System Two.
Case studies

Built with
the incumbents.

Every venture here started as a claim someone could have proved wrong, run with a corporate partner who brought distribution, brand or sector knowledge no startup could have assembled alone.

Partners we have built with

OctopusEnergy
British GasEnergy & care
GSKHealth
BarclaysFinance
BCAAutomotive
OVOEnergy
GrosvenorCare
ExperianTokenisation
Evolve GroupTechnology
BrambleFood systems

Four we are proud of

Built with British Gas · 2016

Deep Green

Because hosting AI compute costs more than conventional hosting
Someone Bill, CIO of a large enterprise
Will value a data centre subsidised by free heat

Ninety-seven per cent of the electricity going into a computer comes out as heat. Deep Green builds data centres inside swimming pools, distilleries and district heating schemes, gives the heat away, and undercuts the market on price because it no longer pays to throw it away.

Acquired by Octopus £200m+ raised

Built with GSK · 2021

Alligator

Because dental insurance is billed monthly but used intermittently
Someone Gracie, with good adherence
Will value a subscription that buys the prevention instead

An alternative to dental insurance, sold on prevention rather than repair, built with a consumer health incumbent that already owned the shelf space and the clinical credibility.

Acquired by GSK £1m+ raised

Built with BCA · 2020

Elmo

Because EVs are new and I am not sure I want one long-term
Someone Jill, an energy early adopter
Will value an all-in monthly subscription they can cancel

EV subscription rather than finance, built with Europe's largest vehicle remarketer — the partner who could absorb the residual-value risk that kills this model for everyone else.

Acquired by BCA £1m+ raised

Built with a best friend from school · 2012

Secret Source

Because happy developers write better code faster
Someone James, CIO of a large corporate
Will value outsourced tech with extremely low churn

A software development business built on the premise that retention is the product. Teams that stay together ship faster, and the client stops paying for the same handover twice.

Acquired by Evolve Group No external financing

What these have in common

Nobody backs an idea here.

Each of these began as a hypothesis specific enough to be tested cheaply. The ones that produced signal got capital. The ones that did not were killed early and without ceremony — and most of what we started did not make it this far, which is rather the point.