Miigen, the Scottish start-up which has created a ‘digital scrapbook’ which allows older people to safely store ‘memories that matter’ has opened a crowd funding campaign on ShareIn and hopes to raise £500,000 to help the company expand internationally.

The crowdfunding campaign follows a successful first round of funding secured in July 2017, which Miigen secured £250,000. That in turn supplemented the company’s earlier bootstrapped funding of £200,000.

Digital Time Capsule

The company was founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs Craig Lemmon and Campbell Ferrier, who were motivated to help preserve precious family memories after having lost parents. The company has created a digital scrapbook or ‘time capsule’ which allows people to preserve precious memories, privately, or shared with family and loved ones. The service has since evolved to incorporate aspects of digital and social inclusion, community building and later life living.

According to the company: “Our older adults have a wealth of social commentary, imagery and opinions, stored in shoeboxes and old cases in attics or under the stairs. At the moment these are simply slipping through our fingers. We need to mobilise this generation to share this data and create a record of moments in our history which reflects our past from an individual and community point of view.

“Importantly, these memories also have vast value to the families, as in these shoeboxes is the family history. With Miigen we encourage families to change what is a painful time in their lives, taking care of the affairs of a parent upon their death, and turn it into a life affirming journey to learn the life stories of their parents and grandparents while they can still tell them.”

Ongoing Expansion

“The appetite for investment in Miigen has already been amply demonstrated in our pre-seed funding,” said co-founder and CEO Craig Lemmon. “We expect this next funding round to be equally successful and to facilitate our continued expansion.”

“The money will be used to recruit new staff across a range of skills in what has been described as a “major expansion in high-quality employment”. There will also be investment in public relations, marketing and the development of a new tool for customer acquisition.”

Following the crowd funding round, Miigen is further making plans to launch a major funding round in the US in December of next year. The current aim of this is to raise $10m (£7.5m).

Miigen currently has 40,000 users in 102 countries and following an international marketing campaign, extending over 25 countries, in five languages, hopes to raise this to around 100,000.

The crowd funding campaign can be found on ShareIn.