‘‘I firmly believe that successful entrepreneurs are wired differently.’’
INVESTMENT
When investing, I look for passionate founders who have a 100% belief in their business. They must be unbelievably resilient and have a need to win.
Strong ethics and values are another pre-requisite, and the businesses I invest in must remain as true to these as they do to their brand.
To invest, I need to be really excited about the offering and to be convinced there is a place for it in the marketplace. Importantly, it must offer something that other businesses don’t.
Biscuiteers
Biscuiteers, founded in 2007 by Harriet Hastings & husband Stevie, is the UK’s original hand-iced biscuit company. Often known as “the NET-A-PORTER of biscuits”, Biscuiteers offers a stylish and personalised alternative to traditional gifts. Each biscuit is beautifully handmade and decorated by artists who take pride in the aesthetic and care required to craft these unique gifts. Over the years, Biscuiteers has flourished, now delivering to 117 countries worldwide and operating two London-based Icing Cafés, with corporate clients ranging from Dior to Disney.
Having started her career in publishing, latterly as a Marketing Director at Penguin, Harriet spent 10 years as Director of consumer brands at Trimedia, a top 20 PR agency. Her leadership has been recognised with awards including the NatWest Aphrodite Everywoman award (2018), the LDC top 50 most ambitious leaders 2023 and Harriet and her husband Stevie have also been listed in the Evening Standard’s Power 1000 of London’s most influential people. Harriet helped to found the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 1996 and was managing director of the prize until 2022, she also serves as a founding member of the business network Buy Women Built.
Find out more here: https://www.biscuiteers.com/
ChicP
ChicP founder Hannah McCollum is an entrepreneur on a mission to reduce food waste at its source and create healthier, everyday food.
Having started her career in catering for large groups, Hannah hated seeing the vast amounts of food being wasted post-event. Instead of discarding this excess, she transformed it into opportunity, creating dips and hummus from leftover ingredients. Hannah’s goal was to encourage people to adopt a more sustainable and healthier lifestyle.
What began as a venture utilising food waste from her catering days, grew into ChicP, which works directly where possible with British farmers who face challenges selling fresh but “non-aesthetically pleasing’ vegetables and pulses.
The ChicP range includes delicious and versatile dips and the recently introduced ambient (fridge-less) hummus snack pots, ideal for on-the-go healthy snacking. These convenient pots are perfect for curbing hunger while out and about, and I always keep some in my handbag to stave off hunger during a busy day.
Find out more at https://www.chicp.co.uk/
Clothes Doctor
After working in the retail sector for 10 years, Lulu O’Connor gradually became aware of how unsustainable her shopping had become. She discovered how many of our clothes go to waste and set about building a business that would encourage people to change their consumption habits and extend the life of their garments.
People from across the country were soon sending their most beloved items to Clothes Doctor for altering and repairing. The company’s repairs service continues from its base in rural Cornwall. It also makes a range of specialist clothing care products, avoiding artificial fragrances in favour of those that use only essential oils, which then seep into your clothes and your home.
I have been a fan of Clothes Doctor’s laundry detergents since launch, so when Lulu approached me to invest, I was already there. Saving on dry cleaning my precious knits whilst also extending their lifespan means my favourite clothes last longer and I save money.
Find out more at https://clothes-doctor.com
Collagerie
Collagerie expertly curates the best in fashion, interiors, beauty, and lifestyle. It celebrates shopping at every price point, bringing the frequently confused and time-poor customer an innovative way to discover things they’ll love. Collagerie’s curatorial approach is all about delighting, inspiring and “finding you the one thing over everything”.
The brand’s bespoke partnerships create custom content for established names and newcomers alike, through digital storytelling, live events, and product collaborations. The results are dynamic, desirable and effortlessly shoppable.
Collagerie was founded by Lucinda Chambers and Serena Hood. Lucinda is a legend in fashion, having been Fashion Editor at Vogue for over 25 years. She brings an unbeatable creativity and flair to Collagerie’s offering. Serena is focused, driven and business minded, yet chic and elegant to boot. What they have created is a unique shopping experience that’s all about the edit.
Find out more at https://www.collagerie.com
EnterpriseAlumni
Emma Sinclair MBE is a legend in start-ups. She was the youngest woman to list a business on AIM and is focused, driven and dynamic.
EnterpriseAlumni is the multinational enterprise software business she founded in 2016. It has become the market-leading alumni platform, helping the world’s leading organisations to activate, engage and maintain a connection to former employees.
Emma recognised that ex-employees possess huge potential value as ambassadors, advocates, customer, or ‘boomerang hires’, re-recruiting alumni who have previously worked at a business. Boomerang hires, for example, are cost free to recruit and have the advantage of knowing the business and require less training.
A challenging economic client where revenue matters more than ever - and talent shortages in certain areas - have only heightened the need for companies to keep track of and communicate with alumni. Based in New York, EnterpriseAlumni now helps global giants to tap into ex-employees to drive revenue, rehires and reputation.
Find out more at https://enterprisealumni.com
Figaro
Lydia Gregory is a proven entrepreneur who feels compelled to correct wrongs whenever she sees them. I was staggered to learn that music categorisation is still done manually, so an AI solution to this made total sense to me. Figaro is that solution, a next-generation search engine that’s easy, fast and robust.
After studying music at Oxford University, Lydia worked as a management consultant for early-stage music companies. She co-founded Figaro because she saw so many amazing businesses and creators in the creative industry who want to work with AI, but don’t have access to the expertise.
Figaro provides a bridge between machine learning and its practical applications. Lydia believes that innovation is the combination of creativity, knowledge, and skill, and has built a highly impressive business that reflects this philosophy.
Find out more at https://www.feedforwardai.com/figaro/
Freja
Ever fancied making a tasty casserole or bolognaise only to find the fresh broth is a solid mass in the freezer? Step forward Jessica Higgins and Edward Armitage, the married couple behind Freja, makers of delicious, nutritious, cupboard-friendly bone broth.
Frustrated by the lack of genuinely healthy and sustainable fast food to feed their family of six, Jessica and Ed went back to their childhoods to rediscover the joys of slowly simmered bone broth. Now, they’re set on re-establishing “the original superfood” as a household staple.
Freja’s range of award-winning broths are responsibly sourced and produced in Norway from 100% natural ingredients. Good enough to drink, they’re packed with protein, collagen and amino acids. And, thank goodness, they're ready to go when you are.
Find out more at https://frejafoods.com
The Gut Stuff
Alana and Lisa Macfarlane, aka The Mac Twins, are DJ sisters from Edinburgh swapped the dance floor for the lab — and fad diets for gut health — after volunteering to be Professor Tim Spector’s guinea pigs in a long-term study called The British Gut Project.
The experience inspired them to turn their boundless energy and creativity to all things tummy-related. Their ‘gut journey’ has subsequently seen the twins launch a successful YouTube channel and front an educational TV series, ‘Know your Sx!t’, in which they explain how our poo can reveal important clues about our health. They’ve also started a brilliant business called The Gut Stuff.
Working with a team of doctors, dieticians, scientists and nutritionists, Alana and Lisa bring their infectious enthusiasm to debunking the myths surrounding digestion. They’ve already released a range of hunger-quenching health bars made from ingredients your gut loves. Next up is an app that helps families to find reasonably priced recipes and food combos that promote gut health.
Find out more at https://thegutstuff.com
Hunter & Gather
Amy Moring and Jeff Webster are a British couple on a mission to improve our health. Amy is a lifelong coeliac who has always looked at ingredients in foods. Jeff suffered with acne, asthma, and IBS as a teenager until he discovered an ancestrally inspired real food diet free from refined sugar, grains and inflammatory oils.
With rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes and depression increasing every year, they have created a range of healthy kitchen staples, condiments and supplements that are all free from refined sugar, grains, and inflammatory seed/vegetable oils.
Unrefined food is in the ascendancy, and Amy and Jeff knew that creating foods that they could eat meant others could eat them too. They have succeeded with Hunter & Gather, creating products that are delicious and good for everyone, while also providing the recipes, tools and information for us all to have a healthier diet.
Find out more at https://hunterandgatherfoods.com
Lemonade Dolls
Lemon Fuller, CEO and Founder of Lemonade Dolls, is a livewire. She is so passionate about life, fitness and undies that it positively seeps out of her!
Inclusivity and comfort are the brand’s north stars. The Lemonade Dolls size range goes from a 6 to 24 and they’re planning on introducing a bigger range of sizes along with pieces designed for transgender and non-binary bodies. Lemonade Dolls celebrates natural beauty in all forms, using zero retouching in its photos and video content.
Lemon constantly strives to reduce her company’s environmental impact at every step of the process, making all the brand’s products from the most responsibly sourced, long wearing and high-quality materials it can find. She is one of life’s inspirations and has created something that is a game changer for women of all shapes and sizes.
Find out more at https://lemonadedolls.com/
Nuggets
Co-founders Seema Kinda Johnson and Alastair Johnson believe that self-sovereign identity and blockchain is transforming the relationships between individuals and institutions they interact with.
Trust, privacy, security, compliance, and user experience are paramount in the information age. Identity solutions based on passwords, emails, devices and wallet addresses are still common but people are paying for this with their personal data.
Nuggets is the singular solution Seema and Aliastair have created for all your identity, transaction, privacy, compliance and security needs. This award-winning identity super-wallet delivers verified self-sovereign decentralised identity for Web2, Web3, DeFi, the Metaverse and beyond.
Before Nuggets, Seema spent 20 years leading teams and delivering large-scale projects with brands like Skype and Microsoft. Alastair led global integrated product development and marketing for the likes of Microsoft, Skype, Office, Xbox, Hololens, Disney, TED and the BBC.
Find out more at https://nuggets.life/index.html
Lady Chanelle McCoy and Caroline Coen Sc., MSc., L.LM have worked in the pharmaceuticals industry their whole careers, registering more than 2,500 medical licences in 96 countries across 20 years.
They first learned about CBD after hearing about families where they live in Ireland who struggled to access it for their children. Some even had to travel to the mainland to obtain CBD.
With misleading and poor-quality products on the market, they knew they had to bring a safe, certified product to the consumer. Chanelle and Caroline had the expertise to carry out clinical safety studies and navigate regulatory landscapes to develop the highest quality synthetic CBD that helps with sleep and muscle pain. Pureis resonated with me from the moment I used the products.
Chanelle led Chanelle Medical for 18 years and was awarded the All-Ireland Business Champion Award for her outstanding achievements in business leadership. A proven Medical Commercial Director, Caroline drove scientific and commercial innovation that produced transformational growth at Chanelle Medical.
Find out more at https://www.pureiscbd.com