Ember Digital secures £1.6 million Seed investment led by Anthemis

Seed
Safiya Marzook
22 February 2021
0
1084
9 minutes read

Ember raises £1.6 million to redefine the future of small business

Tax-tech startup Ember has raised a £1.6 million seed round to scale the company’s vision of making it possible for anyone to start and run a business.

Founded in February 2019, Ember automates the tax and accounting process for freelancers, contractors and small business owners across the UK. The platform provides real-time accounting for business owners in a language and interface they understand, as well as unlimited financial support from a team of experts. By automatically filing taxes with HMRC, Ember saves business owners time, optimises their tax-efficiency and gives them complete transparency over their company finances.

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Led by FinTech venture investment firm Anthemis, the round is geared towards product development, recruitment and customer acquisition. According to Ember CEO, Aaron Shaw,

“Ember is at a crucial point in our growth as a software and a company. Having achieved proof of concept and organic customer growth since our pre-seed round, we’re now ready to bring on customers at scale and expand the progressive functionalities of the platform.”

Ember harnesses open banking and machine learning to streamline the previously cumbersome worlds of accounting and tax for small business. When you first join Ember, you connect up your business bank account, bringing all of your financial information into one central feed. From there, you are able to manage your suite of tax obligations, always with the reassurance of a qualified business partner at the other end and at a fraction of the price of a private accountant.

Born of the founders’ frustration with the current accountant/client relationship, which is costly, time consuming and leaves the business owner feeling is empowered, Ember is designed specifically with business owners, not accountants, in mind

“As the shape of our economy and workforce changes, our vision is to make running a business simple enough for anyone without a financial degree to do –from opening a business to closing it, and everything in between,” says Co-Founder and COO Daniel Hogan.

Alongside Anthemis, VC funds Innovation Nest and Spring Ventures have backed Ember. Ruth Foxe Blader, Partner at Anthemis, says,

“Ember has the opportunity to modernise small business tax preparation and accounting. Anthemis has a history of backing companies that support SME commerce, the backbone of the global economy. Especially as the pandemic strains entrepreneurship, we’re thrilled to support this progressive team.”

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Ember is FCA-approved for Open Banking, HMRC approved for Making Tax Digital and available on the Apple App Store and Google Play store.

Contact details for press
Co-founder & CEO – Aaron Shaw,[email protected]
Co-founder & COO – Daniel Hogan,[email protected]

Ember Digital Limited (11822163)
5 Merchant Square
Paddington, London W2 1AY
United Kingdom

Interesting facts and figures

Ember raised a pre-seed round of funding in 2019 of £250k – find the press release here .
Ember is a member of the NatWest FinTech Accelerator program – find the press release here .
Ember launched in May 2020 (find the press release here ) during the midst of the pandemic and was covered in the following publications – The FinTech Times, Bdaily and PYMNTS .
Ember has just closed a seed round of funding for £1.6 million, led by FinTech investor, Anthemis.
We are FCA regulated for Account Information Services (reference number 919397).
Our software is HMRC-approved under Making Tax Digital.