Pioneering Bath-based social enterprise Elephant Branded is celebrating getting through to the final of a national contest for start-ups less than a week after winning an award for innovative student-launched businesses.
Elephant Branded, founded by University of Bath architecture graduate James Munro Boon, will compete against five other finalists in Pitch it to Michon, a national competition where one start-up business will win marketing support and design worth up to £15,000.
Having reached the final, Elephant Branded and the other contestants must now put together a video pitch that will be published online for the public to vote on.
Last week James tasted success in the Social Enterprise Project category of the SETsquared awards. Staged at Bristol’s M Shed museum, the awards showcased the achievements of student entrepreneurs from across the SETsquared network of universities which include Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey.
James launched Elephant Branded after being shocked by the basic lack of school equipment while working in Africa and Asia.
He was inspired to make a change and set up his Elephant Branded, which works with villagers to make hand-made products from recycled materials, giving them a way out of poverty.
For every item sold, a school kit is donated back to a child in the community. Elephant Branded now sells online, across 24 universities, in Germany through FAB as well as nationwide in John Lewis. It has supplied to Google and is a winner of Google’s world competition for enterprise, one of SMARTA’s top 3 UK social businesses and one of Start Up UK’s top 20 UK start up business of 2012.
The public will vote one entrant through to the final of the Pitch it to Michon contest with the judging panel voting another two through. The winner will get marketing and design support to suit their needs which could include everything from brand design and development to website build, photography and web marketing.
The competition was launched by Nottingham-based creative agency Michon to celebrate 30 years in business.
For more information and to vote, visit www.pitchittomichon.co.uk.
For more information on Elephant Branded go to http://www.elephantbranded.com.
