ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

OUR INVESTMENT THESIS

Our mission is to invest in extraordinary, underrepresented founders building for-profit companies that make the world a better place.

The businesses  focus on providing necessary, accessible and affordable products and services for underserved/marginalised communities, or improving the socio-economic prospects for those communities.

By ‘underserved/marginalised communities’, we are referring to individuals that face the following challenges:

  • Poverty

  • Discrimination

  • Lack of access to justice

We focus on founders with lived experience of the problem they are tackling because we believe that solutions are more impactful when designed by those with a deep understanding of and familiarity with the issue.

We focus on early-stage businesses which we define as either pre-seed or seed. We particularly welcome applications from pre-revenue companies. Our focus is on this stage because there is a lack of finance for early-stage founders and we believe our wrap-around support can have the most impact at this point.   

We focus on underrepresented founders because there is evidence that individuals from diverse racial, ethnic, socio-economic and gender backgrounds face systemic barriers in accessing capital and resources to start and grow their businesses. We are specifically looking to support the following types of founders:

  • Women

  • Minority ethnic

  • Those from low-income backgrounds

In addition:

  • You attempt to solve these problems through a traded income (as opposed to philanthropy)

  • You are a for-profit company limited by shares

  • You are eligible for SEIS or EIS (you will need pre-approval from HMRC before we can close the round)

  • You are at a relatively early stage (pre-Series A)

  • You have ambitions to grow your business

  • Your headquarters are in the UK

  • You commit to paying all staff the Real Living Wage

Who cannot apply:

  • Businesses whose main beneficiary group live outside of the UK

  • Businesses whose primary mission is to improve the natural environment or prevent climate change

  • Businesses whose mission is the advancement of religion

  • Businesses with the following legal structures: community interest companies limited by guarantee; companies limited by guarantee; or charities.