After winning the social impact category of our 2018 Big Idea Challenge, Conor Gallagher, a London Met Examination in Professional Practice in Architecture (RIBA3) graduate founded AllotMe. Conor has continued working on the business since then and recently secured more than £250,000 investment to grow the business.
AllotMe allows anyone to join the grow your own revolution by giving users the opportunity to rent allotment space from hosts in London and across the UK.
Founded upon the belief that ‘growing your own’ can have a massive impact on not only the environment, but on our communities’ physical health and mental wellbeing, AllotMe has proven to be popular having gained over 100 hosts.
AllotMe wants to make it easy for anyone to have access to a sustainable way to source their food. Through research and development projects, they’re looking to unearth solutions to the growing issue of food resourcing in our cities.
By 2050, it is estimated that 70% of the earth’s population will be living in cities, which is why AllotMe believes in the importance of having sustainable infrastructure in place to feed the growing population.
After securing their recent investment, AllotMe is planning to launch AllotMents 2.0 – a summer recruitment campaign to find new hosts and increase space available to rent. Alongside a range of improvements to the platform, AllotMet is aiming to increase their number of available allotments by more than 2,000%.
The £250,000 investment – including £120,000 from venture capital outfit QVentures and over £50,000 from Northern Ireland’s HBAN Angel Network – will be used to “significantly enhance the platform”.
Conor told us that “This backing from QVentures, HBAN Angel Network and other angel investors shows the faith people have in what we’re out to achieve at AllotMe, and the investment will play a massive part in driving the next chapter for the platform.
“The first year of AllotMe has shown the massive potential of the platform, from both hosts and greenfingers, and the time is right to invest in scaling up the technology and reach of the business to meet the demand.”
As one of our Big Idea Challenge social impact category finalists back in 2018 we are thrilled to hear about Conor’s recent investment and success in growing AllotMe.