Best foot forward: Create Growth Programme helps Young Soles grow

About Young Soles

The company, founded by Louise Shill, received an Innovate UK Investor Partnership Grant as part of the Create Growth Programme. That funding enabled Young Soles to close their latest round of investment.

Young Soles was borne out of one woman’s concern for two things – the health of her children’s feet and the environmental impact of the wastage which is the consequence of children’s growth and regular need for new shoes. In the UK alone 72m pairs of children’s footwear end up in landfill each year.

When Louise Shill, an experienced footwear designer, had her first child, she looked at what was on offer from the market and couldn’t find anything that reflected her standards and quality expectations, based on several years working in the industry.

In particular, she is passionate about foot health for children and wanted to create a product that was both ergonomically designed and stylish, but also made from good quality materials that offered children’s feet support and comfort.

Using her contacts, she designed a small collection and launched them into the market in 2014. Young Soles, the result of Louise’s worry, is a company that has developed a collection of lightweight shoes for both boys and girls alongside addressing the waste stream.

Innovate UK funding

Young Soles was recently successful in receiving an Innovate UK Investor Partnership Grant, as part of the Create Growth Programme. Investor Partnerships provides grant funding to highly innovative SMEs to derisk their research and development and leverage equity investment. That has certainly been the case for Young Soles; CEO Stuart Anderson believes that obtaining the grant from Innovate UK gave the investor more confidence and was instrumental in cementing the deal.

The Create Growth Programme grant has made a big difference to their ability to attract investors who weren’t just:

…looking for artificial intelligence or some sort of tech … it was important to us to try and find people that believed in industries that are more traditional like we are, and I think the Innovate UK grant really helped us… it showed that we were being innovative in a more traditional industry which added confidence to investors

– Stuart Anderson, CEO, Young Soles London

The funding combined with the investment will enable the company to grow and disrupt the market by addressing the three main challenges facing children’s footwear in the UK today.

Market challenges

Foot health

Children’s feet are constantly growing and developing right up until their early teens. It is critical that during this period that they wear good quality footwear made from soft breathable materials that last, support developing feet and lightweight soles that are perfect for growth and development.

Affordability

…at the moment in the children’s footwear market especially in the UK, with the cost-of-living crisis, having parents from all different social economic backgrounds being able to afford shoes that are good quality is a big issue

– Stuart Anderson, CEO, Young Soles London

Waste

Parents and carers can pass old shoes on to siblings and friends rather than buying new, but it is not good for a developing foot to wear footwear that has already been worn. There are currently very limited recycling options for children’s footwear in the UK so Young Soles has introduced a recycling solution to help to tackle the problem of shoes being sent to landfill.

The future

After successfully growing their company over a 10-year period the team felt ready to take on investment to support the further growth of the company. The funding ultimately means that they will be able to move the business forward and grow while helping to boost recycling.

Visit Create Growth and Investor Partnerships to find out how these programmes could help your business and to sign up for regular updates via our newsletter