Last week we were excited to welcome investors, founders and interested parties from across the impact space to our packed BRAN Accelerator Challenge Demo Day, where eight inspiring ventures hit the stage to pitch for investment and shout about the amazing work they are doing to better our society and planet.
Over the past three months, our cohort of impact ventures has advanced through successive phases of the challenge with support, mentoring and workshops from Allia’s venture support team helping them tackle issues and move forward. The first phase reviewed and challenged each venture’s fundamentals and value propositions – moving onto refining pitches and presentations in the second, finishing with the demo day. BRAN Investments, who worked with Allia to create this Accelerator Challenge, were prepared to invest up to £100k towards successful ventures as a result of the pitches and venture’s proposition.
Martin Carruthers, Investment Manager at BRAN Investments Ltd, explained: “The programme was structured in such a way that it could cater for a number of different support needs required by the ventures. For example, some of the ventures had never pitched before so key support was provided here. Others needed support in further planning and defining key matters, like commercialisation strategies and financial models. All of the ventures managed to progress their ventures during the course of the programme which is a fabulous achievement.”
He added that working with Allia meant: “There was a strong correlation of skills and experiences that enabled us to support the finalists in a most effective way. There was also a great chemistry and bond between the Allia and BRAN Investments teams that has contributed to the overall success of the programme.”
Addressing global challenges in innovative ways
From fields as diverse as food waste reduction, transforming plastic into low-carbon building products to nature-related intelligence gathering – all of the ventures on our Accelerator Challenge are addressing global challenges in innovative ways:
- Circular 11– taking unrecyclable plastic and turning it into low-carbon building products designed to last a lifetime.
- Snack Gusto– using farm rejected fruits to produce delicious snacks that are healthy alternatives to the general snack market, all the while reducing food waste.
- Plant Nourish– delivering personalised ethnicity and disease-specific solutions to give access to the best, most innovative care available globally today.
- SuperFi– empowering the ‘financially squeezed’; helping them to locate, manage and reduce their debts faster.
- Telmi– a podcast creation app for kids to create mini podcasts independently, in a meaningful and safe way to boost their creativity, confidence and oral communication.
- Mind Data– a digital platform simplifying the way therapists run their business, whilst transforming the therapy experience for their clients.
- In Good Company– a dedicated platform to help find the best ethical and for-good local businesses and experiences around.
- The Nature Impact– building nature related intelligence: supporting governments and organisations to understand and mitigate their nature-related impacts.
Following our founders engaging and professional pitches and networking conversations, we now wait for the magic to happen. Over the next few weeks, the Allia and BRAN team will be working with some of the ventures to look at possible investment opportunities and we will be able to announce further details in the next coming weeks.
Accelerator Challenge founder spotlight – Harris Karim, founder of The Nature Impact
Nature risk management is becoming increasingly vital for companies as $44 trillion of economic activity is dependent on a healthy and thriving planet. The Nature Impact is a fast-growing start-up that uses software to gather nature related intelligence to help organisations understand and improve their nature-related impacts. The AI-based software platform empowers businesses to track and reduce their impact on nature to support a nature positive world.
Karim spoke about his time on the programme, saying: “The Allia Accelerator Challenge really helped me understand my core value proposition and made me ‘investor-ready’ by preparing me to promote and present my start-up to the wider angel and VC community. Thanks to the incredible support provided by the Allia and BRAN Investments team, we went from having a vague idea of our market to a really focused pitch and business model.
“I would like to highlight how passionate the team are in terms of supporting start-ups who are genuinely trying to make a positive impact on society – their enthusiasm really resonated with us and we felt the team were partnering with mission aligned people throughout. I would recommend Allia to any impact start-up – no better place to join to accelerate your ambitions!”
Inspired and focused
Andrew Brisbin, Allia’s Director of Ventures, worked with the ventures on the challenge and was inspired by their focus and dedication – as well as by BRAN’s interest and involvement.
“We’re thrilled to have been able to collaborate with BRAN Investments on such an important piece of work to get impact start-ups funded. Ultimately, we need to see leadership, like that of BRAN, from more family offices, investors and VCs in order to fund changemakers who are tackling the challenging issues facing society today. We are optimistic about the solutions that this cohort are creating and believe they have the capacity to make a significant impact on the world we live in.”
His words are echoed by BRAN’s Martin, who was encouraged by the founders he met through the programme: “All of the finalists are inspiring in looking to address some of the biggest problems or challenges that we face in society at this time. What I also found inspirational is the profile of founders within such a programme who have passion, determination and strength of character to make a positive social impact on our society.”
We run Accelerator Challenges throughout the UK alongside interested companies, such as BRAN Investments. If you are interested in collaborating with us to help us support the ventures that are changing communities and the world for the better, please do get in touch at hello@alliaimpact.co.uk
