The Teatle claims back £25,000 in R&D tax credits with the help of SeedLegals

Baby bottle game-changers The Teatle recently claimed back £25,000 from HMRC with the help of SeedLegals. The cashflow boost will help them market their products and scale the business.

The elevator pitch 🚀

The Teatle is a new generation of baby bottles designed to replicate natural breastfeeding. Dentist and researcher Dr Antonio Tarsia studied the impact of modern lifestyle on the development of the mouth, and found that modern baby bottles don’t benefit babies’ growth as much as breastfeeding does.

Despite the huge number of products claiming all sorts of different features and benefits for babies, the way baby bottles are designed hasn’t changed much over in decades and doesn’t fully support baby development.

To solve this problem, Dr Tarsia designed The Teatle as a baby bottle with a texture and shape close enough to a natural breast to overcome the problems related to common baby bottles.

When talking to friends about his idea, one of them said, “If it’s halfway between a teat and a bottle, it’s The Teatle!” It made perfect sense. So with the name sorted, Dr Tarsia started to build the first prototypes and worked countless hours at night while maintaining his daytime job as a dentist. Supported by family and friends, he succeeded in bringing to life this unique and innovative baby bottle that will change the game for the better.

The challenge: tackling R&D tax credits for the first time with no experience 🤔

Like any startup, The Teatle needed funding – fast. Mostly self-funded to begin, they needed extra cash for research and development to produce the goods and get them sold. Dr Tarsia knew he could get a much-needed cashflow boost with the R&D tax credits scheme, but he didn’t know where to start.

How SeedLegals helped 💡

1. Saving time and money

SeedLegals was recommended to The Teatle by a friend who is a fellow startup founder. With little time and cash to spare, The Teatle needed a solution that saved them time and money on making an R&D claim.

“We’re still a small business, it’s still me and my wife and contractors at the moment. Because of this I need to wear many hats and don’t have much time to spare,” says Dr Tarsia.

2. Simplifying the process

SeedLegals helped by providing an easy-to-use workflow that made it simple for Dr Tarsia to build the claim and store all related documents safely on one platform.

“SeedLegals is very easy to use. Jay, the R&D specialist who assisted us, was very helpful and made the process straightforward.”

3. Providing expertise

Our aim is to make R&D claims easy for everyone to understand. We provide examples and hint text to help build your claim, and a dedicated expert along the way to answer any questions and support you.

“I’m not really geared towards tax and accounting, so SeedLegals made the process really easy to understand and work through. SeedLegals helped create the narrative and tell the story, making sense of all the technicalities involved.”

The impact: changing the world of baby bottles📣

So far, The Teatle has been testing and refining their products. They’ve gathered feedback from their first few hundred customers and are making some small variations to what they offer.

Their next step is a bigger launch and marketing campaign that’ll be funded by the R&D tax relief they received. They also intend to lower production costs and increase efficiencies to gain a larger market share.

“2023 will hopefully be a year where we see steady growth of the product, and then land some investment so we can scale. We have a unique product that people recognise, so we believe this will give us a foot in the door to launch a whole series of products for babies, including sterilisers, bottle warmers and feeding products for when the baby is weaning.”

Any advice for founders?

“You need to be really determined. Every startup faces a lot of problems. Obviously, you need to have a good idea, a vision and the guts to pursue it. You need to believe in the problem you’re trying to solve and be brave. One of the worst things in life is to have regrets – so just go for it, try it and don’t give up. Do your best to fight every day for your mission.”

Check out The Teatle’s website 👉 www.theteatle.com

Talk to the R&D experts

R&D tax credits are often overlooked as a source of funds, but they can give your cash reserves a generous boost and even help you extend your runway.

Not sure whether you qualify or how to get started with your claim? Jump on a free call with one of our R&D specialists to get your questions answered.