Purple Wifi lures Leahy and raises £3.3m
SIR Terry Leahy has joined the board and invested in Purple Wifi, the latest venture from serial North West entrepreneur Gavin Wheeldon.
The Manchester company has raised £3.3m and will use the funds to expand into new markets. Other angel investors taking part in the funding are Bill Currie, Iain MacDonald and Bob Willett from the William Currie Group with participation from Juno Capital a leading syndicate.
The company allows users to gain free access to a public WiFi network through their existing social media accounts or a short form.
The user gets access to Wifi, while the benefit to the business hosting the service (such as a restaurant, hotel, shop, museum, sports stadium or shopping mall) is that they are rewarded with valuable analytic insights into the profiles and movements of their customers and a sophisticated built-in marketing platform.
Purple WiFi has also appointed new board members as part of the process, including: Sir Terry and Ian Kelly a serial entrepreneur in telecoms, energy and other markets.
Sir Terry Leahy, the former Tesco CEO, said: “Having been in the retail space for many years, I have seen how technology has and will continue to revolutionise the industry.
“Purple WiFi is a brilliant example of how additional value can be driven from an existing infrastructure. I’ve been incredibly impressed with what Gavin and the team have achieved to date. I very much look forward to helping them drive global expansion and adoption.”
Gavin Wheeldon, chief executive of Purple WiFi added: “WiFi is something that is expected, for free, just as we expect access to heat, light and water. But the big question in recent years has been how to monetise WiFi.
“Purple WiFi has created an innovative low cost solution that gives unprecedented analytics and insights, whilst driving true ROI for businesses. We have seen unimaginable interest and demand for the product, not just within the obvious sectors of retail, leisure and hospitality, but also unexpected sectors such as social housing, education and healthcare, where they want to use WiFi to communicate better and deliver services.
“I’m absolutely delighted with this new investment and expertise, which will help us accelerate our product feature set and further build out the team that I am already very proud of.”
Advisers included EY and Manchester boutique commercial law firm Turner Parkinson.
