Impact Awards – Where are the early winners now?
This month sees the ninth edition of the Impact Awards – a programme celebrating the people and innovations behind the UK tech-for-good ventures and the positive impact they make. Nearly a decade on, how have the winners of the early years of the awards fared?
Ten years ago, I led the creation of the Impact Awards, a new annual programme designed to celebrate the people and ventures using digital innovation to tackle big challenges and deliver meaningful impact. The first awards were won in 2017.
The awards have since become a fixture in the UK’s tech-for-good calendar, highlighting startups, charities, investors and public bodies offering new approaches to delivering impact. This year’s awards will take the total number of winners past 100.
Since 2019, the Impact Awards have been led by Digital Leaders, the network championing UK digital transformation across government, business and civil society.
Digital Leaders has evolved the awards at a time of rapid technological change, ensuring they continue to recognise innovation as the landscape has shifted from mobile and platform technologies towards AI and data-driven solutions.
In 2026, DL has refocused the programme as the AI Impact Awards, reflecting the pivotal role that artificial intelligence now plays in public services, society and business.
“The shift in emphasis for the awards recognises the central role AI now has in delivering innovation in the impact economy,” DL CEO Robin Knowles explains. “No credible conversation about digital innovation can ignore the fact that AI is a seismic and generational shift.”
And who can argue? Among the 36 award nominees this year are an AI-enabled contact centre at Westminster Council, GoCodeGreen’s Al for sustainable digital transformation, AI legal training at the Open University and an AI-ready strategy for the team at Barnardo’s.
Looking back, it is fascinating to explore what’s happened to the ventures and people celebrated by the Impact Awards programme in its first years. This perspective provides an understanding of how purpose-driven ventures evolve over time – and just how variable success can be.
Some ventures have scaled into brilliant businesses, while others have been acquired or transformed. Others still have struggled to scale or closed altogether.
Collectively, they demonstrate the challenges and harsh realities of building ventures that need to deliver financial sustainability alongside impact. They also highlight the experimental but also vulnerable nature of early impact innovation.
2017’s inaugural Impact Awards, held at London’s Barbican, celebrated a wave of impact tech ventures tackling challenges in healthcare, energy, education and financial wellbeing. Several ventures from that first year have grown.
Pavegen, which generates electricity from footsteps through kinetic flooring technology, has grown and secured over £7.5 million in equity and venture funding. While it has never become a mainstream energy solution, the business has deployed installations in cities and public venues worldwide and it continues to operate as a smart-city tech provider.
Non-profit education initiative Founders4Schools, created by entrepreneur and investor Sherry Coutu, remains active in connecting students with entrepreneurs. It has now helped nearly 750,000 young people meet business leaders from local communities.
Food redistribution platform FoodCloud, also a non-profit, has scaled. By connecting supermarkets and food producers with charities distributing surplus food, it has redistributed 339 million meals worldwide. With international partnerships, FoodCloud shows how social enterprise can grow through collaboration.
Business-community social good platform Neighbourly has built a B2B model around corporate social responsibility, enabling businesses to coordinate volunteering and partnerships. A founder B Corp, its platform is now used by brands like M&S and Lidl. It has raised over £9m in funding, facilitating £1.7 billion of impact into local communities.
Award-winning assistive technology venture Texthelp grew steadily before becoming part of Everway in 2024 after merging with special education provider n2y. Its software is used widely in schools, universities and workplaces. The merged company generates revenue from institutional customers and continues to grow.
Aid distribution platform AID:Tech continues to operate in the more niche space of blockchain-based identity and payment verification for governments and NGOs. Its mission is to help people take back control of their data.
There have been inevitable failures. But one or two failures have been so significant that they have had wider repercussions on the impact ecosystem.
The most prominent failure here is of healthcare technology disrupter Babylon Health. Babylon promised much, connecting patients with healthcare professionals through its mobile app, then AI diagnostics. That promise is why it won an award.
Babylon raised over £750 million to develop its AI – but despite plans to deliver AI-powered healthcare globally, the firm struggled with high costs, complex regulation and an over-ambitious vision for its AI capabilities. It went bankrupt in 2023, with its assets sold to other providers.
Bulb Energy was another significant failure. Once the UK’s fastest-growing renewable energy supplier with over a million customers, in 2018 it raised £60 million and was valued at £500 million. But energy market volatility during the 2021 energy crisis exposed its low-margin model. The company collapsed and its customers transferred to rival Octopus Energy.
Impact investment firm ClearlySo, which had developed the award-winning ATLAS impact assessment tool, entered administration in 2021 despite its prominent role in the UK impact investment ecosystem. It had raised over £100 million through its clients, but failed after owing more than £10 million to creditors and shareholders.
Non-profit Wayfindr set out to help the world’s 285 million blind people navigate indoor environments independently. It set out to create an international open standard for accessible indoor navigation for visually impaired users. It wound up its operations in 2023.
Team analytics startup Saberr failed to gain traction in a crowded HR technology market and was dissolved, while financial wellbeing platform Squirrel shut after struggling to scale partnerships.
The 2018 Impact Awards cohort reflected a more mature phase of the tech-for-good landscape. Many organisations from that year operated in markets that have since expanded, including digital identity, wellbeing, financial inclusion and skills development.
Several ventures grew into substantial and impactful businesses.
what3words is arguably the biggest household name of the lot. It created a global addressing system dividing the world into three-metre squares identified by three words. The technology is now used by logistics firms, car manufacturers and emergency services worldwide. Consumers love it too.
Edtech venture WhiteHat, founded by Euan Blair (son of former PM Tony) rebranded as Multiverse, offering an upskilling platform for tech adoption. With venture funding of £419 million, it has achieved unicorn status and international expansion.
Workplace mental health platform Unmind has raised millions in funding, including £50m in 2025 alone. It now supports 2.5 million employees across 110 countries, serving large employers with digital wellbeing tools.
Global sharing app OLIO has grown to close to 10 million users, offering itself as the ‘local go-to for free food (and more)’. The business has raised over £40 million in funding and expanded from neighbour sharing by adding partnerships with supermarkets redistributing unsold food.
Social housing tech venture Switchee now works with dozens of housing associations and has raised funding close to £20 million. It provides smart thermostats and data analytics that help housing providers detect fuel poverty and improve energy efficiency.
Fintech platform LOQBOX helps users build credit histories through savings-based credit products. Today the company serves over a million customers and generates revenue through subscriptions and partnerships. Financial wellbeing provider Salary Finance has raised significant investment and partners with employers to provide loans, savings and financial education to employees.
Digital identity company Yoti has raised over £100 million to build its identity verification and age assurance technology. Today it’s a market leader in digital ID wallets and is used by governments and online platforms alike.
SH:24, a non-profit providing digital sexual health services, has been integrated into NHS commissioning systems and serves hundreds of thousands of users. And community mental health network TalkLife maintains a global peer-support platform for young people.
Coding school Code Your Future has expanded internationally, helping refugees and disadvantaged communities access technology careers. Care technology venture Alcove, meanwhile, continues to develop smart home monitoring systems that help older people live independently, including using AI.
Other organisations remain smaller but active. Volunteer running community GoodGym continues in cities across the UK. And walking discovery platform Go Jauntly promotes local exploration and wellbeing through maps and storytelling.
Looking across the early Impact Awards winners, key lessons emerge about how impact ventures succeed or fail over time.
Ventures serving institutions tend to be more resilient.
Businesses like Switchee, Unmind, Salary Finance and Yoti have thrived because employers, local authorities and housing providers see the value of their services.
Consumer platforms often need partner models to grow.
OLIO has achieved scale after adding retailer partnerships and redistribution programmes alongside community sharing. FoodCloud’s partnerships have helped it to grow.
Impact isn’t always about venture business.
Initiatives like GoodGym, Code Your Future and Founders4Schools deliver meaningful impact through communities rather than financial growth.
Impact ecosystems mature gradually.
Investors like Bethnal Green Ventures still support emerging generations of impact entrepreneurs, and this has built over years.
For me, the key lesson above all from award-winning impact is that success in the impact economy depends as much on people as on ideas.
Tech innovation matters of course – but ventures also rise or fall on the ability of their founders to navigate regulation, competition, investment and partnerships.
Many impact ventures that have thrived still have their founders at the helm. Founder leadership at OLIO, what3words and Yoti has maintained mission focus, while their ventures manage the realities of scaling across markets and sectors.
Where ventures haven’t survived, their founders have remained influential within the wider ecosystem.
Ali Parsa, founder of Babylon, has returned to healthcare technology with new AI-driven ventures. Hayden Wood of Bulb has remained active in climate and tech investment.
Other founders moved into roles while the organisations they founded continue to grow. Neighbourly founder Nick Davies now focuses on roles across the technology and impact ecosystem.
These founder stories demonstrate something fundamental about the impact economy: ventures may fail, but entrepreneurial drive continues as resilient founders take their wisdom and experience into new ventures. Other founders are sure to take similar journeys.
Visit this years Finalists and winners 2026
