Case studies
The company
Holly Health is a revenue generating, female founded Healthtech start-up. They are a health behaviour change service which helps individuals to keep on top of mental and physical health through small achievable habits, to prevent burnout and rebuild a healthier relationship with food, exercise and work. Holly Health is currently scaling across NHS primary care practices and with local authorities, supporting thousands of members of the public. The Holly Heath app (mobile, web and SMS) supports each individual along their personal health journey, for instant mental wellbeing and a happier, healthier life over the long term.
The challenge
CEO, Grace Gimson and her team of scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs have achieved significant success and have recently closed an EIS fund raising round. They have obtained government funding, have contracts in place with a number of Primary Care Networks and their app has been downloaded over 20,000 times. Open to the idea of connecting with VOCASO community members who could add value. The brief was broad and possible support was quite generic. They were open to considering individuals who had worked in high growth B2C tech environments. Any primary care experience would have been a significant bonus and there could be an opportunity for a Non-Executive Director or Board Advisor.
The success
Steve Woodford was, until mid-2022, Chief Information Officer at BGL Group (home of Comparethemarket.com) and was a member of the senior executive team that successfully sold the insurance element of the business to Markerstudy Group. Since March 2021 Steve has been a Non-Executive Director with NHS Digital and a member of the Investment Committee and the Information Assurance and Cyber Security Committee. Steve has a strong track record of leading bold technology enabled business transformation for global organisations in fast-moving, highly regulated sectors.
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We introduced Steve to Grace and they hit it off immediately. Holly Health fits Steve’s ambitions to support high growth, purpose led businesses whose values mirror his own. Holly Health will surely benefit from Steve’s significant expertise as they continue to grow and flourish.
The company
Sprout is an investment platform that allows private investors to access top performing venture capital funds. Private markets have outperformed the stock market every year for over two decades, but remain inaccessible. Through the Sprout platform, investors can access the most exclusive private market fund opportunities globally, traditionally reserved for those capable of writing cheques in excess of £5m+.
Sprout was founded by three outstanding entrepreneurs; in their first year they have successfully launched their platform, attracted the interest of top quartile Venture Capital (VC) funds and have seen a steady stream of qualified investors sign up.
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The challenge
After successfully closing a pre-seed round, Sprout approached VOCASO to identify community members who could add value through regulatory expertise and private markets experience, in addition to the ability to open relationships with wealth managers and private banks. Sprout were seeking Board Advisors, potentially leading to formal Non-Executive Director roles.
The success
VOCASO introduced a tenured financial services professional whose career has included roles with a regulator, as CEO of a P2P lending business and as founder/CEO of a successful fintech company. Keen to leverage her experience, passion for growth companies and deep sector knowledge, our community member is excited to support innovative growth companies such as Sprout.
The company
Tevva Hydrogen Electric Trucks has become the first company to start high-volume production of electric lorries in the UK. The company has started making its 7.5 tonne electric truck for customers at a facility in Tilbury, Essex after receiving European type approval. Tevva, is also planning to build hydrogen-powered lorries that would be capable of refilling more quickly than battery lorries can charge, potentially allowing them to tackle longer distances. Those lorries would come in 12- and 19-tonne models, with production of the latter scheduled to start in Tilbury in 2024. Tevva is planning to eventually produce trucks in the EU, the US and the Gulf.
The challenge
At the time of briefing, Tevva had already previously secured series A funding and were readying themselves for a significant round. They wanted to recruit a US based Non-Executive Director who could make sure that the governance infrastructure was in place and that the business was ready for US scrutiny. They were keen to find a Non-Executive Director who could bring independent judgement to bear on issues of strategy, performance and resources including key appointments and standards of conduct. They also wanted someone who had excellent investor relations experience as well as the ability to chair the audit committee.
The success
Laura Brown was one of several individuals introduced to Tevva for consideration. She is based in North America and has a career steeped in Finance, Marketing, Communications and Investor Relations. Tevva was not her first Non-Executive Director rodeo, and she was able to bring deep expertise to the board.