Thanks to funding from Greater London Authority via the UK’s Shared Prosperity Fund, Virgin StartUp will run two cohorts for Empower 100 in 2025. The programme is open to women founders, Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority founders and disabled founders from across the capital and is a dedicated programme designed to support founders in maximising their chances of scaling and financing their businesses successfully. 

To date, Virgin StartUp has supported over 100 under-represented founders through Empower 100, with over 25% of alumni raising investment following the programme, and 48% of businesses have also grown their teams. 

One London founder who completed the programme in 2023 is Varun Bhanot, who went on to raise £5 million in investment to scale his business, MAGIC AI, featuring the world’s first AI personal trainer. MAGIC AI has gone on to be the 6th fastest growing startup in the UK. 

Applications are now open for the two cohorts that will run between 19 June – 31 July and 21 August – 2 October 2025. 

Empower 100 has received £818,152.44 from the Mayor of London and UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) proactively supports delivery of the UK-government’s five national missions: pushing power out to communities everywhere, with a specific focus to help kickstart economic growth and promoting opportunities in all parts of the UK.

Andy Fishburn, Managing Director of Virgin StartUp, said: “Too often, brilliant business ideas never get the chance to thrive because systemic inequalities and biases continue to create barriers for many would-be founders. At Virgin StartUp, we champion diversity in the start-up community and want all founders to be empowered with the support, networks and confidence to reach their full potential. 

“Empower 100 is a fully-funded programme built to break down those barriers and help under-represented founders flourish. We’re proud to run this programme alongside our 50/50 funding pledge, which commits to equally backing women and men founders across the UK.”

Alice Wainwright from Rise Coffee Box completed Empower100 in 2023.  Alice started the ethical coffee-shop business with her husband Ben during lockdown with just £3,000. Rise Coffee Box is now the UK’s number one coffee subscription club and the pair are on-track to hit £1million in sales by 2027. Alice comments: “I found the Virgin Empower100 programme to be invaluable in the quality of the content shared and the contacts made. Every element of the course was super relevant to fast-growing startups like ours, and the speakers were of the highest standard. We've done a couple of accelerator programmes and this one was by far the best in terms of what we learnt and how it benefited us.”

What to expect

All founders on the Empower 100 programme will receive up to 42-hours of expert support delivered across group workshops and one-to-one sessions, equipping founders with the key skills and advice they will need to succeed across three core areas – growth strategy, leadership skills and investment readiness. Each founder will also have a weekly meeting with a different expert to help them work through specific problem areas in their business, such as sustainability and purpose, brand building, sales and marketing, leadership, finance, and investment.

When the programme ends, the participants will continue to be part of a facilitated peer-to-peer support group for six months where they can share learnings on their fundraising and business growth journey.

Founders will also receive free one-year access to Virgin StartUp’s Community Platform, giving them access to carefully curated mentors, advisors and experts.

Nationwide funding

In addition to rebooting Empower100, Virgin StartUp has also confirmed it has a further £20 million worth of Start Up Loan funding from the British Business Bank to distribute to founders across the UK in the next 12 months. Since 2013, Virgin StartUp has distributed £90 million of funding to more than 6,000 founders to help them start and scale businesses, with some of its many success stories including fitness brand, Castore; fruit-infused water business, DashWater; veg delivery box service, Oddbox; and global ethical skincare business, Upcircle.

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