Pre-investment programme

The idea:

• An idea for how technology can improve the experience of work for low-paid or precarious workers in the UK, focusing on a specific problem experienced by low-paid workers.
• An idea that is pre-revenue (hasn’t made any money yet) and pre-product (technology not built yet, and although not required, you might have an idea of how it would work or a basic prototype).
• An idea for how the solution would make money in order to become a sustainable business.

What do we mean by tech that can improve low-paid or precarious work?

We’re interested in ideas that can help workers that:

• Are in low-paid work – they are earning less than £11.95 an hour, or less than £21,000 per year
• Are in precarious work – they are a gig worker, agency worker, on a 0-hours contract, self-employed, have unpredictable working patterns
• Are underrepresented in the workforce, particularly in higher paying roles
• Lack access to training courses
• Lack voice and power at work

The team:

• We’re open to receiving applications from both individuals working on an idea, or small teams. All participants must be at least 18 years old.
• Applicants need to have either lived or learnt experience of the issues surrounding low-paid work.
• You don’t need to be incorporated as a business yet, but you need to have the ambition to become an incorporated entity.
• We’re looking to support founders who haven’t yet raised investment for their idea, or received grant funding of more than £5,000.

What kind of solutions are we open to backing?

Ideas to support these people could use any technology – websites, apps, algorithms, data science to name a few. Feel free to have a look at our current portfolio of ventures to get an idea of the range of solutions we are open to backing.