Free energy switching service Labrador raises £1.4million to fund official launch
FREE energy switching service Labrador has raised £1.4 million from investors to fund its official launch and growth plans.
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The energy start up, founded by chief executive Jane Lucy, has raised £500,000 from a newspaper group and £891,000 from retail investors on the crowdfunding website Crowdcube.
Labrador has 30 existing private and institutional investors, including venture capital group Hambro Perks.
The company uses real time energy usage data to make its comparisons between suppliers, instead of estimates like others do.
It claims that first time users could save up to £300 on their energy bills.
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We are the first service that recognises customers do not have time to switch, so we do it for them
Lucy said that Labrador is targeting homes with smart meters and that the millions of Britons that never switch suppliers could save themselves £5 billion if they did so.
She added: “We are the first service that recognises customers do not have time to switch, so we do it for them.”
Labrador users receive a monitoring device, which connects to their smart meter using wifi.
When it finds that a user can be switched to a cheaper provider from a pool of energy firms, it does so automatically.
Labrador receives commission from the energy firms that it switches customers to.