Collegia is building the UK’s SME-embedded finance ecosystem.
Collegia is the free, digital and sustainable pension for SMEs and the gig economy. An Oxford University Innovation portfolio company, Collegia is the UK’s first FCA-regulated personal and auto-enrolment pension.
Since its launch at the end of 2021, Collegia has processed over £20m in yearly premiums from its 1,000+ corporate clients with 12,000+ employees (figures include onboarding to be finalised). It also boasts a healthy client pipeline representing 500,000 potential members. This fast growth is made possible by the 80+ accounting firms and payroll bureaus that have chosen Collegia as the pension for their corporate clients.
Collegia were recognised with the “Financial Innovation of the Year 2022” award by FStech and won the “Most Innovative UK Automatic Enrolment pension scheme 2022” award from WorldWide Finance. It was also shortlisted for the “Innovation Award” with pensions.
Collegia already secured a strong partnership with its asset manager, AllianceBernstein, and is now fundraising to grow its membership base and launch its payroll product (to be found in February 2023 after authorisation from HMRC).
£1,000,000
£150,000
£20,000
Join our community to view the full investment opportunity.
Already have an account?
Collegia is building the UK’s SME-embedded finance ecosystem.
Collegia is the free, digital and sustainable pension for SMEs and the gig economy. An Oxford University Innovation portfolio company, Collegia is the UK’s first FCA-regulated personal and auto-enrolment pension.
Since its launch at the end of 2021, Collegia has processed over £20m in yearly premiums from its 1,000+ corporate clients with 12,000+ employees (figures include onboarding to be finalised). It also boasts a healthy client pipeline representing 500,000 potential members. This fast growth is made possible by the 80+ accounting firms and payroll bureaus that have chosen Collegia as the pension for their corporate clients.
Collegia were recognised with the “Financial Innovation of the Year 2022” award by FStech and won the “Most Innovative UK Automatic Enrolment pension scheme 2022” award from WorldWide Finance. It was also shortlisted for the “Innovation Award” with pensions.
Collegia already secured a strong partnership with its asset manager, AllianceBernstein, and is now fundraising to grow its membership base and launch its payroll product (to be found in February 2023 after authorisation from HMRC).
We are raising £1m, and we already have £150k committed.
Collegia already secured a strong partnership with its asset manager, AllianceBernstein, and is now fundraising to grow its membership base and launch its payroll product Free Payroll, an HMRC- approved free payroll software that is 100% in the cloud.
Through a free payroll and accounting software ecosystem, Collegia is developing the infrastructure through which SMEs and their business advisors can hire and pay workers in the UK, making money via fees and commissions on the benefits contracted in the platform.
Through a free payroll and accounting software ecosystem, Collegia is developing the infrastructure through which SMEs and their business advisors can hire and pay workers in the UK, making money via fees and commissions on the benefits contracted in the platform.
Workplace pension schemes in the UK cannot be seen as a standalone product. They are instead a by-product of a payroll process, and, as such, this is where the problem stands. Cost, lack of proper integrations and time needed to perform payroll and pensions are the main issues the SMEs and their business advisors found.
This is a market that, according to the regulator, grows every year by £115bn. There are 2.1m sponsoring employers and 22.7m employees enrolled via an Automatic Enrolment qualifying scheme. In this value chain a relatively small market gives access to a much bigger ones, as the wealth of UK private and occupational pensions wealth is of £6.5tn. Moreover, there is an expectation that gig-economy workers will be included into Automatic Enrolment. It is estimated that this would represent an additional 7.2m employees entering the marketplace, making it even bigger. As such, the estimated Defined Contributions workplace pensions size in 2030 is of £1.4tn.
We have developed a fully automated payroll and pension platform through which the data exchange between the payroll function and pension is streamlined and automated. Posting pension contributions becomes almost invisible to the payroll user as everything is automated while processing the pay run. This reduces costs (as the payroll provision is free of charge regardless of the number of pay slips processed) and reduces the time 0 needed to go from payroll to pension.
B2B2C. We are, at our core, a personal pension scheme regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, but we distribute the product through companies, especially SMEs, as 65% of them outsource the payroll function to their business advisors. We leverage Automatic Enrolment as it is a law that mandates every company in the UK to provide its workforce with a workplace pension scheme.
Regarding our fees, we charge a 1.7% of Contribution Charge and a 0.1% Annual Management Charge.
Since its launch at the end of 2021, Collegia has processed over £20m in yearly premiums from its 1,000+ corporate clients with 12,000+ employees (figures include onboarding to be finalised). It also boasts a healthy client pipeline representing 500,000 potential members. This rapid growth is made possible by the 80+ accounting firms and payroll bureaus that have chosen Collegia as the pension for their corporate clients.
Collegia were recognised with the “Financial Innovation of the Year 2022” award by FStech and won the “Most Innovative UK Automatic Enrolment pension scheme” award from Award Finance. It was also shortlisted for the “Innovation Award” with PensionsAge.
Collegia already secured a strong partnership with its asset manager, AllianceBernstein, and is now fundraising to grow its membership base and launch its payroll product (to be found in February 2023 after authorisation from HMRC).
We acquire members via SMEs and their business advisors (accounting firms and payroll bureaus). The distribution is done via business advisors that provide outsourced payroll services for their corporate clients. Our software ecosystem increases its margins overnight (by reducing software costs to zero) while enhancing its service offering to clients.
Eduardo has worked in M&A and interest rates trading across a range of financial institutions (Credit Agricole, BR Partners and BTG Pactual), including banks and asset managers. He was also a managing partner and CFO of a leading startup with a top 5 app in the Brazilian App store (2017).
Eduardo earned a Bachelor of Economics Degree with Honours from the University of São Paulo and an MBA from the University of Oxford.
Riccardo graduated as an engineer and earned a Master of Science Degree in Electronic Engineering (both Cum Laude ) from the University of Parma and an MBA from the University of Oxford. a top 5 app in the Brazilian App store (2017).
Eduardo earned a Bachelor of Economics Degree with Honours from the University of São Paulo and an MBA from the University of Oxford.
John combines over 30 years of international experience in the banking industry, with specialist knowledge in the fields of investment, debt, and risk management. He was a Managing Director at HSBC Bank Plc and a Director at Deutsche Bank AG.
John read History and holds a Master of Arts Degree in Modern History, both from The Queen’s College at the University of Oxford.
David has over 25 years of experience in Financial Services in the US, UK, and Continental Europe. In his capacity as both an Executive and as an Advisor he has established, managed, and advised retirement and investment businesses for some of the largest Financial Services firms (Fidelity, Capital Group and BNY Mellon).
David is a Business graduate from Villanova University and earned an MBA from Boston University.
Investing in a startup involves risk, including loss of capital, lack of liquidity and dividends, and dilution, and should be done only as a part of a diversified portfolio. Please read our Capital at Risk Warning before investing. Please note that investments should be made by investors who understand and accept these risks, and tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change at any time.
TrendScout does not provide legal, financial, tax or investment recommendations, and no communications from TrendScout, through this website or any other medium should be construed as such. Furthermore, nothing on this website shall be considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any equity, shares, or security to any person in any jurisdiction to whom or in which such offer, solicitation or sale is illegal.
