London-based fintech Nous has raised $9m (£6.6m) in a seed funding round to develop its platform for aggregating the cost of living data in areas such as energy, insurance and broadband.
The round was led by Mosaic Ventures and saw more than 65 angel investors provide capital. Among them were Monzo and GoCardless co-founder Tom Blomfield and Faculty AI co-founder Marc Warner.
The startup’s technology aims to provide consumers with a real-time personalised dashboard of their household finances. It monitors vendor prices to spot price hikes that consumers might have otherwise missed.
Founded in 2021 by a team of serial entrepreneurs, Nous (pronounced to rhyme with ‘house’) is using the seed funding to emerge out of closed beta mode.
It works by pooling its users’ anonymised data to spot vendor activity that indicates abnormal price rises for household costs. The more people that join the service, the more data it has to train on and the smarter it becomes.
It uses open banking to securely connect with major banks.
Toby Coppel, co-founder and general partner at Mosaic Ventures, described Nous as “like a cross between Which and Google”.
The startup is releasing its platform at a pertinent moment as UK households face an unprecedented cost of living squeeze. Inflation soared by 5.5% in the 12 months to January – the highest in 30 years.
It has been driven by rising energy, fuel, food and transportation costs. The burden is set to increase further in April when National Insurance rates rise.
Nous claims its platform can save a typical household more than £1,000 per year.
“At a time when UK citizens are facing the worst inflation crisis for 30 years, household expenses are the largest component of people’s living costs, and yet most of us are routinely exploited by companies who hack our inattention to sneak in loyalty taxes at every turn,” said Greg Marsh, founder and CEO of Nous.
“Nous will change that. Unlike anyone else in this field, we’re on the side of households, and we’re building a service to make people’s lives simpler and fairer.”
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