OnHand Secures £750,000 Investment to Help Businesses Supercharge Corporate Responsibility with Its Social Impact Platform.
Northstar Ventures has led a £750,000 investment round into OnHand, the innovative social impact platform enabling businesses to become more responsible by empowering employees to drive meaningful change through corporate social responsibility initiatives. £325,000 has been invested by the North East Innovation Fund supported by the European Regional Development Fund and £175,000 from Northstar’s EIS Growth Fund, alongside investment by 24 Haymarket. Total investment in OnHand to date now tops over £5m.
An estimated 89% of employees are motivated by a strong social mission. As businesses ramp up their corporate social responsibility efforts, OnHand is providing the ultimate outsourced solution with an innovative, easy to use platform. Whether it’s a beach clean or a food drop, the platform effortlessly connects users to global volunteering opportunities tailored to their interests and close to their place of work. With OnHand, organisations are fostering a culture of engagement and purpose, whilst enhancing their social impact and improving the planet.
Since Northstar Ventures’ initial investment in 2021, growth in metrics has been impressive. The company has acquired a diverse array of clients, including Baringa, Domestic & General and Rightmove. The company has just scooped 22nd place on Deloitte’s Fast50 of fastest growing tech businesses for 2024.
CEO, Sanjay Lobo, brings two decades of experience in high-growth tech companies. Recent addition, CFO, Will Turner, is a proven expert in scaling SaaS metrics, having played a key role in growing Amplience from £3 million to £25 million in annual recurring revenue. CRO, Ben Ward Cochrane is experienced in scaling from SMB to enterprise. He has been recruited to drive the sales effort, reaching more enterprise customers.
Naomi Allen Seales, investment manager, Northstar Ventures, says: “It’s no surprise that OnHand is thriving, thanks to their exceptional leadership team. Our investment will support technical improvements to enhance the platform’s gamification and expand user options even further. It will also help the company achieve their ambition of breaking into the enterprise market. We are thrilled to support such an exciting, innovative company, as we recognise the value of corporate volunteering.”
James Campin, investment associate, 24 Haymarket, says: “’We are delighted to continue to support OnHand as it scales into enterprise and grows its reach and impact with those in need.”
Sanjay Lobo, CEO, OnHand, says: “Delighted to have the continued support of Northstar Ventures, who invested in OnHand at such an early stage, and 24 Haymarket following their initial investment. The next stage for us is helping even more enterprise businesses deliver incredible social impact in their local communities and building a culture of purpose at work”.
Notes To Editors
Press contacts – Northstar Ventures Limited
Deborah Nixon Carr
Marketing / Investment Support
M: 07754 800 749
[email protected]
Emma O’Rourke
Finance Director
M: 07715 366 434
[email protected]
About Northstar Ventures
Northstar Ventures is a long-established venture capital and based in the North East of England.
As the region’s leading early-stage investor, we have provided over £100m of funding into start-ups, early-stage businesses and high impact social enterprises.
Supporting entrepreneurs since 2004, we know how to identify strong, effective teams with innovative ideas that will drive high growth, scalable businesses, and sustainable charities. Our particular focus is on those organisations who provide solutions to societal and industry-wide issues on a regional, national and even global scale.
Our investment managers have a wealth of expertise supporting new and growing businesses. They bring commercial and operational knowledge to the table combining everything from PhDs, MBAs, international careers and finance to micro-business experience.
Northstar Ventures Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. For more information see www.northstarventures.co.uk.
About OnHand
OnHand is a B Corp Certified impact platform that makes it easy for employees everywhere to do good on demand.
The platform lets users see who they can help in local communities with location-based matching technology, gives opportunities to help remotely, and offers a wide range of sustainability actions with tracked CO2e reporting.
Impact is tracked at both an individual and company level with real-time reporting dashboards to see CO2e reductions, social impact, volunteering hours and much more.
Set up in collaboration with some of the UK’s leading charities including The Red Cross, RNIB, Guide Dogs, Water Aid, and the British Heart Foundation, the platform operates worldwide and supports a number of causes including elderly & isolated help, poverty, homelessness support, crisis response, environmental and climate action.
OnHand has won multiple awards, most recently placing at #13 in the Startups 100 of most innovative companies 2024 (previous alum including Deliveroo, Monzo, and HelloFresh) and was named the Global CSR Leader in G2’s 2024 report.
Founder and CEO, Sanjay Lobo, formerly served on the exec team at two unicorns, Lastminute.com (one of the UK’s first dotcom unicorns) and Vistaprint (Nasdaq listed, with 17m customers). In 2019, he founded OnHand with the aim of solving some of society’s biggest issues using technology. Since then he has been named Great British Entrepreneur for Good twice in 2020 and 2022 and was awarded an MBE in 2022 for OnHand’s services to older adults during Covid-19.
Editor’s notes:
Media contacts:
Kristen Watson
PR Account Executive
T: 0191 261 4250
M: 07718 065696
Sarah Banks [email protected]
Jez Davison [email protected]
About The North East Fund
The North East Fund is a suite of five venture capital and loan funds which was established in April 2018, to invest £130m in around 600 North East businesses in the period to December 2023. The fund managers provide business development advice and investment finance to small and medium sized enterprises based in the seven Local Authority areas of North East England: Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, South Tyneside, Gateshead Sunderland and County Durham. The programme encourages investment in and the commercialization of new technologies, including low carbon technologies, as well as stimulating new business creation, private investment and entrepreneurialism in the North East, with a view to creating over 2,500 new jobs. The North East Fund has overall responsibility for the programme, which is delivered through five separate funds, each managed by independent, FCA regulated fund managers. Details of these, and up to date information on the progress of the programme, is available on The North East Fund’s website: www.northeastfund.org.
The North East Fund has been established with funding from the North East of England European Regional Development Fund programme, the European Investment Bank and from returns on previous North East based, publicly supported investment funds. It is jointly owned by the seven North East local authorities.
About the European Regional Development Fund
The North East Fund will receive up to £66,500,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is the Managing Authority for the European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regeneration.
For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding
About the European Investment Bank
The European Investment Bank (EIB) will lend up to £60,000,000 to the North East Fund programme. The European Investment Bank is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.
For more information, visit: http://www.eib.org/about/index.htm
