Cliq

The community app with 50k users on £0 ad spend

Quick Pitch
February 14, 2025

In a world that is increasingly dominated by digital interactions, the need for genuine human connection has never been more important.

This startup is solving two key problems:

By late 2022 approximately 3.7 million individuals (7% of the UK) reported feeling lonely but community based apps are missing key elements.
Ticketing apps lack connection because they focus solely on transactions, community apps lack discoverability because they are typically closed ecosystems and social apps lack event and subscription monetisation.

CLIQ is a community app that bridges the gap between online and offline interactions through interest based communities and events.

We’re democratising venture through media by showing our community of VCs, angels and founders the best early stage deal flow.

Through our VC collaborations we’re now able to provide both early and late-stage exclusive investment opportunities.

Register below if you’re interested and stay tuned for the launch of quick pitch deal

Headquarters: London
Employee count: 5
Investors: Crowdfunding (£260k on Republic formerly Seedrs) and angels (£265k from 5x exited founders).
Funding amount: £500,000 committed and raising £2million.
Business model: B2C & B2B
Traction metrics:
- 2.5M+ in-app actions in the last 90 days
- 130k+ messages sent in-app
- 50k+ users and £0 marketing spend
- Generated £100k+ from tickets and memberships model
- DAU 6k+ and WAU 35k+
- Brands building on CLIQ – Perfect Ted, Gails, Gymshark, Blankstreet, Crosstown

APPEALS

Proven founding team: The team of second time founders who have previously exited brings a real advantage that positions Cliq for success.
Strong brand partnerships: With the likes of Gymshark and Gails building and monetising their communities through Cliq, the founders have struck PMF early proving the clear use case for their app.
Strong business model: Monetising through three key pillars: Ticketing, subscriptions and their integrated ad platform. Cliq are building a strong revenue ecosystem.

POTENTIAL RISKS

Pressure to expand the team asap: With such rapid growth and urgency to hire fast, waiting for the right hire could become less of a priority leading to bad hires.

Early international scaling to other countries: Already breaking into large markets like the U.S., Australia and Bali, Nicola Gunby (cofounder) believes it’s important to stay focussed before expanding elsewhere.
Scaling too quickly: Cliq are focussing on growth in 2025 but it’s important to get planned product launches e.g. subscriptions and ads nailed especially as they are key to revenue generation.

Meetup, Mighty, Eventbright and WhatsApp Communities attempting to bring people together.
- These platforms rely on passive group memberships, where people join but rarely engage. CLIQ focuses on real-world action.

Cofounder & CEO, Jason Iliffe: Exited co-founder (My Rev acquired by
Revolution Beauty)
Cofounder & CMO, Nicola Gunby: Exited co-founder (My Rev acquired by
Revolution Beauty)

We’re partnering with The Graduate Guide and Grads Building Companies alongside Peter Wood to host our first investor-founder dinner in March 🤝
We’re bringing together the most promising young founders for an exclusive dinner—designed to connect them with early stage investors who can help them scale. With a community of 20,000 ambitious young founders building the next generation of UK startups, they’ve already got the recognition from the likes of Google and other leading brands.
Let us know here if you’d like to come, partner with us for the event, or have a space we can use.

Select your vote and tell us why in the comments

The people have spoken: You are NOT bullish on Rupert. Vote in the poll above to see how your decision stacks up against thousands of founders, investors and operators.
Here’s what you guys had to say: “I’m not convinced that it’s a crucial tool to win customers”

Written by Luke & Seb