BrewDog founder James Watt has announced that Social Chain founder and TV Dragon Steven Bartlett will be joining his latest venture, Social Tip, as an investor and advisor.
In a LinkedIn post, the former BrewDog chief executive welcomed the new Social Tipster to the team, but didn’t elaborate further.
Watt wrote: “Welcome to the Social Tip team Steven Bartlett. Really pleased to announce that Steven Bartlett will be joining Social Tip as an investor and advisor.”
He added: “We are launching a Crowdcube fund raise later this week giving everyone the opportunity to own part of Social Tip. If you would like to see the full investment deck please send me a DM saying ‘invest’ or leave ‘invest’ as a comment below.”
The latest SEO-friendly social media bombshell followed a post last week in which Watt challenged the line-up of BBC’s Dragons’ Den, and Bartlett’s on-screen colleagues, to invest in his new venture, noting that they were being given a second chance following BrewDog’s founders famously being rejected for the show in 2009: “The Dragons missed out on what would have been by far the most lucrative investment in their history,” Watt observed modestly. “To ensure you don’t miss out this time around, I am giving each of you the opportunity to invest £25,000 in my brand-new business, Social Tip. DM me to discuss this further.”
Social Tip, which will be in the “brand-building space” and reward users for posting about brands, has released a strategy document in which it says that by next year, the plan is to have established itself in the UK and US, with around 100,000 customers and 1,250 B2B partners. By 2026, the start-up wants to also be in Europe, targeting 500,000 customers and 5,000 B2B partners, with a possible Series A fundraise backing growth. A Series B round and ‘global reach’ is proposed before 2028.
Early investors include UK tech fund Haatch (£310,000), alongside the British Investment Bank, MiniClip chief executive Rob Small and early BrewDog investor Keith Greggor. Almost £1.5m has been raised so far at a £13m pre-money valuation.
Launch brand partners include BrewDog, Bella & Duke, Homeslice, Huel, PureGym, Slug & Lettuce and Virgin Pure, while the founding Social Tip team includes Thomas Matecki, formerly chief technology officer of fintech Zilch, and Georgia Lee, former managing director of food delivery service Supper.
Watt also took time out on his LinkedIn post to remind would-be Crowdcube investors that, in the immortal words of investment ads on TV, “your investment can go up as well as down”:
“As always: Crowdcube Risk Warning: Please don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment,” he noted.
Watt stepped down as Brewdog CEO in May, moving into a newly-created, non-executive position of “captain and co-founder.”
