Edinburgh, UK-based SnapDragon Monitoring is a company that tackles online sales of counterfeit goods using registered IP. In simple terms, its mission is to safeguard and protect brands of all sizes from online threats and infringements.
SnapDragon Monitoring raises fresh funds
In a recent development, the female-led online brand protection company announced that it has raised £1.2M (approx €1.41M) in its fresh round of funding. With this fundraise, SnapDragon Monitoring has now raised a total of over £3M (approx €3.52M) in funding, to date.
Notably, the funding is a step in the right direction for female-led technology companies receiving investment, as according to Crunchbase figures, about only 2.3 per cent of VC firms went to female-led startups in 2020.
SnapDragon Monitoring’s current funding round is backed by investors including ACF Investors, Mercia, and Scottish Enterprise.
Use of the capital
The proceeds from this round will be used by SnapDragon Monitoring to develop the technology and AI/ML to further extend capabilities, to scale the infrastructure, and to continue to build the team to help an expanding base of global clients fight fakes and online threats.
Speaking on the development, Rachel Jones, CEO & Founder of SnapDragon, says, “We are pleased to have successfully raised additional funding to enable further business development and growth. We are a female-led business, bucking the trend in terms of raising investment and being in the tech space – and delivering outstanding results to protect brands around the world. We are hugely proud of everything the team has achieved to date, not least preventing over £100M of fake goods being sold in the last 12 months, and look forward to future growth and success.”
Online brand protection, fighting fakes online
Originality is proven using intellectual property rights, such as trademarks, design rights, and copyright. According to the OECD, fake products contribute over 3.3 per cent to world trade each year. This is where SnapDragon Monitoring is making a difference. It is a brand protection service for businesses to find and resolve instances of intellectual property (IP) infringement online.
The company’s ‘Swoop’ platform helps search for copies and counterfeits of products and brands online and remove them from sale in under four minutes. Swoop was created precisely for this purpose, to deliver affordable, effective online brand protection.
Rachel Jones, Founder of SnapDragon Monitoring, explains, “We are helping brands to remove fakes from sale online: protecting revenues, reputations and, most importantly, the end consumer. What brands may not realise is that sales made from counterfeits fund organised crime, such as trafficking – and nobody wants a fake of their brand funding illicit trade. In identifying fakes online, and removing them from sale on the pertinent platforms, we prevent their visibility and subsequent purchase, export, import and distribution.”
SnapDragon’s current clients include US-based baby brand 4moms, Australian b.box, AG Barr, producers of the iconic IRN-BRU and Rubicon brands; UK-based StylPro.
Strengthening its Board
SnapDragon Monitoring, which grew its workforce by 25 per cent in the last 12 months to support the expanded client portfolio, has also strengthened its board. The company has appointed Geraldine Kelly as Non-Executive Chair of the Board.
Kelly has previously held senior executive positions with Frame Technology (Adobe), Visio (Microsoft), Gartner Learning Group, and Thomson Learning. She is a Chartered Director with the Institute of Directors and an experienced board chair.
Besides, Angela Brown has also been appointed as Finance Director. A chartered accountant with over 20 years of experience, Brown was most recently with Symphonic Software as it scaled to a $31M exit in 2020.
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