Kathryn Llewellyn
Thrive for Hire helps companies easily measure the carbon impact of hired plant and equipment, enabling lower-cost, lower-emission procurement and simpler sustainability reporting.
Project
Thrive for Hire Limited
URL
Year founded
2019
Business stage
Pre-Seed
High-growth sectors
Digital and Technologies
Sector
Sustainability
Location
Wales
Funding
Funded Award Winner
The problem and opportunity
Companies lack practical tools to measure and reduce emissions from hired plant and equipment, making it difficult to meet Net Zero commitments, procurement requirements and ESG reporting obligations. Existing solutions are fragmented, retrospective or consultancy-led. Thrive for Hire is addressing this gap with an operational platform that enables lower-carbon equipment selection, real-time carbon reporting and carbon neutral hire.
The solution and innovation
We are developing the UK’s first operational carbon intelligence platform for hired plant and equipment. Our Net-Zero Hire Intelligence Platform NZ-HIP embeds emissions data into procurement and hire decisions, enabling customers to select lower-carbon equipment, generate real-time reporting and enables carbon neutral hire at the point of purchase. The MVP is being developed with pilot partners to validate commercial demand and operational impact.
Market and ambition
Thrive for Hire is targeting the £4bn UK plant hire market before expanding into construction and infrastructure. We are developing and piloting NZ-HIP with industry partners. Within two years we aim to launch commercially, secure recurring SaaS customers and become the UK’s leading operational carbon intelligence platform.
Founder perspective
Kathryn is a female founder with more than 20 years’ leadership experience delivering innovation and social impact. She has worked in sustainability and carbon trading for the last 8 years and is applying that experience to build climate technology that helps transform the construction industry.
Women in Innovation Award
Recipient of the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025/26, receiving tailored business support, and access to specialist training and networks. View all winners and highly commended applicants from the Women in Innovation cohort 2025/2026.