Get Smarta.com - new site offers one-stop-shop to set up in business
A fairly big play to help small businesses grow fast launched yesterday in the form of Smarta, an attempt to create a one-stop shop for setting up and growing a business. You’ll be hearing a lot about it in the press because it has a bunch of people behind it with high media profiles, namely two Dragons from the BBC’s Dragons Den TV show. But will it cut the mustard?
It will if the tenacity of CEO Sháá Wasmund is anything to go by. She made her name during the last boom as a director of travel company, Deckchair.com and Mykindaplace.com, sold to BSkyB. Most recently she has been at BrightStation Ventures, an investment vehicle, but has since extracted herself to work full time on Smarta, which has nothing to do with BrightStation.
Smarta’s private backers are Simon Woodroffe (Founder of YO! Sushi), Bebo founder Michael Birch, David Saul (Business Environment Group) and Dragons’ Den panelists Theo Paphitis (also owner of Ryman Stationery) and Deborah Meaden. There is up-front sponsor money from NatWest, RBS bank and Vodafone, as well as from law firm Mishcon de Reya and serviced office provider Business Environment, which will both be providing services to users. Smarta is due to be launched today by Minister for Digital Engagement and Parliament’s first blogger, Tom Watson MP.
Source : TechCrunch UK