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About Poikos Investment

In: Business and Management

Submitted By jettyan
Words 1219
Pages 5
About Poikos
Poikos is one of the most successful early stage companies recently started in the UK. The company is focused in developing a software technology that measures human body in 3D and it is also capable for all kinds of common computing devices such as PCs, tablets and smartphones.
In 2011, the Poikos team started the development of the FlixFit software which later become the company’s main product and created a great advantage edge for the company’s future expansion. The FlixFit software from Poikos is a highly user friendly imaging system which aims to offer a better solution for the general body measurement services. The FlixFit system provides a simple two-step instruction for users to take pictures of themselves by webcams and the system will then automatically determine basic dimensions of users’ body and present in a way of a 3D model.
The largest market for Poikos could be E-Commerce, especially in the clothing commerce field. As many surveys show that up to 40% of clothing bought online are returned because of lacking the suitability in size and style. Thus, the technology FlixFit of Poikos is the key to solve this problem for it allows customers to measure their size and ‘try’ the cloth in their own 3D models, which gives consumers much more confidence and assurance when shopping clothing online.
Poikos also targets fitness, which means that FlixFit can be utilized to record the change of people’s height, weight and some other data about size. Some relevant applications enable people to estimate and preview the better version of body size and help people lose weight to the optimum state.
Poikos’ technology has the great value in medical field. It can be used as an alternative for measuring the weight, height of patients, eliminating the trouble of manual measuring in the physical examination. Besides, this technology is also helpful to the measurement of BMI for anaesthesia. So Poikos has the potential medical market.
One of the most promising markets of Poikos should be the Gaming and entertainment. With the popularity of Wii, PlayStations, Xbox 360s and Kinect, the combination of people in the real world and the roles in virtual world has led a trend in the gaming field. The 3D models Poikos created according to the characteristics of each person can be avatars in games and they have much potential to be improved to much more hi-definition avatars to meet a range of customers’ interests.
In terms of the opportunities of Poikos, the existing market will continually expand as the e-commerce industry becomes more and more acceptable by customers. Therefore, there must be a huge space for Poikos to explore new revenue stream. Moreover, Poikos will surely obtain many other customer segments due to its flexible and practical properties in the future. For example, this kind of technology might be applied in the field of online games, pilot examination and young athletes’ selection. Finally, it will also benefit from its living environment, because Poikos is acting as a niche player which supplies the licenses of 3D body measurement to other industries in the overall ecosystem.
Series A Investment
Since Poikos has already actively involved in few entrepreneurial competitions across the Europe and successfully reached their seed investment form Startupbootcamp for 25,000 Euros, and plus Poikos has also been very smoothly developed their first product FlixFit and put it up to the market. Therefore, Poikos has been through the stage of collecting seed fund and is now open to wider investors and ready for its expansion to the Series A financing. Based on the market valuation methods, the following section of this report will present our valuation of the pre-money of Poikos and provide a brief plan of our investment in Poikos.
Pre-money Valuation:
According to the current status of 3D modelling market, the general trend is growing rapidly since 2010. Several previous start-up companies such as My Virtual Model has been providing 3D human body modelling services for online clothing retailer such as Land’s End since 1998. Our valuation for Poikos is therefore based on a comparative transaction method by looking at the historic sales and market valuations done with My Virtual Model and plus a certain level of estimation over some figures such as the selling price and annual revenue.
After the Land’s End’s human 3D modelling project, My Virtual Model has been selling its services to various online clothing retailers. In 2011 alone, My virtual Model has sold its services to six clients in online clothing industry alone. Based on this number, it is reasonable to believe that Poikos will also benefit from its sales to online clothing shops and other similar bespoke industry clients. Currently, Poikos has established its partnerships and made sales to various companies including Tesco, M&S, Yahoo, ASDA and Mayo Clinic. All these partnerships and existing client relationships consists the most significant resources of Poikos. Moreover, Poikos has also previously involved three angel investors on board, including Startupbootcamp with 25,000 euro initial seed investment. We estimate that the three previous investors will count for up to 30% of the company’s equity. Moreover, in 2012, My Virtual Model acquired the European modelling company MimicMe for 880,000 euros, this number was also taken into consideration for our valuation as Poikos’s technology in terms of 3D modelling is way better than what can be provided in MimicMe, and Poikos has already secured a significant number of clients at the first place. In addition, in 2008, due to the integration of My Virtual Model’s service of 3D modelling into the website, American online retailer Land’s End successfully reached their business goals and finally acquired by Sears at 2 billion dollars in cash. The considerable contribution from the integration of 3D modelling service in this case has proved a great potential of similar technology in the future.
Therefore, we have valued for the Poikos at the price of 5.5 million euros at this stage of the company’s development. And we are thinking about an investment of 1.1 million euros and ask for a share of 20% of the company’s equity.

Exit Strategy
As Poikos is a startup with only one product “Flixfit Software”, it is a relatively small-size high tech venture in 3D field, whose can be utilized in many other industries. As mentioned above, it has a promising market prospect. Now it is working with 9Apps ensure the scalability of their infrastructure. Poikos has already had some of the largest E-Commerce companies in Europe and beyond signed up to license our technology.
In the rapidly-change technology industry, the transactions between ventures are frequent. Thus, based on the characteristics of Poikos technology, it is supposed to be acquired by some relevant high-tech incumbents. The possible acquirer can be in technology industry, like Google and Microsoft, as well as in E-commerce field, such as Amazon and Alibaba.
According to the valuation, a possible and also ideal price of future acquisition is around 25 million euros for 100% of company’s equity.
Meanwhile, As a plan B, in case of some risks bringing about the failure of Poikos, or it has not been successfully acquired by a potential acquirer, it could apply write-off mechanism to exit.
Cap Table

Due Diligence

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