Hatch Enterprise was founded back in 2013, and over the past ten years we’ve grown as a charity, working with thousands of diverse entrepreneurs across the UK, helping them launch and grow impactful, sustainable organisations.
From a small charity based in South London to where we are today ten years later with national reach and international impact, we want to take this opportunity to celebrate the ten year milestone we’ve reached and all that has been achieved.
Ten Years of Hatch in Numbers
- 9,045 individuals supported with their entrepreneurial ambitions
- 1,000+ mentors, coaches, and volunteers gave their time for free to support our mission
- 142,762+ hours of support provided to underrepresented founders
- £766,890 funding awarded to growing businesses
- 60+ partners and funders making it all possible
The Lasting Impact of a Hatch Programme
A Hatch programme can be someone’s first experience of the business world, it can be the place they meet their cofounder, find their first investor, or have the spark of an idea that pivots their business in a whole new direction.
As part of our ten year celebrations we reached out to some past graduates to find out what Hatch meant to them.
André Marmot was on one of our first ever programmes back in 2014 with his business idea, Wormfood, hoping to bring together a range of activities centred around music and community including club nights, promoting, and acting as an agent. Joining Hatch at an early stage helped him to conceptualise the business.
“I had lots of music experience but not business experience. In 2014 I had got to a place of needing more direction, and finding a mentor who could help. Being a solo founder gives you the advantage of a lot of creative freedom, but also means there are fewer people you can turn to for advice and direction.
“A big thing I took away from my Hatch experience was having the language to engage in the business world. Having different weeks that went into covering different aspects of business was really helpful. Social entrepreneurship was a new term to me at the time, the idea that you could run a business that wasn’t just about making money.”
“I had this perception of a polarisation between business and social activism, and learning about social entrepreneurship showed me that there was a place that could exist between the two, where a business could be profitable and also do good.”
“Hatch really helped to conceptualise that for me. It was vital in building a conceptual framework around what I was doing and considering different ways of thinking. Just like therapy, Hatch was a space to talk about what was going on in a slightly removed way. It helped me to think more strategically and grow what I was doing.
“Wormfood, my business, became quite complex. I was doing club nights, curating events, promoting, acting as an agent all in one. As it grew, so did the logistical side of things and I ended up having to handle a tricky staff situation. My experience with Hatch actually helped me to handle this and see it as a learning opportunity, and also an opportunity to reconsider and take stock of what I wanted to be doing. I asked myself “what do I actually want?” and seeing Wormfood grow and what it was becoming, I realised I didn’t want that anymore.
“It had always been about community, and being at the centre of a community. With a better understanding of what I wanted from the work I was doing, I decided to approach a respected agency that shared my values and bring my skills and experience to the single role of agent rather than the many roles I had been doing. I’ve been with that agency for the past 6 years and have enjoyed being able to be self-employed with the creative freedom and flexibility that goes with that, as well as having the support and organisational backing of Earth Agency.
“I’m really grateful to Hatch, it really helped me. It wasn’t one thing in particular that has stuck with me since doing the programme, it was a whole mindset. It enabled me to take myself seriously and it gave me the confidence I needed.”
It was his experience with Hatch that helped André to take a step back and consider what he really wanted out of work and recognise the elements of the business that most aligned with him. Becoming an agent full-time and working with an established agency enabled him to do the work he loved while having the flexibility to pursue creative projects, such as his debut book, Unapologetic Expression: The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosion.
"It wasn’t one thing in particular that has stuck with me since doing the programme, it was a whole mindset."
Farzana Rahman joined the Hatch Female Founder Accelerator in 2020 to grow her business Hexarad.
Hexarad is an award-winning health tech platform delivering a suite of solutions to revolutionise radiology including an end-to-end platform enabling fast and accurate diagnosis for everyone, everywhere.
She said, “I found it really useful, I especially found the peer network helpful, a couple of those people I’m still in contact with today.
“I’m very grateful to the Hatch community, I think it’s a really nice space with great founders. Whenever I reached out about anything everyone was really supportive and very encouraging and that’s really important, particularly I think for solo founders.”
Farzana was also connected with a mentor through her Hatch programme who was able to offer invaluable insight on fundraising, and in turn became an early investor in Hexarad.
“There’s been a lot of challenges in getting the business off the ground, finding investment and funding, building a team. Those are the biggest challenges and my main advice to anyone going through the same thing with their business is to know your market really well, be obsessed with your problem, not the solution, and surround yourself with a really great team.
“We’ve grown a lot, we’ve had success securing investment, we’ve doubled our revenue every year for the last few years, we’ve got over 70 members, and have won a whole bunch of awards. I think you definitely have more barriers if you’re an ethnic minority woman, I’ve found that definitely to be the case. Things like investors ignoring me during a company presentation and asking my CFO all the CEO questions.
“Supporting female founded businesses is viewed as a ‘nice thing’, ticking a CSR box, but the data demonstrates that women actually can often yield better returns for investors than men - it's actually just smart business.|
“A lot of conversations that happen around innovation happen when you get people who are experts in the space, sitting round a table and talking.”
Hexarad is facilitating discussions around radiology, bringing the community together, and is also in its fifth year of providing a scholarship opportunity to those typically underrepresented in medicine, specifically people from an ethnic minority background with no doctors in the family. Farzana says giving back in this way is really important to her and the team.
"I’m very grateful to the Hatch community, I think it’s a really nice space with great founders."
Murvah Iqbal, founder of HIVED, completed a Hatch Female Founders Launchpad in 2020 looking for guidance on how to get stakeholders engaged with young founders and the best approach to fundraising.
With a vision of creating the most sustainable, people-centric, efficient and affordable delivery network ever, Murvah and her co-founder Mathias founded HIVED to reinvent modern parcel delivery.
Operating a 100% electric fleet powered by renewable energy, every HIVED delivery reduces carbon emissions by up to 76% compared to traditional delivery methods.
“Hatch absolutely had a positive impact on me as a founder, especially being able to get feedback on the initial idea and creating a network by meeting new people. I think founders know exactly what other founders are going through, so we automatically seek out that community. It’s great to see the founder communities grow and flourish.
“When I joined Hatch, we were just pivoting based on our idea. Since Hatch, HIVED has come to life. It’s really rewarding working on something so important as reducing air pollution.”
HIVED has worked with brands such as ASOS, ZARA and Karen Millen and has grown its head office to 40, drivers to over 1,000 and delivered to millions of customers with a 5 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot.
"Hatch absolutely had a positive impact on me as a founder... Since Hatch, HIVED has come to life."
Reedah El-Saie completed a Hatch Accelerator programme in 2018 during which she pivoted from her initial idea to a new concept that went on to become the highly successful Brainspark Games.
The multi-award winning EdTech gaming studio offers free, culturally inclusive, AI-powered, augmented reality immersive educational mobile games aligned with the UK national curriculum.
Condensing 12 weeks term time learning into just a few hours of fun, fast game-play, Brainspark Games is making education more inclusive and equitable for all and is pioneering neurogames technology, ensuring that diverse learners are engaged, so that no child is left behind.
“Hatch was my very first accelerator – it’s so powerful to be around a like-minded tribe of people embarking upon a similar journey"
“For me being with female founders has always been really helpful.” Reedah has gone from strength to strength having recently secured £1.4 million in angel investment and grant funding, grown her team to 11 full time members of staff, won a host of international awards, and reached over 70,000 downloads of the initial app.
“Hatch was the beginning, the very first step and conception of Brainspark Games. I’m a great fan of Hatch, it was a fantastic start. Working alongside and inspiring other women, sharing tips, experiences and networks is important.”
"I'm a great fan of Hatch, it was a fantastic start."
Looking to the Future
Over the next ten years we plan to deepen and scale our support and radically reshape the entrepreneurial landscape. Together, we will continue to fight for a more equitable space where talent, ambition, and hard work are met with the resources and opportunities they deserve.
We invite funders, partners, and changemakers to join us in this exciting journey. By collaborating with Hatch, you will become part of a transformative movement, unlocking the potential of underrepresented entrepreneurs and creating lasting, positive impact in communities across the UK.
Together, we can build something extraordinary.
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