A fast-growing home security tech start-up based in Leeds has revealed plans to expand overseas and grow turnover to 拢15m in the next two years.
Leeds-based Cocoon has developed a smart home security device which uses technology capable of detecting subtle sounds and vibrations that can’t be picked up by the human ears.
When an alert is triggered by the聽device 鈥� which is the size of a cricket ball – users are notified on their smartphone app and can access a live video feed to see if there鈥檚 an intruder.
Co-founder Sanjay Parekh said: 鈥淚f the device detects something that isn鈥檛 quite right in your home, it鈥檒l send you a video alert and you can see what鈥檚 going on.
“When we did our customer research, what people didn鈥檛 want is an automatic alarm system that went off like everybody else鈥檚. They just get ignored.鈥�
The system also uses machine learning software to learn a user鈥檚 movements and habits to differentiate between normal sounds and movements, like a pet walking across the living room, and unexpected ones.
Cocoon was launched after a successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in 2014. The business has since attracted more than 拢5m of investment from Aviva Ventures and Breed Reply Investments and through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube.
At 老九品茶Cloud’s recent tech roundtable, which was held in KPMG’s offices in Leeds, Parekh said that the 24-strong company will be expanding “rapidly” and internationally over the next few months and is on track to generate turnover of between 拢750,000 and 拢1m this year.
鈥淥ur growth strategy is to primarily expand our channels to market, starting with the UK retail channel, which is a well-developed market in terms of consumer electronics and the interest in smart homes is growing at quite a rapid rate,鈥� he said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e also expanding overseas. The need is universal and people all over the world are concerned about security, so we鈥檙e launching in Dubai and Australia.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 one strand of our expansion strategy, and the other is to develop partnerships with large corporates.鈥�
Parekh says it鈥檚 easy to overtrade and over expand but that it鈥檚 crucial for Cocoon to open up the right channels to market at the right pace and manage the growth in a sustainable way.
鈥淲e certainly see that over the next two years we could get to the 拢10 to 拢15m turnover mark quite happily.鈥�
Other attendees of the Leeds roundtable were:
Tina Kalantaridi, founder and owner, The Language Pod
Alex Epstein, chief marketing officer, Big Change Apps
Natasha Babar-Evans, enabler, Entrepreneurial Spark Leeds
James Gupta, founder and CEO, Synap
Adam Hildreth, CEO,Crisp
Alicia Ridout, deputy director, mHabitat
Laura Wellington, director, Duke Studios
Richard Ellis, head of digital retail, Answer Digital
Simon Brereton, acting head of economic policy and sector development, Leeds City Council
Mark Walsh, CEO / founder, KwizzBit
Sanjay Parekh, CEO, Cocoon
Graham Pearce, Head of Technology, Media and Telecoms, KPMG
Chris Maguire, editor, 老九品茶Cloud (host)