The Confidence Bank (#TCB) platform helps women gain financial literacy, confidence and independence by providing an informational app / website (banking API interface) making it easy to PLAN, save and manage their money whether they are in a career, launching a startup or just for personal finance goals. The bank ALSO offers banking members the opportunity to invest their spare change to offers female founders women in start ups an opportunity to receive funding without the barrier and bias of the ‘middle man’ in VC funds, Angel investor circle or other equity funds
Clementine launched in Nov 2020 on the appstore. It has been run as a side hustle up until August 2019 and now Kim Palmer the Founder is focussed solely on scaling. Clementine has traction – close to 75k women engage with Clementine via the app, instagram, and our newsletter. Women love Clementine – 4.7/5 star rating on the appstore and lots of lots of press coverage including – ‘one of the seven apps every women should own’ The Guardian, App of the Day, UK. The number one priority in the past few months has been to secure funding. I’m about to close my first pre-seed round of c£600k.
Curo is a digital employee benefit product that supports the 5 million people in the UK who struggle to juggle caring responsibilities alongside their paid job. Through an online platform, we provide personalised information and signposting to services, a community of carers for peer to peer support, and access to respite & cover care. 1 in 7 employees in the UK are juggling caring responsibilities alongside their paid job. Due to the pressures of doing both with little support, 500,000 people in the last 2 years alone have left work to care for their family member or friend. This can be detrimental to the carers’ mental & physical health, feelings of social isolation and financial position. We aim to support carers to be able to both work and care, and ultimately to be empowered in shaping their lives.
Gifted Local is an online gifting shop helping my community to support and champion local creative talent. I set the website up as I have young kids and find it difficult to get to the shops but wanted to be able to support local businesses. With over 40 sellers and more than 400 products on the site, Gifted Local’s ethos is all about supporting small local businesses whilst promoting sustainability by encouraging sellers to hand deliver the items and use minimal & recyclable packaging. Only Sellers based in a small area in North London (Muswell Hill, Highgate, Wood Green, Tottenham and Crouch End) have been curated onto the site and I’m only inviting residents of those neighbourhoods to purchase the items – so it’s hyperlocal which helps save on delivery miles. The site will soon be expanding to more areas expanding our reach and impact to help more communities shop sustainably.
Grandnanny is a platform that connects retired or semi-retired people with local working families. We provide quality training and meaningful employment for the ‘retiree’ and trusted, reliable after-school care for working parents. Grandnanny aims to achieve social impact in a number of different ways, all of which are measurable: -preventing isolation amongst older people who are semi-retired and retired (proven to be a risk period for falling out of contact with the community) -providing paid work opportunities for older people who are often discriminated against in the workforce -providing a sense of purpose for early-retirees, which is a contributing factor to remaining in good health -providing intergenerational connections within local communities, proven to be beneficial to wellbeing in older people -helping parents who want to go back to work -helping reduce the gender pay gap that emerges around child-bearing age for women and which continues to manifest through the life-course resulting in the gender pension gap -providing childcare for school age children; contributing to their core developmental skills.
Growd, a UK and Kenya-based education platform, is at the heart of efforts aimed at nurturing academic excellence through co-curricular activities. Growd provides parents with access to thousands of vetted co-curricular educational activities that are aimed at stimulating their child’s academic performance. At the touch of a button, parents are able to curate their children’s learning experiences outside the classroom, viewing several activities and tailoring them according to their child’s age, developmental areas, goals, and personal preferences. All these choices are saved on the parent’s profile and, through the platform’s powerful Artificial Intelligence function, a developmental timeline is created for the parent’s use. In addition, Growd designs sets of activities that a parent can do together with their child in the comfort of their homes. The platform has an embedded community feature comprised of experienced parents and experts who provide free personalized and reliable information on a wide variety of topics to parents using the platform. A certified member of Social Enterprise UK, Growd is focused on using part of its proceeds to provide free information and other services that will position marginalized children and children from low-income homes for success. As a social enterprise, Growd is also creating an avenue for thousands of jobless youth who have talents and skills to share in the form of children learning activities to do so through their platform.
A lack of training and resource within the NHS, means that menopausal symptoms are often misdiagnosed and medication is over or incorrectly prescribed. Many women, unhappy with the options provided by the NHS, are left to wade through the glut of mostly anecdotal information on the internet, in an attempt to self-diagnose. Private healthcare is expensive and inaccessible to the majority. Happee Un Ltd will make bespoke treatment an affordable option for every woman. A simple to use diagnostic tool that will help women identify, track and treat hormonal imbalances related to the menopause. This will be via a three stage process and at each stage the user will be provided with simple to understand information, which will help them to make informed decisions about their options. Often women find the symptoms are too embarrassing to discuss, particularly with a male doctor. The anonymity of a digital platform will provide a safe and secure environment in which to have these conversations. We need to stop this perception that the menopause is the end. A woman’s validity is not based around her ability to reproduce and life choices at this time should not be dictated by her body.
iCreate.Digital aims to inspire and empower people physically, emotionally and mentally to live a fulfilling life and career in their digital future. We deliver digital skills training using immersive technology such as virtual reality. Through training and mentoring, we will create a new generation of digital warriors, so that EVERYBODY can succeed. We aspire to build Tech for Good and Prosperous Communities by tackling societal challenges such as digital inclusion, diversity in tech, AI ethics, AI bias, digital addiction, cyberbullying, digital safety, fake news.
Kindergifts is changing the way people celebrate. We make it easy for people to share their joy with charities whilst reducing gift waste and teaching children about giving back. Over £1bn a year is spent on birthday party gifts and another £2.5bn on “unwanted” Christmas gifts. At a typical party, a child receives 20 little gifts from their friends worth £10-£20 each. Parents are concerned about the amount of presents, lack of appreciation and waste; all unintended consequences of large celebrations. It’s also costly and inconvenient for the guests to buy individual presents. Most staggering is the level of social disconnect. Over 4m children in the UK live in poverty. But what if we could inspire people to change behaviour? That’s what we do. Kindergfits is an online invitation platform that helps parents club together for a group gift and a charity chosen by the birthday child. The child gets a dream gift, instead of many, and learns to share with those in need. Our little heroes feel incredibly proud for helping other children in need. But Kindergifts is not only for kids. Our innovative gift-charity concept is now available for all celebrations – Weddings, adults, office parties and Christmas.
We match companies and their employees with non-profits and impact startups. Our unique approach – using innovation consultants and data analytics – ensures that all our projects are engaging, innovative and one-of-a-kind upskilling experiences solving a real world need. From Ashurst working with the British Red Cross to explore the legalities of cryptocurrency as a form of donation, to helping over 120 million in Nigeria get access to affordable toilets with WaterAid, we find one-of-a-kind projects that our participants are proud to be part of. We operate at the intersection of L&D and CSR such that employees can use their training budget and volunteering days to do Matchable projects. We call it volunteering reimagined.
MothershipsApp focuses on single mothers co-living in mothers communities and raising children together. MothershipsApp is an opportunity for mums to connect, extend social networking and build communities in real life. MothershipsApp matches users based on shared family values, lifestyle, personality, interests, geo location, educational, childcare and housing needs. The Motherships App support women so they can share the joys of motherhood and have the freedom to raise their children in a nurturing environment.
At myCareer University, we help young people launch remarkable careers. Educated young people’s biggest challenges today are unemployment (as high as 12.5% in the US and 25% in the Mediterranean countries), and underemployment (estimated at 51% of college graduates in the US). Yet, the career advice available to them is often inactionable, disengaging and irrelevant. It’s no surprise then that the 22-27 year olds feel anxious and uncertain about their future, and overwhelmed by finding fulfilling work. That’s where we step in. We digest career advice into actionable bite-sized takeaways, which we deliver digitally as a personalized step-by-step plan that our students can easily implement to gain clarity and launch their remarkable career.
Neighbourhood Cares is a platform that uses map functionality to show events for older people in your local area. For each event on the map, users will be able to see the date, time, location and website or Eventbrite link (if applicable) for booking. We will also be providing the option for small companies and social groups to upload their own events, using a built-in form that will then populate the map. Our social mission is to remove the notion that loneliness is a given part of ageing, and instead can be seen as a time of friendship and independence. Whether it’s used by family members, or by older people themselves, we hope to improve visibility of social activities by bringing them all under one, easy-to-use platform.
New Party Rules is a London based artist-led techno-cultural platform. We create live interactive experiences, games and events through conversation, play and digital technology for culturally curious audiences. We invent spaces for adults to play. As adults, we often don’t make enough time to play. Money and the daily obligations of life just get in the way. New party rules designs people-centred, technology-based, interactive events at the intersection of play, digital, enterprise and entertainment through games, conversations and collaborations to emphasise new narratives and perspectives. We build unique social environments to explore stories, experience new technologies, connect face to face with fellow humans and have fun. New Party Rules is an ever-evolving company whose ethos is “It’s a new era, there are no rules!”. Born out of a desire to develop experiential events and explore new models to engage new audiences. We build on the individual achievements of our founder and collaborators, utilising the combined 15 years of immersive industry experience piloting new experimental projects. We believe that experimentation is vital to nurturing and promoting new voices and frames of reference alongside those that already exist in this city.
Pure Bundle is all about helping new parents & helping our planet. For parents of constantly growing babies, we provide beautifully simple baby clothes that don’t cost the earth. We make it simple to purchase capsules of pristine, preloved, branded items for sizes newborn – 3 years, delivered to your door as your baby grows. We m are it simple for parents to sell clothing to Pure Bundle when they’re no longer needed – saving clothes from landfill, helping families in need, and making a little cash. We make money through the margin applied to clothes items, paying sellers 25-55% of the estimated resale value as store credit or payment. Technology and automation will be critical to making this business model viable and capitalising on the market opportunity. We’re starting with clothing Newborn – 3 years in the UK as we test and learn. Then we plan to expand to children’s and maternity capsules, throughout Europe in time.
Quarter-Life was set up as a response to the rise of the quarter-life crisis, and the lack of personal and professional support that exists for young adults in their 20’s. This crisis can be defined as a period of intense uncertainty and doubt over the direction of one’s life experienced in early adulthood. A recent linkedin survey saw that over 75% of young adults in the UK have experienced a crisis of this nature in the last year (2018). Quarter-Life helps young adults navigate this crisis through coaching. Our single aim is to enable young adults to have more fulfilling lives and careers. To date, we have helped hundreds of people gain clarity over their direction and have been recognised in Forbes, The Independent and The Guardian for our work. We deliver coaching one-to-one, in workshops and talks which we take to schools, universities and organisations which support disadvantaged young adults. Our vision is to be the leading provider of support for those experiencing the quarter-life crisis and to make coaching more accessible to young adults across the UK. We intend to do this by growing the team of quarter-life coaches and by creating digital self-learning courses.
Rubitek puts the learner at the heart of learning success. Its cloud-based software solutions feature a suite of tools that deliver total management of apprentices and their training. Rubitek’s apprentice app was designed by apprentices, for apprentices and features an intuitive, easy to use interface that is already being used by over 500 apprentices. From a standing start in April 2018 the business has developed two new innovations and a consultancy service, which are generating revenues from employers of apprentices and providers of apprenticeship training. Rubitek has been described as ‘the new kid on the block’ and is giving traditional apprentice management and e-portfolio solution providers ‘a run for their money’. Rubitek’s vision for growth is predicated on the uptake of apprenticeships in the first instance in the UK market, and its success at home and abroad will be dependent on the innovations it brings online over the period from 2019 to 2023. Rubitek is currently awaiting the outcome of an Innovation Loans application which if successful, will enable the business to bring online its third and most ambitious and potentially game-changing innovation 36 months earlier than it could achieve without the additional funds.
The Hormone Diaries platform is for people who menstruate to learn, discover, discuss and get support on anything related to periods, contraception and health. It is on a mission to tackle the taboo and break the stigma around periods and menstrual health. The Hormone Diaries is also a community of people who want to share their experiences, learn from each other, help others who need support and make an impact on society. It started out as a video series, then a book and now an online community. The Hormone Diaries is a very much needed hub of support for people who menstruate and where you can go to find information and resources.
Umbrella is an organisation devoted to building a world in which justice and equality are treated as rights, not privileges. Using hard data and empirical evidence, we deliver actionable insight and measurable change. Our technology-enabled tools and services support employers in addressing bias and creating fairer, more equitable workplaces for employees.