Onedox on Crowdcube

[lucas]

Another interesting fintech company (not released to the public yet)

Join and Start Investing Today - Crowdcube

[saf]

@lucas Didn’t they raise last year as well?

[lucas]

they did, about this time last year i think.

I use them for managing household bills and it is surprisingly useful. Not too sure about their long term strategy though.

[saf]

Looks like ~3x paper growth since last raise but I wonder if they’ve hit their targets.

Worth checking out the Plum discussion, where @Rob14 made some good points on PFM’s

Plum overfunding on Seedrs

I’ve resisted investing in any of the PFM’s. They’re cool, have good UX & features (vs banks) but there’s so much competition and these are very new types of businesses. They compete against each other, aggregators (e.g. Yolt), digital banks and traditional banks (who will improve). So I view the risks for PFM’s as much higher and the rewards lower than other top crowdfunding opportunities like Freetrade/Monzo etc… But best of luck with it, that’s only my opinion, there are definitely reasons t…

[lucas]

Completely agree with those comments. Very crowded. Even Monzo risks getting stuck in this space.

Even so, i have invested small amounts in a number of these companies, as I think there is potential.

[Diversify (Radical Candor)]

Who do we reckon the challenger bank is?

[Vlad (Vladislav Kozub)]

I quite like Wonderbill. Is this one more interesting to give it a go?

[anon2636484]

I’m guessing it’s either Monzo or Starling - & it’ll probably be both at some point.

[Diversify (Radical Candor)]

True. Given Starling’s Marketplace is currently live I’m inclined to say it’s most likely them.

[Rob14 (Rob)]

There was a mock up for a Monzo integration after the last fundraise

Thanks for the mention @saf. I use Onedox and actually invested in the last round! It’s become the place I go to view my bills, insurance, MOT etc.

I invested due to:
-Strong founders, led a business together before, one is ex-Cambridge.
-They committed to not taking a salary for the first 2 years (if I remember correctly). And these guys would be earning six figures
-Open banking solutions and B2B opportunities - where Onedox sees themselves as one of only 2 focussing on bill management.
-Most automated solution for switching providers e.g. don’t need to input your gas/electricity usage, it’s all on Onedox already from your bill. This UX is key, banks with choose the best solutions should they partner with them.

Risks:
-No one knows how open banking will play out. There’ll be winners and losers.
-Risks that banks, digital banks, comparison sites all develop their own solutions rather than partnering. (Although partnerships seem the trend for the next few years).
-Bill management and B2B is less exciting than other businesses!

I’d be interested to hear a comparison with wonder bill @Vlad?

[anon2636484]

I hate to be pessimistic about any startup but..there’s a lot of companies offering subscription management services, especially now that Open Banking is enabling them to access user’s transaction information.

On the pure bill management side you’ve got:

• http://feebuster.co/
• https://www.wonderbill.com/

Then you’ve got the FinTechs like:

• Emma
• Yolt
• Monzo

with Starling & Revolut presumbably following in their footsteps soon. I know of another FinTech startup that’s launching soon, which is making subscription management a core part of their proposition too. And at least one startup that was trying to do this has already closed down.

Trying to pick a winner here is going to be tricky..

The other big concern for me is whether this service is a feature or a business - what are the non-FinTech providers going to offer that the FinTech’s can’t simply add to their apps, alongside all of their other useful services?

[Vlad (Vladislav Kozub)]

Quite hard to say actually. Both apps have very similar functions and features.

I will probably keep both for now and see how they are developing. But if Onedox will get into Monzo’s app one day, it will make more sense to have everything with the main bank account rather than having Wonderbill sitting separately.

@Rob14

Most automated solution for switching providers e.g. don’t need to input your gas/electricity usage, it’s all on Onedox already from your bill

Not sure if this is right. I believe if it was the case, they would have had a usage summary, which they do not. Or they do but do not keep it transparent.

In any case, companies like this are quite fascinating as they do solve problems people could never be asked to think about, great to have such convenient expenditure management tools.

[Viktor]

Thanks for the in-depth breakdown, Rob.

EDIT: I’ve signed up.

[Rob14 (Rob)]

I think of it more like a tech comparison site, where it can find the best deal based on my usage as well as reminding me if anything needs looking into e.g. spike in costs, contract ending soon etc.

I think partnering with traditional banks is the prize for them. It’s early days, but they’re in the Natwest accelerator program and are under an NDA with a ‘smaller bank’, which are presumably stepping stones. It should appeal to a wider and more mature audience who have more bills to look after.

I’m due to meet the founders tomorrow evening, I haven’t actually spoken to them yet! Will feedback…

And hopefully that’ll save you some time @Viktor!

[lucas]

Never used Wonderbill but they sound similar. Onedox is useful for viewing all bills in one place, so really just saves time and hassle. A few other useful features like ability to auto download bills to dropbox, links to company contact details, etc.

I imagine a few of these companies will get acquired, otherwise there will be a lot of PFM’s going under…

[Chris]

I really like onedox and have been using them a while. Really looking forward to their banking integration. Fingers crossed it’s monzo first as Starling are not my cup of tea.

[saf]

I reckon Monzo will be all over this sooner than you think. They already do budgeting and track bills ( somewhat ).

I think I saw something about aggregating all your accounts, and Monzo CEO specifically mentioned being able to see your Pensions etc in the latest Q&A. He also mentioned the issue where you probably don’t want the cheapest provider in some cases like Gas/Electric as customer service etc matter, while for Pensions you want the best return, and for loans you want the lowest APR.

Interesting space, on the one hand no one has solved this yet. On the other hand everyone seems to be giving their best shot.

Here’s a link to the video:

Q+A with Tom Blomfield

[lucas]

All that effort to create a bank and they want to find you a cheap gas deal. I love Monzo but am getting less and less convinced about their strategy.

To truly understand your gas and electricity cost you need more data that just cost e.g. number of days, usage, etc. This would require a huge amount of effort to obtain from every provider. Becomes even more difficult if you try to go global.

The market is definitely missing a true aggregator of personal financial data but i’m sceptical that this will happen anytime soon. Really requires all industries to have their version of ‘open banking’

[anon2636484]

@lucas

To truly understand your gas and electricity cost you need more data that just cost e.g. number of days, usage, etc.

If I recall correctly (& I’m not sure I do here), I think the plan is to ask users to supply this information - just as you would on a price comparison site.

But I agree with your point about an Open Banking type solution being needed, that would be a much better user experience!

[saf]

Open Banking is badly done right now.

Gas / Electric - I can easily see some form of image upload with OCR. Or manual entry or tapping into modern meters. Plus some providers have APIs. The bigger issue is things like contract terms and managing databases of all the offers and considering customer preferences, for instance I want green(er) energy.