Nominations are still open for the 2020 Social Entrepreneur Index, which returns for a second year. Once again, we will be celebrating the success of the UK's most inspiring social entrepreneurs and sharing their stories with you.
The UK Social Entrepreneur Index is a celebration of entrepreneurs running businesses with social purposes, with the aim of providing recognition for social entrepreneurs, act as a benchmark for good practice and inspire the next generation.
After last years’ inaugural Index, we put together a list of companies who we feel are Ones to Watch. These entries were selected by our judges as the best of the rest and over the past year we’ve kept an eye on these entrants, as they are set to achieve great things in the future.
DivInc were selected also as part of our Ones to Watch series, and we’ve been keeping an eye on their progress ever since. They’re a company that help brands to collaborate with Gen Z for brutally honest insights about branding, marketing and products We spoke to co-founder and CEO, Jay Richards, to find out exactly what they’ve been up to in the last ten months.
After welcoming a new co-founder, Cat Agostinho, to the team and now boasting big name clients including the NFL, Lazard Asset Management and Stella McCartney, they’re also currently raising raising £350k pre-seed round with commitments from some of the UK's best VC's and angel investors.
“No more guessing, we crowdsource the best talent from over 200,000 Gen Z to enable agencies and brands to build all of the above with Gen Z in the room!”
When asked about the company’s impact, Jay says: “Our Gen Z consultants aged 16 to 25 are paid £150 to £450 a day to work with some of the world’s greatest agencies and brands. Also, our consultants are able to gain experience to fill their CV and earn extremely well while doing it. We still run our start up incubator across the UK.”
Discussing their rebrand, Jay says: "Our desire to rebrand was birthed after speaking with our community of consultants. They mentioned to us that our name and branding didn't resonate with them. We decided to build our new branding with them from scratch, they helped us to choose our new name "Imagen" and they consulted with us in our offices on what our branding should look like. It was an amazing experience and we're thankful our community can be so heavily involved in everything that we do!"
Their community of 200 000 members of Gen Z is comprised of:
· 50.27% female
· 0.37% non-binary
· 45.9% BAME
· 40% from low income backgrounds
You can also follow DivInc on Twitter here.