Our Impact Report outlining our charity's biggest achievements between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, is now live.
The report outlines year four of our five year strategy for 2020-2025, a strategy which embraces national delivery alongside local work across the UK and focuses on expanding our reach, deepening our impact and developing new long-term strategic partnerships that keep Hatch’s founder community at the heart.
The four key pillars of Hatch's 2020-2025 strategy
Pillar One: Business support programmes
Our hybrid and online business support programmes offer structured sessions covering key aspects of business knowledge, from building your MVP to scaling operations.
Firstly, our programmes, from Launchpads, Incubators and Accelerators, offer founders the resources to refine their offering, address entrepreneurial knowledge gaps, and boost business confidence. Secondly, cohorts are kept small, with around 20 participants to maximise individual time with experts, facilitators, and peers.
Pillar Two: The community programme
Broad and evolving, our community interventions respond to the needs of underrepresented founders. The programme encompasses elements such as clinics, localised industry-focused events for entrepreneurial communities across the UK, one-to-one consultations with our network of expert volunteers, and an annual programme of public events.
Pillar Three: The Hatch Fund
Accessing funding is an important yet challenging aspect of growing a business, which is particularly intensified for underrepresented groups. The majority of our programmes come with funding opportunities attached upon graduation. They aim to provide founders with the opportunity to apply for a grant in a supportive setting, backed by the knowledge they’ve gained throughout their cohort programme.
Pillar Four: Knowledge sharing and advocacy
We know that to effect tangible systemic change within the enterprise ecosystem, we must work together. That’s why collaboration, undertaking research, and sharing our learnings are fundamental elements of our charitable mission: bridging the opportunity gap so that everyone has the chance to realise their potential and start a business that benefits them, their communities, and society.
We have a simple phrase we go by here at Hatch Enterprise.
We know that talent is equally distributed, but opportunities are not.
Most importantly, equity in business to us means acknowledging and nurturing talent from the outset. There remains a fundamental lack of pre-launch and early-stage business support out there to support the growing entrepreneurial spirit in the UK.
With 12 years of experience bringing innovations from underrepresented groups into the world through early-stage business development support, it is up to us to come together to give everyone, regardless of their background or lived experience, the opportunity to succeed.
2024-2025 impact at a glance
13
£307,844
78%
The number of programmes delivered between April 2024 and March 2025.
The total amount of grant funding given out to founders between April 2024 and March 2025.
The percentage of programme graduates who were addressing at least one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with their business.
Explore by category
Hatch Enterprise launch the UK’s first Launchpad-style programme for Disabled and neurodivergent people
In partnership with Ares Charitable Foundation, we put the learnings from our first year of research and development into practice. In Septemeber 2024 we launched the UK’s first Launchpad-style programme designed for entrepreneurs who identify as Disabled or neurodivergent.
For every space available, we received five applications. One of the most oversubscribed programmes in our 12-year history. The pilot’s success prompted the expansion of Disability-focused support, with a further two programmes run in 2025.
£100,000 investment distributed UK-wide in partnership with NatWest
To celebrate our ten-year anniversary, we partnered with NatWest to provide a vital cash injection of £10,000 to ten Hatch graduates in November 2024.
The grants were established and distributed with the goal of enabling business founders from diverse backgrounds to overcome barriers to growth typically faced by these groups in the start-up sector.
Applications to this round were open to graduates of Hatch Enterprise programmes. Support was targeted at underrepresented founders, particularly women, Disabled founders, and those from ethnic minority backgrounds. Therefore, of the awardees, nine were female founders and nine were running businesses based outside of London.
From a pool of incredibly impressive applicants, here are just some of the successful recipients who each received £10,000 by NatWest, including:
Rebecca Norris, Rebecca Norris Designs
Hatch’s first owned report: The Entrepreneurs Club. Who really gets to start a business in modern Britain?
The Entrepreneurs Club solidified our understanding of the public’s perception of entrepreneurship. Especially the lack of public awareness of barriers faced by underrepresented entrepreneurs. We see this report as vital knowledge at a time when entrepreneurial appetite is on the rise for underrepresented groups within a challenging socioeconomic landscape.
In conclusion, there needs to be a conscious effort to reverse the gatekeeping of business knowledge and opportunities. Diversity of thought, opinion, and experience is desperately needed in order to build a fairer system and challenge the perception of entrepreneurship as an exclusive club.
Key findings from the report
74%
27%
27%
The percentage of people in the UK who do not believe that an entrepreneur is someone that resembles them.
Percentage of people in the UK that believe white people have greater chances of succeeding in business than people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The percentage of people in the UK that believe men have a greater chances of succeeding in business than women.
Hatch's Economic and Social Impact
Most importantly, founders who took part in a Hatch Enterprise programme between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025 reported an average 46% increase in turnover. This outlines turnover increase only reported throughout the duration of our programmes, which span from three to five months in length.
23% of founders who graduated from a Hatch programme increased their staff numbers whilst on their programme.
Together we make it happen
To sum up, success within entrepreneurship has long favoured a select few with access to wealth, networks, and a safety net. Hatch Enterprise is committed to dismantling these unequal systems, striving for a fairer society where business serves as a force for good that’s accessible to all.
We support innovators tackling some of the world’s hardest problems. Our graduates have contributed millions of pounds and thousands of jobs to the economy, alongside the social and environmental benefits their organisations deliver.
By working with us, you can play an active role in creating opportunities that enable everyone to contribute to delivering these innovative solutions.
The generous support of our partners through donations, grants, and sponsorships is the engine behind our mission. But these contributions don’t just fund programmes. They drive innovation and create lasting change that puts economic power and changemaking capacity behind underrepresented founders across the UK.
We are deeply grateful to all our partners and supporters who make our work possible. Thank you for standing with us.
Entrepreneurship has long been a powerful tool for influencing change on both grassroots and national scales.
That’s why our upcoming strategy, set to launch in April 2026, will outline an ambitious vision to guide the next three years of Hatch Enterprise.
But we cannot make it happen without your help.
Stay connected
Joining our supporters newsletter is the most effective way to stay up to date with our progress as we develop and launch our new strategy. You’ll receive occasional updates, inspiring stories of our impact, and discover ways that you can champion underrepresented entrepreneurs as they build businesses that create lasting change.
Get a deeper look into our key milestones and achievements.
Hatch Ranked Amongst Europe’s Leading Startup Hubs for 2026
For the third consecutive year, Hatch Enterprise have been ranked amongst the Financial Times leading 150 startup hubs across Europe.
Entrepreneurship in the UK: Where you live still shapes your potential
We’re helping founders across the UK access opportunity, build businesses and create lasting local and national socioeconomic impact.
Buy From Unique Disabled-Owned Brands This Christmas
Back a disabled entrepreneur this Christmas. Explore disabled-owned businesses who’ve built their brands with Hatch Enterprise by their side.
