ANNA, the financial admin app and business account for small businesses has announced a new investment of £8.5m from futures tech company Kinetik known for backing smart EV start-up Arrival and the world’s first autonomous racing series Roborace.
Launched in Autumn 2018, ANNA already has over 3,500 customers. The app combines a current account, debit card and digital assistant that helps with financial admin like sending and chasing invoices.
ANNA intends to grow its customer experience centre and continue to support the creative industries; as a design-led company that has placed design at the heart of product and service development this remains core to the brand’s strategic. New product features and innovative tools launching in 2019 will help customers prepare for HMRC’s initiative Making Tax Digital, analyse expenses, predict cash-flow, as well as giving users a clear overview of their finances.
Kinetik’s director Anthony Julius comments, ‘we collaborate with the businesses that share our values and want to bring life-changing products into the world. ANNA is very different from typical fintech start-ups and it’s been created by brave and progressive entrepreneurs. So we’re excited to partner ANNA and contribute to its future expansion.’
Eduard Panteleev, co-founder and CEO of ANNA continues, ‘Kinetik’s investment is invaluable in helping us create more useful tools and services that are vital to making the lives easier for our customers; the imaginative and visionary, dedicated and hardworking people behind all small and medium sized businesses.’
Shortly after launching in 2018, ANNA gained recognition in design press for its carefully considered brand – working with Michael Wolff and NB Studio to create a fun, playful fintech brand. Launch was soon followed by ANNA’s first above the line campaign – the launch of ‘The World’s First Miaowing Debit Card,’ a high profile integrated film and social media campaign that saw over 2 million views across all platforms.
The campaign saw a 268% increase in site traffic and 72% increase in sign-up rate throughout the activity, with 25,000 people clicking through from the video to ANNA site.
