Babes on Waves

The global platform connecting and supporting minority entrepreneurs

Babes on Waves is a membership club and community for underrepresented women and non-binary founders and creatives – specifically Black, Asian and minority ethnic women. This ‘inclusively exclusive’ space is designed to help reduce socio-economic inequality, improve diversity and foster meaningful business opportunities.

In addition to their 10,000-strong community, Babes on Waves have over 200 private club subscribers who benefit from workshops with industry experts, finance training, insider tips from next-gen CEOs, and more.

So far, they’ve seen almost £100,000 paid to Black and Asian entrepreneurs, and have seen 500+ minority women supported through programmes in partnership with brands including Reebok, Converse and The North Face.

They’ve also helped members raise £120,000 in grant funding and have connected over 1000 women and non-binary people through their supper clubs, skill-swaps and co-working off-sites.

Now, they’re building a global platform connecting minority entrepreneurs to networking and funding opportunities to help grow their businesses. Winning the Innovate UK Inclusive Innovation Award has come at a crucial time, as Jasmine explains:

“Funding is the biggest constraint for Black and minority-owned businesses when scaling. There’s not enough accessible funding opportunities, and grants are the only reason we’ve been able to keep supporting, building and holding the door open for other founders and creatives.”

With the help of Innovate UK, Babes on Waves will redevelop their platform to produce game-changing AI-driven smart profiling, designed to objectively match underrepresented entrepreneurs from marginalised genders to expert advice, funding resources and networks according to their individual needs.

The team is aiming to support one million Black and Asian women and non-binary creatives and entrepreneurs through their platform, radically reducing the barriers they face. With this funding, they hope to unlock the potential of AI innovation and be the first to implement this technology in their market.