
Age Co UK
Improving quality of life for older adults
Study ventures that look like yours

Improving quality of life for older adults

Transforming smallholder farming through bundled finance and inputs

Eliminating needless blindness through cross-subsidy
Creating employment for autistic adults through neurodiversity-as-strength

Funding clean energy access for families in poverty through every outdoor adventure purchase
Reducing waste by championing products built to last

Replacing kerosene with affordable solar power

Productised design through subscription model

Proving consumer electronics can be made fairly and built to last — transforming an industry built on exploitation and planned obsolescence

Proving that travel can benefit communities and protect environments, not extract from them

Teaching connected thinking and knowledge management

Financial inclusion through pay-as-you-go asset financing

Democratising access to tech careers through apprenticeships

Mindful productivity grounded in neuroscience

Delivering fossil-fuel-free homes at cost to break Australia's housing affordability crisis

Rescuing wonky produce from farm-level waste

Democratising access to industrial machinery through open-source design

Environmental conservation through business

Making plastic too valuable to discard — stopping ocean pollution by turning waste into income for coastal communities

Privacy-respecting web analytics

Making hard-to-recycle household waste effortless to handle

Turning human waste into agricultural compost to deliver safe sanitation and restore Haiti's depleted soils

Eliminating waste through recycling innovation
Creating income pathways for people experiencing homelessness

Reimagining work beyond the default career path

Circular economy through food waste brewing

Ending exploitation in cocoa supply chains

Reducing food waste through marketplace dynamics

Transparent, fair-trade supply chains in fashion

Eliminating geographic barriers to healthcare through autonomous drone delivery
A social enterprise arm of Age UK providing financial services and products designed for older people, with all profits reinvested into charitable support. Combines commercial insurance, funeral planning, and home services with a mission to improve later life for everyone.
Improving quality of life for older adults
A Kenya-based agri-fintech that bundles seeds, fertiliser, credit, and training for smallholder farmers — all accessible via mobile phone. Machine learning powers instant loan decisions, helping subsistence farmers become profitable commercial growers.
Transforming smallholder farming through bundled finance and inputs
The world's largest eye care provider, performing hundreds of thousands of surgeries annually. Paying patients cross-subsidise free care for those who can't afford it — a high-volume, high-quality model that eliminates needless blindness.
Eliminating needless blindness through cross-subsidy
An IT consulting firm that exclusively employs autistic adults as technology consultants, turning neurodiversity into a competitive advantage. Clients get exceptional analytical talent while consultants gain meaningful careers with tailored workplace support.
Creating employment for autistic adults through neurodiversity-as-strength
BioLite designs and sells off-grid energy products across two parallel markets: premium outdoor gear for recreation consumers in developed countries, and affordable clean cookstoves and solar home systems for energy-poor households in Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Revenue and insights from outdoor products cross-subsidize emerging-market clean energy access, enabling BioLite to reach 14 million people with verified impact while building a commercially sustainable social enterprise.
Funding clean energy access for families in poverty through every outdoor adventure purchase
An online marketplace curating durable, long-lasting products to shift consumer behaviour from throwaway buying to mindful purchasing. Founded after a Le Creuset pot inspired the question: why aren't all products built to last?
Reducing waste by championing products built to last
Designs and distributes affordable solar-powered products for households without reliable electricity, reaching over 200 million people across 70+ countries. Pay-as-you-go financing makes clean energy accessible to families living on less than $5 a day.
Replacing kerosene with affordable solar power
A subscription-based design agency run by a single designer, offering unlimited design requests for a flat monthly fee. Demonstrates that productised services can scale quality creative work without scaling headcount.
Productised design through subscription model
Fairphone is a Dutch social enterprise designing modular, self-repairable smartphones with ethically sourced materials, living wage bonuses for factory workers, and 7–8 years of software support. It sells to sustainability-oriented individual consumers and European enterprises and public bodies, using the product itself as proof that ethical consumer electronics are commercially viable.
Proving consumer electronics can be made fairly and built to last — transforming an industry built on exploitation and planned obsolescence
Intrepid Travel is the world's largest adventure travel operator, running 1,057+ small-group trips across 118 countries, led exclusively by local guides and sourced through 84% locally owned suppliers. Founded in 1989 in Melbourne and mission-locked as a B Corp, it channels tourism spending directly into destination communities while actively reducing the industry's environmental and social harm. In FY2025 it served 317,880 travelers and generated AUD $809 million in revenue, proving that responsible travel is commercially superior.
Proving that travel can benefit communities and protect environments, not extract from them
A premium knowledge management education platform teaching the LYT methodology for organising digital notes and ideas. Serves 1,600+ students across 60+ countries through workshops, digital products, and a lifetime community.
Teaching connected thinking and knowledge management
Pioneered pay-as-you-go asset financing in Africa, enabling low-income customers to acquire solar systems, smartphones, and other essentials through mobile money micropayments. Over 5 million customers served across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.
Financial inclusion through pay-as-you-go asset financing
An apprenticeship platform that creates pathways into tech careers for people without traditional university degrees. Employers pay for high-quality training programmes, while apprentices earn while they learn — closing opportunity gaps at scale.
Democratising access to tech careers through apprenticeships
A neuroscience-backed community and content platform helping knowledge workers achieve mindful productivity without burnout. Combines research translation, community learning, and coaching into a membership model.
Mindful productivity grounded in neuroscience
Nightingale Housing is an Australian registered charity that develops fossil-fuel-free apartments and sells them at cost via a randomised ballot, eliminating developer profit. Up to 20% of homes in each project are pre-allocated to community housing providers serving vulnerable Australians.
Delivering fossil-fuel-free homes at cost to break Australia's housing affordability crisis
A subscription service delivering fruit and vegetables rejected by supermarkets for cosmetic reasons, sourced directly from farmers at fair prices. Rescues produce at the farm level — cutting food waste while offering customers fresh food at ~30% below typical prices.
Rescuing wonky produce from farm-level waste
Develops open-source blueprints for essential industrial machines — from tractors to 3D printers — that anyone can build for a fraction of commercial cost. A nonprofit pursuing technological sovereignty through collaborative design and education.
Democratising access to industrial machinery through open-source design
A purpose-driven outdoor apparel company that donates 1% of all sales to environmental causes and has given over $100M annually to climate action. Proves that commercial success and environmental activism can reinforce each other at billion-dollar scale.
Environmental conservation through business
Plastic Bank is a for-profit social enterprise that prevents ocean plastic pollution by establishing blockchain-verified plastic collection ecosystems in coastal communities across developing nations, paying above-market rates to collectors and converting the material into traceable Social Plastic feedstock and verified plastic credits sold to corporate partners. Its dual-impact model treats plastic as currency, simultaneously creating dignified livelihoods and financial inclusion for 57,000+ coastal community members while diverting over 160 million kilograms of ocean-bound plastic.
Making plastic too valuable to discard — stopping ocean pollution by turning waste into income for coastal communities
A privacy-first web analytics tool that provides useful traffic insights without cookies, tracking, or personal data collection. An open-source, EU-hosted alternative to Google Analytics — proving ethical analytics can be a sustainable business.
Privacy-respecting web analytics
A subscription pickup service for hard-to-recycle household items — batteries, textiles, plastic film, light bulbs — that would otherwise end up in landfill. Makes responsible disposal effortless by collecting from your doorstep and routing materials to proper recycling.
Making hard-to-recycle household waste effortless to handle
SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) is a Haitian social enterprise delivering container-based sanitation to urban households through waterless toilets with weekly collection, transforming collected waste via thermophilic composting into Konpòs Lakay agricultural compost. Founded in 2006, SOIL currently serves 21,000+ people daily in Cap-Haïtien and surrounding communities, and in January 2026 secured the world's first government Results-Based Financing contract for container-based sanitation services from Haiti's DINEPA authority.
Turning human waste into agricultural compost to deliver safe sanitation and restore Haiti's depleted soils
Collects and recycles hard-to-recycle waste through brand-sponsored take-back programmes, paid recycling boxes, and a reusable packaging platform. Operates in 21 countries, turning materials that would otherwise go to landfill into raw inputs for new products.
Eliminating waste through recycling innovation
The UK's leading street newspaper, enabling homeless and vulnerably housed people to earn income as micro-entrepreneurs — buy for £2, sell for £4, keep the profit. Since 1991, over 108,000 vendors have earned £154M+ through the model.
Creating income pathways for people experiencing homelessness
A book and content platform exploring alternative approaches to work and career beyond the traditional employment path. Combines personal narrative with research to help people design self-directed, meaningful working lives.
Reimagining work beyond the default career path
Brews craft beer from surplus bread that would otherwise go to landfill, with all profits funding environmental charities. A circular economy model proving food waste can become both a viable business and a vehicle for environmental action.
Circular economy through food waste brewing
An impact-driven chocolate company on a mission to end exploitation in the cocoa industry. Pays above-market prices to farmers, invests in cooperatives, and uses its deliberately unequally divided bar to make supply chain injustice impossible to ignore.
Ending exploitation in cocoa supply chains
A marketplace connecting consumers with restaurants and shops to rescue surplus food at a discount. Businesses recover costs, consumers save money, and millions of meals are saved from landfill — operating in 17 countries with 100M+ users.
Reducing food waste through marketplace dynamics
Ethical sneakers made with fair-trade rubber from the Amazon, organic cotton from Brazil, and full supply chain transparency. Proves that desirable design and responsible production can coexist at scale — without any conventional advertising.
Transparent, fair-trade supply chains in fashion
Zipline designs, manufactures and operates the world's largest autonomous drone delivery system, delivering medical supplies across Africa and consumer goods in the United States. By eliminating last-mile logistics barriers, it transforms healthcare access for underserved populations while building a commercially sustainable global delivery network.
Eliminating geographic barriers to healthcare through autonomous drone delivery