£1million Investment for Family Saving Initiative

Ffrees, the family account that helps people save as they spend, has received its second round of funding from Finance Yorkshire.

The funding, a total of over £1m, comes as Ffrees announced that it has added two major high street retailers and new financial services providers to its list of partner companies, and follows its acquisition of OscarUK, the over 50s concessions site.

With over 5,000 accounts opened since the company opened for business in August 2012 and now averaging 100 a day, Ffrees is also in talks with other complementary online businesses regarding acquisition opportunities and joint ventures.

Ffrees is an electronic account, payment card and savings facility all-in-one. It is a new breed of money management - rewarding families for their spending and saving. Account holders get significant rebates on trusted financial services brands, and household shopping. These rebates, called Ffrees, averaging 6% and up to 33%, are then saved automatically in a Ffrees savings account, which can be withdrawn as cash or saved for the future.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help small and medium sized businesses, such as Ffrees, to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

Heather Roxborough who led the investment from Finance Yorkshire’s Seedcorn Fund, said: “The timing for a service helping cash-squeezed families save is perfect. Ffrees’ unique and ground-breaking model will help to transform the competitive landscape.”

“The latest deal, which is a mixture of both Seedcorn and Equity linked finance, is more than double our initial investment and will enable the company to continue to successfully develop a unique services for individuals and businesses around the world.”

Alex Letts, CEO of Ffrees, added: “This second round of investment has come at an exciting time for Ffrees as we are expanding rapidly. The additional funding will drive our growth strategy through product development, customer service improvement and marketing.

Our family account and savings concept is clearly resonating with families squeezed by the dire economic situation and the opportunity for Ffrees seems to grow exponentially.”

Ffrees Family Finance has devised a scheme which allows retailers to automatically return a percentage of the money families spend in their shops to savings funds.

Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire