Summary
- Profile Type
- Business Offer
- POD Reference
- BOGB20250411013
- Term of Validity
- 11 April 2025 - 11 April 2026
- Company's Country
- United Kingdom
- Type of partnership
- Commercial agreement
- Targeted Countries
- All countries
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General information
- Short Summary
- A market-leading UK SME in the TIC sector, servicing prestigious global retail clients. Leveraging a diverse network of thousands of field agents, the SME now supports AI biometric technology providers. Seeking international partners to expand TIC services globally, with primary interest in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and France, while open to other European and non-European opportunities.
- Full Description
-
Founded in 2008, the SME initially aimed to provide retailers of age-restricted products and services (such as alcohol, tobacco, and gambling) with an affordable and robust method for testing their processes to prevent underage sales. This served as a cost-effective insurance policy to protect licenses and public image.
Over the years, the SME has established itself as the most reliable provider of compliance auditing services, with a prestigious client base that includes some of the biggest names in retail, hospitality, and broadcasting across the UK, Ireland and USA. Their core services include:
• Age verification test purchasing.
• Competitor audits and analysis.
• Allergen audits.
• Home delivery audits.
• Customer experience audits.
• Revenue protection audits.
• Responsible gambling audits.
• Media compliance audits (protecting broadcasters' commercial rights).
The SME's unique success in this sector is largely attributed to their extensive and highly engaged field workforce (auditors). With over 20,000 applications per year and a live community of 6,000-8,000 auditors across the UK and Ireland, they are uniquely positioned to deliver high-quality data and testing at scale. They have adopted a human-centred approach to managing their community/field workforce, upholding strong moral principles, offering full employment with associated benefits, competitive pay, and flexible working terms. This has fostered a unique loyalty and strong sense of engagement and culture. They are experts in building and managing remote teams at scale.
Thanks to the engaged nature of the SME’s workforce, they can mobilise their auditors to support almost any type of project.
Furthermore, the relationships and mutual trust they have developed enable them to quickly and flexibly collect valuable data points, leading them into the exciting and fast-paced world of AI.
Currently, the SME is focused on expanding their services within the rapidly growing AI economy. They are leveraging their workforce to perform accuracy and fairness audits of AI biometric technologies, such as age estimation, liveness detection, and facial recognition.
A significant challenge in the sector is the inability to conduct testing at scale with a diverse range of participants. This is where major tech companies worldwide recognise the value of their community/workforce and their expertise in the testing, inspection, and compliance sector.
Services the SME offers to this sector include:
• Age estimation performance and fairness testing.
• Liveness detection performance and fairness testing.
• In situ/real-world testing.
• Age estimation and digital identification expertise and consultation. - Advantages and Innovations
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The UK SME, which also has a large presence in Ireland, presents the following advantages:
• Proven track record for delivering ultra-reliable independent testing data.
• Expertise in building and managing remote teams at scale to deliver on large and complex testing programs.
• Deep knowledge of the retail and hospitality sectors, particularly in age verification/age-restricted compliance, allergen compliance, and customer experience.
• Expertise in biometric AI, both technically and legislatively.
• AI testing protocols built in conjunction with academics from one of the UK’s leading Universities and authorities on the subject. Supported by a partnership with the UK’s only accredited lab for AI biometric testing.
• Long-term relationships with global names in retail, hospitality, and broadcasting.
• A purpose-built and independently owned reporting system that provides detailed and valuable insights to their client base, adaptable to meet client needs. This includes an API to seamlessly integrate reporting into client systems. - Stage of Development
- Already on the market
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
- IPR status
- No IPR applied
Partner Sought
- Expected Role of a Partner
-
The UK & Ireland SME is seeking a partner who can:
• Provide a workforce of field agents capable of covering testing needs across an entire geography (country/state/region). This workforce should include significant representation from young people aged 18-20, as well as a broader demographic. The SME can assist with building and scaling up this workforce.
• Provide sales resources with local knowledge and expertise in the retail and hospitality sector and/or the biometric AI sector, or introduce the SME to relevant professionals in these areas.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION / EXPERTISE SOUGHT
The SME is seeking partners who:
• Have an established workforce/field agent base that could deliver their core services in international markets and add to the development of their testing capabilities in AI biometrics (i.e. improve diversity and how representative they are of the local geography).
• Examples might be mystery shopping providers, health and safety auditors or food hygiene/allergen auditors. Ideally, with experience servicing the retail and hospitality sectors.
• Primary interest in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and France, while open to other European/non-European opportunities.
Desirable but not essential:
• The partner ideally should have relationships with retailers in the partner's country/geography, where the SME’s expertise in compliance could be leveraged to access new markets to benefit both partners.
• Has relationships in the AI sector where the SME’s ability to mobilise people to test at scale could be valuable.
Other:
• Is an AI testing lab requiring access to testing subjects at a large scale.
Benefits to a partner:
• Opportunities to work on projects with our international retail and broadcasting clients.
• Opportunities to work on projects with global AI technology providers, supplying a rapidly growing area of the global economy. Leveraging our expertise, network, knowledge and testing datasets. - Type and Size of Partner
- SME <=10
- Other
- SME 50 - 249
- Big company
- SME 11-49
- Type of partnership
- Commercial agreement
Dissemination
- Technology keywords
- 09006001 - Quality Standards
- 09006002 - Technical Standards
- Market keywords
- 09003007 - Other services (not elsewhere classified)
- Targeted countries
- All countries