Wired UK – September 2019

Daye

“I’m a farmer’s daughter,

and so have always hated

throwing away good

food,” says Tessa Clarke,

CEO of OLIO. “This is

because I know from

first-hand experience

just how much hard work

goes into producing it.”

In February 2015, with

co-founder Saasha

Celestial-One, she

launched OLIO, a free

app that connects users,

who have surplus food

they don’t want, with

their neighbours. Simply

snap a picture of your

items and add them to

OLIO. Your neighbours

then receive customised

alerts and can request

anything that takes their

fancy. A million people

have joined, sharing more

than 1.6 million portions

of food in 49 countries

around the world. OLIO

has raised £6.3 million

from Octopus Ventures

and Accel. olioex.com

WHERE TO WORK

King’s Cross, N1

Silicon Roundabout

has been dethroned.

From Google’s new HQ,

designed by the studios

of Bjarke Ingels and

Thomas Heatherwick, to

Facebook’s new offices,

King’s Cross is the new

tech hub in the capital.

WHERE TO EAT

Sunday, 169 Hemingford

Road, N1

This café located in trad

Barnsbury serves brunch

classics, from smashed

avocado to flat whites.

No reservations, but you

can look up their menu on

Instagram as you queue.

@sundaybarnsbury

‘WE BECAME CONVINCED WE HAD THE BEST

APPROACH TO AUTONOMOUS DRIVING.

THE INDUSTRY DISAGREED, SO WE SET OUT

TO PROVE THEM WRONG’

ALEX KENDALL,

C TO, WAY V E

<

OLIO co-founders

Saasha Celestial-One (left)

and Tessa Clarke

Wagestream Way ve

Peter Briffett, CEO

and co-founder of

Wagestream, was

inspired when he read

how Walmart in the US

was testing giving staff

access to a percentage

of their earned income

on demand. “We thought

it was a fantastic idea,

and we noticed nobody

was doing it here,” he

says. Wagestream’s

get-paid-as-you-earn

model launched in

November 2017. “More

than half of the staff

working at our partner

firms enrolled,” he says.

Wagestream clients,

which include restaurant

chain Carluccio’s and

David Lloyd Clubs, have

experienced a 22 per

cent rise in employee

shifts and a doubling

in job applications.

wagestream.co.uk

Rather than relying on

high-definition maps,

expensive sensors

and hand-coded rules,

Wayve teaches cars to

drive using data and

machine learning. “We

were working on deep-

learning approaches

to computer vision and

reinforcement learning,

and became convinced

this was the best

approach to autonomous

driving,” says CTO Alex

Kendall. “The industry

disagreed, so we set out

to prove them wrong.”

In March 2019, Wayve

demonstrated a car

driving on roads it hadn’t

seen during training,

and without a map of its

environment. The startup

is currently testing its

software on the Jaguar

I-PACE SUV. “We’ve had

breakthroughs that even

one year ago, experts

laughed at us for trying,”

he says. wayve.ai

OLIO

“I suppose the idea for

Daye started when I

had my first period at

age nine,” says founder

Valentina Milanova.

Daye’s first product is a

soothing tampon made of

industrial hemp – more

absorbent than petrol-

derived plastic – infused

with pharmaceutical

grade CBD (cannabidiol).

“The biggest challenge

was convincing

manufacturers to work

with us,” Milanova says.

“Tampon manufacturing

is an incredibly

conservative industry. I

sent my first prototypes,

alongside handwritten

letters, begging every

manufacturer I could find

to give me a chance. One

responded.” Daye has

raised $5.5m from Index,

Kindred and Khosla

Ventures. yourdaye.com

095

LONDON

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