Our Alumni
What makes Hatch so exciting and unique is the variety of entrepreneurs we support. Our alumni go on to play an important role in developing and improving the social and economic fabric of their community.
Discover what our alumni have achieved:
£10M+
Total turnover
£5M+
Investment raised
400+
Total employed
Casestudies
Danna, founder of Built By Us
Danna, a black, British female of Jamaican heritage from a single parent family who started an apprenticeship as an electrician and became an architect entered our incubator programme determined to change the face of the building industry in 2016. In just 2 years, she is one of London’s and the UK’s biggest actor to support the diversity & inclusion agenda in the industry…Danna, founder of Built By Us
"Hatch is the difference between singing in the bedroom and singing on stage"
Danna, a black, British female of Jamaican heritage from a single parent family who started an apprenticeship as an electrician and became an architect entered our incubator programme determined to change the face of the building industry in 2016.
In just 2 years, she is one of London’s and the UK’s biggest actor to support the diversity & inclusion agenda in the industry. She recently presented Architecture of Incarceration on BBC Radio 4 documentary, got interviewed by architectsjournal.co.uk & womanthology.co.uk, took part in the UK’s first Women In Construction Summit. Yet, when we met Danna, Built By Us had only been incorporated for a year as a limited company and was far from the incredible not-for-profit consultancy she has built with us.
As part of the incubator, Danna also benefited greatly from our business training in twelve steps but it was really the mentoring programme that pushed her business. “My mentor, Ignacio Delcastillo, from Deutsche Bank was brilliant, understanding and driven. He now sits on the Advisory Board for Built By Us.”
Mentoring is now part of her business model and we helped her by sharing our methodology, our mentor handbook and mentor agreement models. She now has 3 mentoring programmes working with almost 100 mentors and mentees across 2 existing programmes called “Shape” (16 mentors/ mentees) and “Fluid” (80 mentors/ mentees) and is launching one more programme called “Build”. Her programmes link of volunteer mentors and mentees from across the construction industry and construction professionals at a variety of career stages. She’s now turning over £15,000, with growth anticipated for 2019 at £45,000. Her needs are to operationalise the company and to help with impact measurement and reporting.
We are proud to see her being part of every discussion around Architecture/ Building industry related to inclusion and amongst her recent project. By supporting Danna’s project into a cornerstone of her industry, we know our work impacts further than the entrepreneurship sphere.
Ilana & Michael, founders of SNACT
SNACT, run by Ilana and Michael, collects food surplus from wholesale markets, restaurants and supermarkets and turns them into tasty snacks. “What we love about food is that even small changes in the supply chain can lead to big impacts and that is why we founded the company, to positively impact the world around us…Ilana & Michael, founders of SNACT
SNACT, run by Ilana and Michael, collects food surplus from wholesale markets, restaurants and supermarkets and turns them into tasty snacks. “What we love about food is that even small changes in the supply chain can lead to big impacts and that is why we founded the company, to positively impact the world around us.”
The problem they are addressing is food waste. More than a third of the food we grow globally is thrown away, even though the majority is still edible. It’s not just a food issue. When food is wasted, so are all the resources that have gone into growing, packing, and transporting it like water, energy, and labour. In the UK alone, £12.5 billion worth of food are binned every year, including 500 million bananas and 1.6 billion apples.
When Ilana and Michael joined the Hatch incubator in 2014, they had successfully trialled their initial product offering but were still experimenting on how to scale it. They tried selling SNACTs in cafes and other small retail outlets but that strategy was too resource intensive.
By 2016, our snacks found their way to offices and schools, and became stocked in Ocado, Amazon, Planet Organic and lots of independent outlets across the UK and beyond.
Other big changes got made to the packaging: “we switched to home compostable packaging, realising a long-term ambition to start tackling packaging waste as well as food waste. We’re always hungry for change, and ready to take on new challenges within the food system.”
“The Hatch programme really helped us to get to grips with our business model and to understand how to leverage external support to help us grow and become sustainable. We have now raised investment, are bringing our ‘SNACTS’ into shops and supermarkets and are rescuing fruits and veg by the tonne!”
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