the business is doing.
“We do work closely with some, not naming names, but there are others who are more like ‘frenemies’ where even though we are small, they are fully aware of us, they have fired shots across the bow. It is interesting. But that comes as a result of ruffling feathers, and empowering people, and ultimately disrupting their business model a little bit.”
Mr Jones said he was undeterred by this, adding he was pleased Gener8 had support form the government and the firm “work closely” with UK regulators, which he said helped a lot when it came “to poking the bear and these big tech companies.”
Having been based in London for the past couple of years Mr Jones said it was “fantastic” to be back based in his hometown of Bournemouth, the place where Gener8’s journey began. The entrepreneur noted the town’s growing tech scene, with online marketplace OnBuy also headquartered there.
“I love Bournemouth and Dorset. It is fantastic to go for a jog along the beach in the morning, clear your head and go for a swim and chill out in the summer.
“In terms as a place for business, I think there is a really great growing scene, I think they call it Silicon Beach. There are more freelancers, there are more start-ups and agencies. It is fantastic to see. Personally I am commuting into London because that is still where our HQ is based.
“But I love it down here and it was definitely a great place to start the business.”
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