R&D tax credits success for Alkimi

Our Gateley Capitus specialist R&D tax credits advisers supported Alkimi with a full-service solution when claiming for research and development activity for the first time. 

Alchemy Exchange Limited (Alkimi) is a start-up company, formed to take advantage of the large revenues generated by internet advertising. The internet’s first advert was served in 1994; it is now a multi-billion-pound industry. In 2020 online advertising surpassed £274bn and accounted for over 50% of all media spend globally. The exponential growth of digital advertising has been fuelled by rapid innovation. Several inefficiencies persist within the industry due to the reliance on centralised exchanges, resulting in the industry becoming highly fragmented and dominated by large multinationals.

Alkimi has been developing an alternative innovative solution via its Alkimi Exchange, a decentralised advertising exchange. The Alkimi Exchange hosts a media exchange auction in real-time by developing a hosted state channel. The state channel provides cost savings, access to transparent and auditable data and fraud prevention for all stakeholders in the advertising industry. This includes users exposed to digital advertising, publishers that host advertising and advertisers that buy digital media.

Investing in essential research and development activity

To develop its decentralised advertising exchange, Alkimi has been required to invest in research and development (R&D) to ensure that its product considered the latest protocols, standards, changing technology and user requirements to continuously improve performance and increase functionality. 

Having never claimed for R&D tax credits before, Alkimi was keen to take advantage of the R&D tax credits scheme and needed to identify and collaborate with an adviser who would be able to take ownership of the process and guide them efficiently, enabling Alkimi to focus on their core business activities. 

A full-service solution from Gateley Capitus to simplify and support with the R&D tax credits claim process 

Gateley Capitus offered a full-service approach for a reasonable fee, accepting to cap the fee in case of a large credit claim. The R&D tax credits specialists also agreed that the payment of the invoice would be aligned with the payment to be received from HMRC.

After an initial introduction meeting to discuss and plan the claim delivery process, the Gateley Capitus and Alkimi technical teams met to identify the qualifying activities and discuss the project information in more detail. The technical team at Gateley Capitus was then able to take the information and structure this into a technical report to justify the claim with HMRC. The qualifying financial information was collated by the Gateley Capitus team in conjunction with the financial team at Alkimi, with further discussions to determine the correct qualifying expenditure to calculate the claim benefit and submit it to HMRC.

A successful partnership to deliver results 

The communication between Alkimi and Gateley Capitus was easy, and the meetings were productive. Gateley Capitus proactively managed the process and made efficient use of both Alkimi’s CTO’s and CFO’s time, as well as coordinating the various flows of data and information.

Alkimi is constantly looking to improve the performance and functionality of its decentralised advertising exchange to ensure that it continues to meet clients’ requirements. This is where the Gateley Capitus technical team can use its industry knowledge, and experience of the scheme, to ensure this and all future claims are compliant with HMRC’s evolving guidelines. 

As a result of the successful working relationship, Alkimi has renewed its trust in Gateley Capitus for a second fiscal year and intends, as of now, to continue working with Gateley in the future.