‘End of the paper receipt’ hailed as Braveheart funds ‘eReceipts’ firm

By KRISTY DORSEY
Published on 15/12/2012 00:00

SOFTWARE that has been hailed as “the end of the paper receipt” is set to be rolled-out by one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains after investment manager Braveheart led a £1 million fund-raising for the company behind the technology.

London-based Paperless Receipts Ltd (PRL) – whose fresh funding includes £300,000 from Perth-based Braveheart’s London subsidiary, Envestors – will use the money to tackle its next stage of growth.

PRL’s eReceipts technology will be deployed by the as-yet unnamed supermarket group from April.

The software company is chaired by former Tesco boss Lord MacLaurin, who has hailed eReceipts as the biggest revolution since loyalty cards.

Instead of a slip of paper, shoppers swipe a card to receive an electronic record of their transaction.

This is then stored in a secure online “cloud” accessed through a web portal or downloadable smartphone app.

PRL has already signed up more than 110 independent stores that have been testing the technology for the past few months. Furniture chain DFS has also signed up to eReceipts.

To date, PRL has raised £1.5m through two rounds of funding, which were both supported by Envestors.

Envestors runs a network of more than 700 private individual and family office investors, and was acquired by Braveheart in 2010.

Oliver Woolley, founder 
director of Envestors, said PRL had made significant progress since it first raised funds of £500,000 in November 2011.