A technology marketplace for hospitality compliance services that integrates with public sector authorities and relieves the burden of regulation for businesses

Project Information

SwiftC

Grant agreement ID: 779071

DOI

10.3030/779071

Project closed

EC signature date 9 August 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 31 October 2019

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 2 212 798,75

EU contribution

€ 1 548 959,00

Coordinated by

SWIFTCOMPLY TOPCO LTD
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SwiftC (A technology marketplace for hospitality compliance services that integrates with public sector authorities and relieves the burden of regulation for businesses)

Reporting period: 2018-09-01 to 2019-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SwiftComply Topco Ltd was founded in May 2016 and acquired all IP necessary to take advantage of this project. In October 2016 and February 2017 SwiftComply successfully applied to Horizon2020 for Phase 2 of the H2020 programme, with the idea of creating a “technology marketplace for hospitality compliance services that integrates with public sector authorities and relieves the burden of regulation for businesses”.

The reason for this new technology is because regulation has become an increasing burden to businesses, with a conservative cost annually estimated at 3.5% of EU GDP. This high cost, high level regulation is especially adverse for SME businesses ability to compete in such sectors as restaurants, guesthouses, hotels and bars.

Many SME’s are not of a sufficient scale to justify in-house specialist compliance functions, so it is common practice to outsource various services. The results from this current process adds further paperwork and administration, fuelling the negative perception that public authorities over-regulate businesses and impose unnecessary costs and bureaucracy.

The objective SwiftComply has identified is to scale up, refine, demonstrate and prove that their solution to reducing the burden of high regulation on the hospitality sector works, by creating an online marketplace that allows stakeholders from the hospitality sector to connect with the compliance vendors and the regulators on a single platform, reducing the financial and administrative troubles for SME’s. This is made possible as the service makes booking easy, shifts compliance documentation online and allows regulators to access real-time information.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SwiftComply has developed a technology marketplace for compliance vendors and food service businesses that makes booking services easy, keeps compliance documentation online and allows regulators access to real-time information. To prove this solution works, we are implementing demonstration projects with cities and businesses to ensure Fat, Oil and Grease compliance. During this project we have piloted our solution in Amsterdam, Peterborough and San Francisco.

An results overview of the three demonstration pilots:

1. Peterborough:
- Over 1,292 FSEs were engaged and, approximately 85% of FSEs in the Peterborough area that have been surveyed do not have grease trapping equipment installed
- A further 10% of FSEs have undersized or unsuitable equipment installed

2. Amsterdam:
- By October 2019, we have engaged with 3,510 FSEs

3. San Francisco:
- We have successfully categorized 1,454 FSE’s
- 1,166 FSEs were identified as actively generating grease and assigned a risk category from 1-4. The remaining 288 FSE were either closed or did not have food production

Having completed 3x demonstration pilots, we have quickly moved to a direct commercialisation model where we have expanded to over 400 customers. Overall the company has made substantial progress during the project and has established “product-market fit”. This is demonstrated by the company’s expansion to 450+ city customers, the adoption of its marketplace solution and successfully raising series A financing.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"""The main objective of this project was to introduce a solution to market that reduces the burden of regulation on SME hospitality businesses, and reduce the impact of Fat, Oil & Grease on the environment.

We believe we have made significant strides towards this objective, with a validated commercial proposition that is operational in 450 cities, covering over 1.5 million regulated assets and impacting an estimated 50 million human lives.

Commercially, the company is demonstrating rapid progress, with 600% YoY growth in 2019 and a projected 200% growth in 2020.

The company currently employs 22 people in five countries, and will grow by 50% in 2020. Our objective is to expand to 1,000 global cities and 10 compliance categories in the next 3 years."""

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