AI concept visualisation · not a design

Confidential · Model v4.0 · 11 Sep 2026

A surf lagoon built at infrastructure cost.

Two bays, back to back. One plant. A swell every 8.5 seconds. Learn on Bay A, come back on Bay B. Private members and public guests. Built like infrastructure, run like a club.

Both bays, ex-VAT: £2.36m
Capital to open: £2.42m
First cheque · SEIS: £250k
Y5 EBITDA · base: £660k

01 · The wave

Get them on a wave this week. Keep them on one next week.

A swell every 8.5 seconds. Bay A is the first green wave — lessons, families, schools. Bay B is the return — sessions, members, evening club. Same pier. Same water. You walk from one to the other when you are ready. That is the product.

The ride

Short, frequent, readable

About 4 ft, 2 ft on the learn setting, 50-yard face. Not a two-minute peel. A wave you can catch again before you have talked it to death on the beach.

The day

Lesson, then session, then stay

Coach on Bay A. Own the wave on Bay B. Sauna, hot tub, café in between. Built for a midweek habit, 20–45 minutes from home.

The room

13 in each bay until we prove more

Enough faces on the water to feel like a session. Tight enough that a first-timer is not lost in a crowd. 13 surfers per bay per hour is a guest-experience cap, not the plunger maximum.

02 · Why this exists now

Two bays. One plant. Opened in stages.

SwellSpot is a surf destination of two back-to-back wave lagoons. It sits on 2–3 acres and turns on in months. Four 56 kW hydraulic plungers per bay. A swell every 8.5 seconds. Learn on Bay A, come back on Bay B. Private membership club and public guest access. The money follows the same shape as the guest journey.

Modular plungersFour 56 kW hydraulic plungers per bay. Installed in months. Shared centre wall and plant from day one.
2–3 acresLocal club footprint. Shared pier, one energy centre, 80–120 parking spaces.
The guest pathLesson, then session, then membership. Members and public guests. Midweek habit, 20–45 minutes from home.
Staged moneyBay B is dug, not fitted, until Bay A trades. The first cheque is £250k, not £2.42m.
On-site energymicroCHP, SOFC and BESS cut the grid import. Waste heat goes into showers, saunas, hot tubs and the clubhouse.
Vendor contractSwell interval, height and 97% uptime are Gate 2 terms. Plant is not ordered before Gate 3.

03 · The asset

Two bays, back to back, sharing one plant.

Dig both basins once. Open Bay A. Fit out Bay B from asset finance and Bay A cash after a trading gate. Members and public guests. Lesson, session, membership.

Spec	Base case
Wave	About 4 ft · 2 ft learn setting · 50-yard ride
Cycle	A swell every 8.5 seconds
Plant	Four 56 kW hydraulic plungers per bay
Water	12,739 sq ft per bay
Throughput	13 surfers / bay / hour until commissioning proves more
Plot	2–3 acres · 80–120 parking spaces

Bay A is lessons, families and schools. Bay B is sessions, members and evening club. Cabins sit in an optional PropCo and are not in this case.

04 · Planning and site

The largest risk is consent, not the plungers.

Gate 1 kills a plot before an option is exercised. We do not take Green Belt, flood plain or a protected landscape into Gate 3. Host leisure sites with existing consent are preferred.

Screen	Pass threshold	Evidence at Gate 1
Land type	Leisure-consented host, industrial or brownfield. Flood Zone 1. No AONB, National Park or SSSI.	Pre-application response
Noise and lighting	Plant in a central room. Hours aligned to host. No night racing.	Acoustic note + lighting plan
Highways	10 min from a motorway or A-road. 80–120 spaces, or shared host parking.	Transport note
Environment	Closed-loop treatment. No discharge to a watercourse as the operating case.	Drainage and water strategy
Neighbours	Host already draws 250k+ visits, or a standalone plot with no sensitive frontage.	Host counts or walkover
Utilities	Gas main and 250 kVA import within 500 m.	Network budget offers

If pre-application fails, the option is not exercised. Tranche B never sees a refused site.

05 · Energy cost protection

The microgrid is there to protect EBITDA. Not to win an award.

Generate on site with microCHP, SOFC and a battery. Put the waste heat into showers, saunas, hot tubs, the clubhouse and the blanket on the bays. Gas ±30% moves project IRR by about one point. A missed DNO upgrade can move opening by a year. The plant is there so the wave stays on.

Lower opex

£194k modelled energy with both bays open. Heat that would be dumped from a generator is used on site.

microCHP

Covers the bulk of running power and feeds heat into showers, saunas and hot tubs. Cuts the import a DNO must sell you.

SOFC

Solid-oxide fuel cell sits with the CHP. Steady baseload electricity and high-grade heat when the plungers are cycling all day.

BESS

250 kVA battery rides through short outages so a session is not cancelled for a flicker.

Room to add solar

£245k energy centre is asset-financed. Roof and car-port PV can bolt on later without resizing the trade.

06 · Demand

13 an hour per bay. That is the lid.

The case is built from the water up, not from a national surfing slide. Two bays × 13 surfers × 8.5 hours × 290 days = 64,090 rider-hours. That is the hard cap. The 0.8% figure is only how much of a 60-minute ring you need if each person visits twice a year. Gate 3 throws the ring away and rebuilds demand on the optioned postcode, with names and deposits.

Hard cap

64,090

rider-hours a year. 13 surfers × 2 bays × 8.5 hours × 290 days. The model never prints above this. Four plungers per bay can make more waves than we will sell.

Derived

106 a day

stabilised, both bays, 48% of the 221-hour daily cap. Bay A break-even is 40 a day. Year 5 plan is 99 a day.

Who has to buy it

13,000

paying surfers a year plus 310 members. At 1.3 visits instead of 2.0, the need rises to about 20,000 — still 1.2% of the ring.

Cross-check	Figure	What we do with it
What this site can sell	64,090 rider-hours · 106 guests a day at 48%	Hard cap. Staff and 80–120 parking spaces bind before the eight plungers do.
Who has to buy it	13,000 paying surfers · 310 members	0.8% of 8–54s within 60 minutes of a reference ring, at 2 visits a year.
UK Surfing and Health Report, 2024	6.27m tried a surf sport · 488,000 more regular	National pool. Ceiling only. Not a local forecast.
Surfing England	Clubs and membership live	School and club letters of intent are a Gate 3 condition.
Gate 3, on the plot	1,500 waitlist names · £200k escrowed deposits · 5 LOIs	This replaces the 0.8% assumption. No names, no Tranche B.

07 · Capital and gates

Dig once. Fit out twice.

Capital to open Bay A is £2.42m. The reserve is solved, not chosen: the smallest sum that keeps cash above £50k through the downside with no new money. VAT on tickets is netted. Build is shown ex-VAT. Bay B (£670k) is year 3 and does not need a new equity cheque.

Uses	£000
Phase 1 build — open Bay A	1,685
Pre-opening, incl. fractional FD	115
Transaction costs	50
Working capital	40
Downside reserve	530
Capital to open	2,420

Sources	£000
SEIS Tranche A — Gate 0	250
EIS + institutional Tranche B — Gate 3	1,920
Energy asset finance — commissioning	250
Total	2,420
Phase 2 Bay B — year 3, no new equity	670

08 · Sequence

Four unproven components. Capital follows the sequence.

G0 · TeamFractional FD. Model and data room owned. HMRC advance assurance filed.At risk £0

G1 · SiteOption on a plot that passes the screen. Isochrone re-run on that postcode.≤ £60k

G2 · CostTwo fixed-price quotes per package. SwellSpot performance contract.≤ £150k

G3 · DemandConsent. 1,500 waitlist names. £200k escrowed deposits. Then Tranche B draws.≤ £250k

G4 · Test90-day commissioning against spec before any public sale.Tranche B

G5 · Bay BTrailing 12 months: 45%+ util, £180k+ EBITDA run-rate, 97%+ uptime.£450k finance

09 · Returns

Modest per site. Stated plainly. Stress-tested.

10-year, post-tax. Project IRR uses a 5.5× year-10 EBITDA exit. The no-exit number is shown beside it. Utilisation drives the case.

	Downside	Base	Upside
Stabilised utilisation	Bay A 44%, no Bay B	A 52% · B 44%	A 60% · B 52%
Year 5 EBITDA	£109k	£660k	£887k
Project IRR, 5.5× exit	−5.7%	17.4%	22.8%
Project IRR, no exit	−16.2%	7.9%	14.0%
Payback	Not within 10	7.2 yrs	5.9 yrs
Tranche B IRR after 30% EIS	−6.5%	14.0%	18.2%
SEIS IRR after 50% relief	4.4%	26.8%	31.5%

Illustrative split after Tranche B: founders 25% · SEIS 18% · Tranche B 57%. Optional PropCo for cabins sits outside the EIS company.

10 · Founding team

Why Scott and Walter.

Investors back a process and a pair of people who have already lived the two halves of this asset: energy infrastructure, and the lagoon itself.

Commercial · energy · delivery

Scott Graham

Founder, Surf X Group Ltd. Exclusive UK and EU SwellSpot licence. Head of New Business at Skyline DC Energy, where he built the energy division. Co-founder of CrestIQ energy monitoring. Owns the commercial path, project finance and the gated raise.

Product · venue · demand

Walter Bennett

Inventor and CEO of SwellSpot. Technology partner to Surf X for about a decade. Owns the wave spec, the vendor contract and how a guest actually uses two bays. The product does not move without him.

Fractional FD · Gate 0

Owns the model, VAT, gate file and data room. Paid from Tranche A. No SEIS draw until engaged.

General manager · pre-opening

UK attractions or watersports operator. Lifeguarding and safety-management experience. Funded in the plan, not yet hired.

Investor director · Tranche B

Board seat for the lead. Related parties (licence, Skyline, CrestIQ) are disclosed and tendered.

11 · The ask

Back the process. Then the build.

Now £250k

SEIS Tranche A. Finance director, site option, pre-application, fixed-price quotes, demand proof. Stops if a gate fails.

Gate 3 £1.92m

EIS and institutional Tranche B for 57% illustrative, plus £250k energy asset finance. Opens Bay A.

Year 3–4 £0 more

Bay B from asset finance and Bay A cash once trading proves demand. No new equity.

Download the numbers pack Request the data room

12 · The plot

How it reads from the air.

Renders are AI concept visualisations. Wave size and crowding are illustrative. Geometry is confirmed by SwellSpot at Gate 2.