WorkerTech newsletter: December 2023

As we come to the end of the year we’ve been reflecting on our work in 2023, so in this edition you’ll find our highlights of the year.

Do you have a WorkerTech idea that you’re developing for 2024? Book in a time to speak to us in January to see how we can work together.

In the meantime, have a lovely festive break, however you are celebrating!

Emma
Ventures Manager
Resolution Foundation

⭐ WorkerTech top 10 in 2023 ⭐

(in no particular order)

1. Our portfolio expanded to welcome five new WorkerTech ventures: Valla, Mobilise, Slinger, Organise and Equal Care Coop. We also invested more into our existing portfolio companies Earlybird, TaskHer and Breakroom.

2. We hosted our first-ever WorkerTech conference in November bringing together startup founders, investors, policymakers, unions, and researchers all interested in how tech can improve low-paid and precarious work.

3. On the same day as the conference we published our Impact and Learning Report, a summary of our approach to impact and the progress we have made so far in improving work for hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers in the UK.

4. Following our initial research in 2022, we commissioned some user research with the brilliant team at Shift to understand how we could better support WorkerTech founders with lived experience of low-paid work through the idea development stage, and get ready to access investment from us and other impact investors.

5. And to put the findings into action, we ran our first Pre-Investment Workshop bringing together 18 founders and five mentors to give feedback and advice, and the opportunity to pitch for a small grant and further mentoring from our team. Congratulations to CareGig and Careers Camp who won additional support from Resolution Ventures!

6. Resolution Foundation’s research team produced 11 reports on the state of the labour market in the UK, including Low Pay Britain 2023, which explored the transformative impact of the minimum wage and the need for a ‘good work’ agenda for lower earners.

7. The ventures team met with our network at multiple events across the year including hosting Impact VC’s London Tech Week social, co-hosting a workshop on a fairer gig economy with Fairwork, and Learning and Work Institute’s Better Work Conference.

8. We partnered with Ufi VocTech Trust for their Week of VocTech in November to host a founder insight session in selling tech for good into the public sector, and to judge their Future of Skills Award.

9. Our partnership with Bethnal Green Ventures continued as we opened applications for WorkerTech ideas for their next Tech for Good Programme. Watch this space to see who we’ll be backing next year!

10. Finally, we now have more readers than ever with 3,400 of you subscribing to this newsletter – if you have a WorkerTech story to tell and would like to guest edit for a month in 2024 let me know!