Case Study
It all began back in 2015 for Eric Kihlstrom and his two co-founders when they started Kareinn, a business which addressed a gap in the market for care planning software.
| Region/Nation | South East |
|---|---|
| Sector | Technology |
| Programme | Start Up Loans |
| Partner |
From that starting point “with no money”, it was a nine-year journey for Eric and his co-founders Alexander Kenney and John Lanyon until their business was taken over in a strategic acquisition by a competitor.
At the point of the business changing hands, they had grown to employ 18 people in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business.
Starting the enterprise, the trio lacked financing to get started. This is where Start Up Loans totaling £30,000 across two separate loans to directors helped.
Eric says:
With that we got the business started with living costs and basic expenses.
At that point the enterprising trio were not looking for equity as they wanted to demonstrate product market fit before approaching investors.
Eric has called Start Up Loans “the trusting money,” meaning it was the finance that then allowed them to bring on board angel investors and grow the business.
Once started, the business grew steadily, although Eric describes going door to door to care homes to sell the software as “humbling”. Having been at that point established for five years, Kareinn was primed to grow when the pandemic lockdowns forced greater digitalisation of care home records. That process has continued to improve since, with closer integration between health and social care.
Eric says of the impact of the Start Up Loans programme:
We successfully grew then exited the business last year, and could not have done it without the Start Up Loan.
Keen to continue working in the care sector post the acquisition of his business, Eric is now onto his latest venture, a hardware company called Centaur Robotics.
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