The questions investors ask first.

Why £250k?

It funds the proof, not the scale: six months to show that employed Local Partners can win, launch and keep customers, and about £92.1k kept back so the pre-seed is raised on that evidence rather than against a deadline. It is also the whole SEIS company limit, so the whole round can be SEIS shares. Whether each investor gets the relief depends on the conditions being met, for the company and for them, and on HMRC accepting the company's compliance statement.

How much of the round pays the founder?

A market salary for a Head of Product, set out line by line in the private model. No individual salaries are published.

Why does revenue jump so much from year 1 to year 2?

Year 1 is about proving the model: 30 paying customers by month six, and 271 by the end of the year in the plan; the pre-seed (raised from month 5) funds the channels. Customers go from 271 to 1,670, Simma Pay take-up builds through year one, and the yearly contracts and Free conversions start to count.

How do Simma Pay's rates compare with Square or SumUp?

They're higher on Free by design. On Free, the whole operating system costs nothing: website, bookings, customers, invoicing and payments. Simma earns when the business gets paid (and from any AI credits it chooses to buy): on Free the total per payment is 3.5% + 40p (the card's actual cost plus Simma's 2% + 20p), and on Free, Simma's fees are at least £2 in any month Simma Pay pays out. At higher volumes a separately bought stack costs less in fees alone, and Simma's case is what the fee buys: one record, the AI team and nothing to join up. Paid plans add people, customers and AI capacity, and lower Simma's fee, down to 0.4% + 5p (Scale) (1.9% + 25p in total). Total per payment, online, with a standard UK consumer card: the card's actual cost (1.5% + 20p for this card, passed on at what Stripe charges) plus Simma's fee. Premium and international cards cost more; in person, the card cost differs (Stripe: 1.4% + 10p for UK cards). Whether Simma's fee carries VAT is pending accountant review: if it does, it is included on Free, Lite and Starter and added on Growth and up. The business sees one fee per payment, not itemised. Draft prices; they will be tested with the first studios.

How will 53,513 customers be won?

They are an output of the model, not a target: self-serve sign-ups from the marketing budget (one in five starting on a paid plan, and 3% of Free sign-ups upgrading within six months), employed Local Partners winning and keeping customers locally, central sales for larger accounts, and Enterprise contracts from year three — see Go to market. Franchise networks are planned from year two but are not in the model.

Why a priced round and not a SeedFAST or a SAFE?

An advance subscription agreement would convert at its six-month long-stop before the next round anyway, and investors only get SEIS relief once shares are issued. A priced round issues them at once. A US SAFE would not qualify for SEIS at all.

What's live today?

The status page answers this, dated and line by line. It is re-measured before each conversation.

When do the eight people join?

Not in the first round. They join as the next rounds fund them; the first round hires Local Partners.

Is the founder full-time?

From first close. Today the founder leads product at a FTSE 100 company by day; the raise is what makes Simma full-time.

Why aren't the design partners paying yet?

Because Simma hasn't launched. Simma has not opened to customers or a waitlist: businesses will not run their bookings and takings on it while the founder works full-time elsewhere (an all-day workshop or a three-day trip abroad would leave them unsupported). The raise makes the founder full-time. The dance-school partner pays from launch, and two more businesses have said they will start with it.

Can the round really hire people, or is it one salary?

It hires. Two employed Local Partners start in months 3 and 4 alongside the founder, and two engineers with the pre-seed, and people are 64.5% of the six-month spend. A Local Partner costs about £45k a year fully loaded at 20 hours a week.

Is Simma an AI product?

No. Simma is the operating system a small business runs on: its website, bookings, customers, email and payments on one record. That works today without any AI (Status: the platform is live; the named AI teammates are next), and its revenue comes from subscriptions and Simma Pay, not from selling AI. The AI team works on top of that record, which is why it can do real work with the owner's approval. What a competitor can't copy in six months is the record the business runs on, the workflow inside it, and the Local Partners who put it there.

Is there demand?

For the tools, yes: small businesses already pay for a website, bookings, email, payments and accounts, usually as separate products, and AI tools are part of how most of them work. For Simma itself the evidence is early (two design partners, two more who've said they'll start at launch, franchise talks paused until the core product is complete, no paying customers yet). That is what the Angel round is for: it is spent on customers, not engineering, to reach 30 paying customers by month six and learn what each costs to win.

Why £3m?

It's the going rate for a first round, not a stretch. Over the past year, companies raising their first round on SeedLegals were valued at £2.89m on average (SeedLegals Termometer, seedlegals.com/termometer). UK companies at the earliest stage, which the British Business Bank calls the seed stage (a company stage, not a round name: the typical round there was £0.6m), had a median pre-money valuation of £3.2m in 2025 (Small Business Equity Tracker 2026, pp26 and 32-33). £3m sits at the first-round average and below that median, with no AI premium, and the round is sized to SEIS's £250k limit, so it buys 7.69%. UK pre-seed data is thin; treat any single figure with care.

What if the pre-seed is late?

It is planned to close in month 7. If it lands three months late and nothing changes, cash after amounts owed to HMRC goes about £9.7k below zero in month 9. So the plan is to hold the hires it pays for (the engineers, the Head of Local Partners, customer success and Local Partner #3) until it lands, and keep marketing going: cash then stays above about £87.4k (the model's scenarios). Pausing marketing doesn't help in the model, because early customers pay back their cost within weeks. Raising starts in month 5 to leave that room.

What will investors get?

A short update every month (the numbers, what changed, what's broken, what's next and one ask), sent with Simma's own email newsletter tool, because Simma is run on Simma; SEIS3 certificates as soon as HMRC approves the company's compliance statement, which can be filed once it has traded for four months; and an annual meeting.

How do investors get a return?

Most likely through a sale of the company: the businesses consolidating this market are vertical software and payments companies, and an operating system with its own payments and customers is the kind of asset they buy. Shares can also be sold in later rounds. Neither is promised, and SEIS shares must be held for three years for the relief.

What if something happens to the founder?

Today that is a real risk. It stays a real risk until the pre-seed: two engineers join in month 8, one owning infrastructure and releases, so from then three people know the platform. A bench of eight senior people have asked to join (nothing agreed in writing). The architecture decisions and the development history are written down and kept with the code, and Simma's own development runs through Simma's task system, so work can be picked up by someone else.

What happens when a business outgrows part of Simma?

Simma starts with the connected work service and commerce businesses need most, and plans raise users and limits as a business grows. Some businesses will still want a specialist tool for one job; as Simma serves larger organisations, working alongside those tools will matter more. That is the direction, not a claim about everything the product supports today.

Is Simma only for small businesses?

It starts there: instructors and studios, then other service and commerce businesses. The same platform runs franchise networks, and within five years the ambition is dedicated teams for mid-market and enterprise customers. That is an ambition, not a claim that Simma is ready for large companies today.

What does Simma do for a franchise network?

Head office keeps one product catalogue and sets a price band for each product; each location prices inside it. A brand site's location finder leads to each location's own site. Every paid booking or order records the franchisor's royalty, and a cancellation reverses it. Built in the code; not yet shown end to end for one network. See Franchise networks.

Do you have a franchise customer?

No. Talks with a multi-brand franchise operator are paused until the core product is complete, and nothing is contracted.

Does Simma collect the royalties?

It records them: each paid booking or order notes what the franchisor is owed, so nobody has to work it out at month end. The money is not split when the customer pays, and royalties are the franchisor's money, not Simma's revenue.

How big is the franchise market?

The British Franchise Association counts 1,009 UK franchise systems and just under 50,500 units. The IFA projects 845,000 US franchise establishments in 2026. Those are the size of the industry, not Simma's market, and are not added to Simma's market figures.

Does the AI team already do everything shown on the site?

No. The record, approvals, permissions and audit trail it runs on are live; the named teammates are the next build. Demos that show where it's going are labelled. The status page says what works today.