In the most challenging of years, Huckletree members have continued to innovate against the odds. This is an ode to you, the members who make us. Here's to the future.

To Be Continued...

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Apr 20
A force for nature
Hylo
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Apr 20
Who needs a Dragon’s Den when you have a palace for your phallus?
Just Wears
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May 20
Swooping to the rescue
Starling Bank
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Jul 20
B-coming a B-corp in a pandemic
The COllective UK
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Sep 20
Socking it to homelessness
Stand4Socks
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Sep 20
Summit from nothing
Public
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Oct 20
Tech royalty
Andy Ayim & June Angelides
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Oct 20
Safety in numbers
Safe and the city
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Oct 20
13 million wagging tails
Butternut Box
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Nov 20
Good news travels fast
Tap Trip
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Nov 20
Eureka!
Mel Science

To Be Continued...

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How it started

Hylo

As a group of pro and amateur athletes, the Co-Founders of Hylo Athletics believe the future of sport needs radical change.So they created Hylo, to reinvent sports apparel and push for new standards in an industry that has been slow to do anything about its environmental footprint.

Apr 2020

Hylo

A force for nature

Huckletree Soho member Hylo launched their first product - a running shoe made of seven natural materials and an innovative circular stystem that allows customers to return old pairs to be recycled.

What's coming next?

Hylo

Sport has always had an incredible power to unite people - Hylo hope to harness that power to bring the world's attention to the biggest issue of our lifetime. To help achieve this, they’re building a team of Hylo athletes such as Patrick Bamford and George Davey that represent the future of sport – people as passionate about their planet as they are about their performance.

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How it started

Just Wears

While working in finance, co-founder Alex regularly complained about his underwear not fitting properly, so co-founder Yang decided to do something ballsy about it. JustWears launched on Kickstarter in 2017 - Within the first 30 days, they had thousands of people pre-ordering JustWears and quickly climbed the charts to become the most backed apparel project in the UK.

Apr 2020

Just Wears

JustWears

JustWears is on a mission to reinvent men's basic wears with sustainably made, ergonomically designed underwear. Just as the global pandemic kicked in, they headed onto Dragons’ Den where they turned down 2 investment offers and made Peter Jones blush with Yang's quick wit and cheeky underwear chat. They ended up selling over 100,000 pairs of pants to more than 73 countries.

What's coming next?

Just Wears

The future for JustWears is to continue growing and challenging the norms of the ultra-wasteful fashion industry, Yang says: “If we can become a business like Patagonia with a clear mission and values that are carried not just in the product, but people who work there and stakeholders, that would be the dream."

How it Started
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How it started

Starling Bank

In November 2019 Starling Bank opened their 1 millionth account, a huge milestone in their growth journey. In the same month they also became a Which? Recommended Provider.

May 2020

Starling Bank

Swooping to the rescue

In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Huckletree member Starling Bank didn’t hesitate to offer Bounce Back loans to its customers, providing a lifeline to small businesses hit hard by the crisis.

What's coming next?

Starling Bank

Starling has just become the first UK bank to issue Mastercard debit cards made of recycled plastic as part of their mission to build genuinely sustainable practices from scratch.

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How it started

Collective UK

Originally founded in New Zealand by co-founders Amelia Harvey and the late Mike Hodgson. Alongside dairy alchemy, they have a strong social conscience - pledging £10,000 to support Action Against Hunger and developing a pioneering dual-layered yoghurt in collaboration with The Brownlee Foundation. This partnership was the brainchild of Amelia’s Co-Founder Mike, who sadly passed away from a sudden cardiac arrest whilst cycling in the Lake District in 2015.

Jul 2020

Collective UK

B-coming a B-corp in a pandemic

Huckletree West heroes The Collective UK's officially became a B-Corp in 2020, thanks to their dedication to changing the way they work. "Our goal is to be the most sustainable dairy company in the world. This means continually striving to create the most delicious products in a way that has the least possible impact on the planet. We know we’re not there yet, but we’re excited to be on the journey and setting our goals for the future."

What's coming next?

Collective UK

Next up... the biggest move in The Collective's history: entering the plant-based category with new vegan yoghurts. In development since 2018, they've used a blend of coconut, oats and rice to replicate their luxury dairy-based thick yoghurt - and each yoghurt is rolling out in 100% recyclable pots, too. Product Director Sarah Smart says: “The launch builds on our strong belief of bringing consumers great taste through real, natural food, and our commitment to do better for the planet."

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How it started

Stand4Socks

Founder of Stand4Socks, Josh creates a business model that for each pair of socks sold, a pair is donated to people in need. Since launching, he's donated over 130k pairs of ethically produced socks to homeless people, with a particular line of socks featuring iconic British city skylines catching consumer attention. Josh says: "The Bristol sock is our best performing sock for sales and perhaps that’s because people recognise there is an issue with homelessness in the city and want to help."

Sep 2020

Stand4Socks

Socking it to homelessness

Socks are the most requested item by homeless shelters, so Founder Josh created the most suitable sock for homeless people, donating a pair with each they sell. Their inimitable designs include a LGBTQ+ flag and a sold-out Louis Theroux pair, plus famous fans including Stephen Fry and Michael Sheen. In 2020, Josh picked up the Entrepreneur for Good NW Award at the Great British Entrepreneur Award and launched NHS Health Hero socks to help NHS workers in the fight against COVID.

What's coming next?

Stand4Socks

Now the aim is to become carbon negative - or a B Corp. Currently Stand4Socks support 12/17 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. They use sustainably sourced yarns, work with a family run, ethically accredited factory and are the first sock brand to ship our products in 100% home compostable mail bags.

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How it started

Public

In 2019, we partnered with PUBLIC to launch PUBLIC Hall, a shared workspace that will nurture startups, investors, and innovators; the open-plan office enabling them to build relationships primarily with civil servants and Westminster policymakers, helping to shape the public service and its future. Daniel Korski, Co-Founder and CEO of PUBLIC: "We launched PUBLIC with the aim of bringing technologists and government closer together and providing a physical space in the heart of government where this can happen is the next step in this journey."

Sep 2020

Public

Summit from nothing

PUBLIC, a leading venture firm working to help tech startups transform public services, launched the first ever virtual GovTech Summit. Conceived in just 10 weeks, with 48 speakers from around the globe including Rt Hon Tony Blair.

What's coming next?

Public

Working with Governments across Europe to advise on strategies for embracing and building their own GovTech ecosystems, in the run up to a more hybrid GovTech Summit in Oct 2021.

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How it started

Tech Royalty

2016: Whilst on maternity leave from Silicon Valley Bank, June took coding classes but found they weren't flexible around childcare, so founded Mums in Technology, the UK's first baby-friendly coding school - but on spotting talented women who didn't fit the investor mould and would struggle to get funding, decided she had to put her the skills to work as an investor to help people in this position.
2010: Andy has been a stalwart of the UK innovation scene since co-founding Mixtape Madness - one of the biggest digital media platforms for underground music and youth culture. A portfolio career advocate, he has played a part in the creation of Backstage Capital’s UK accelerator programme, and invested $2.5m into underrepresented founders in the UK, US and Kenya.

Oct 2020

Tech Royalty

Tech royalty

We believe that your network intelligence - the collective intelligence held by all the people you know - is your most important asset in building a successful company. Huckletree's Ambassador network is a community of expert operators, entrepreneurs and investors that help our members find the right people, with the right insights, at the right time. We were incredibly proud to see two of our Ambassadors recognised with MBEs in the Queen's Birthday Honours: Andy Ayim, for Services to Diversity in the Technology Industry, and June Angelides for Services to Women in Tech.

What's coming next?

Tech Royalty

Andy: Focusing on The Angel Investing School, that trains professionals from all backgrounds on how to get started with investing in startups - supported by Google for Startups, UK Business Angels Association and One Tech. Talent is widely distributed in but opportunity is not. Angel Investing School was created to change that.
June: Focusing on her mission to financially empower girls and women around the world and increase the number of women in tech. In her role at investment manager at Samos Investments, she is investing in female and underrepresented founders even in the toughest times such as this year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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How it started

Safe and the City

U.K. Government research shows that while 85 percent of women experience some form of harassment, 90 percent of the incidents remain unreported. In 2017, founder Jillian Kowalchuk created Safe and The City, an app that helps people find the safest route home instead of using Google Maps or Citymapper, after she was nearly attacked in a dark alleyway in London which an app had led her down.

Oct 2020

Safe and the City

Safety in numbers

In 2020, despite the global pandemic, they launched their joint report with UN Women UK, a real-time pilot study to produce insights on what needs to change in urban areas. They also launched in Berlin with Vodafone and started work with Uber UK to expand their platform which helps track and report street harassment and create more safer cities.

What's coming next?

Safe and the City

On International Women's Day, they announced their i3 Intelligence Platform, which will enable other mobile applications to integrate to keep even more people safe. Part one, i3 Risk, is their daily prediction service, which produces risk estimates for public spaces. Part two, i3 React is their emergency alerting service, during the 2019 London Bridge terrorist attack, i3 React triggered a mobile notification to all Safe & the City user’s within a 5km radius, within only 10-minutes.

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How it started

Butternut Box

All treat, no tricks. In 2019, Butternut Box, expanded its menu by launching its first ever naturally tasty treat range. No sugar, no bad stuff. Just the best tasting treats for dogs. Simple.

Oct 2020

Butternut Box

13 million wagging tails

During a year that no one will forget, Butternut Box served over 13 million bowls of fresh food to four-legged WFH buddies across the UK.

What's coming next?

Butternut Box

Butternut Box takes its fresh meals (and treats) on wheels and goes international. Hope they don't furget their toothbrush.

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How it started

Tap Trip

TapTrip Founders Neil Ruth, Jack Timblin and Thomas Young identified a gap in the market for a simple, self-serve travel platform aimed at SMEs after experiencing frustration firsthand with booking their business travel. TapTrip puts control back into the hands of businesses, by creating a simple user experience that’s integrated with leading online travel providers. In 2019, they became the FIRST traveltech company on New York Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars, programme.

Nov 2020

Tap Trip

Good news travels fast

In 2020, they were in the spotlight in the top 20 Manchester startups to work for next year. This comes after they revealed that they've tripled their workforce during lockdown. Since March, the team has grown from six to 20 people and opened new offices in London and Romania, despite the overall downturn in global travel. COO Neil Ruth says "The travel industry is struggling, so we adapted our service offering to help keep the industry moving, we integrated a live chat functionality into TapTrip, allowing for the human touch through tech, which is needed at a time of such uncertainty."

What's coming next?

Tap Trip

Launch of Vessul, a new service aimed at the marine and energy sector thanks to £1.7m investment raised during the pandemic. The Vessul tool, aimed at small to medium crew rotations, shows the availability of seats on chartered flights and offers empty seats out to companies within the industry. The company says that it also includes a multi-city departures function, which it claims is the first of its kind in the industry. Why? TapTrip claims that 98 per cent of travel booking for the marine sector is still handled offline.

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How it started

MEL Science

MEL Science are a team of science lovers since childhood - they went on to create the most popular science tournament, developed games such FIFA 12, founded a 3D design studio and created two mobile software development companies. When raising their own children, they realized that they wanted to give them more than a standardised education could offer. So, they united in one common goal: making science education easy, interesting, and effective. In 2019 they raised $6m to get their chemistry lab kits into 5,000 schools worldwide.

Nov 2020

MEL Science

Eureka!

Huckletree Shoreditch members and EdTech pioneer MEL Science's mission is to make science education the new Rock’n’Roll. They're breaking the stereotype that science is boring, difficult, and only for certain types of people with educational subscription boxes with breathtaking hands-on experiments, powered by immersive AR & VR lessons and live online classes. In November 2020, they secured $14 million in Series B funding. Their investors include Channel 4 Ventures, who we introduced to the team earlier this year as part of our Platform outreach.

What's coming next?

MEL Science

In the future - they will continue to develop its product offering and expand into brand new territories: ""Our mission is to encourage and educate a new generation of scientists. We have found that a subscription model lends itself perfectly to this. As demand for home education resources continues to increase, it provides a way to help parents fill the role of teachers during periods of classroom closures, and continually fuel their kids’ curiosity for, and interest in, subjects that are often difficult to grasp.

How it Started
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