The AXA Startup Angel competition is back for 2025, and to kick things off, we caught up with one of last year’s top winners, Steve King.
Co-founders Steve King and Alex Last impressed the judges with their original startup business, WeDonate, a closed members rewards platform that exists to recognise blood and plasma donors.
Hi, Steve! It’s been a while now since we last caught up, what have WeDonate been up to?
Since winning the award, we’ve been working on some great partnerships. We’ve recently partnered with Gaucho to offer a free steak for blood donations, which has been fantastic. And we've also partnered with Holland &Barrett, and we’re getting ready to launch a blood donor bundle!
That's interesting, can you tell us more?
The bundle of products basically helps with the nutrition side when it comes to donating - so it’s got iron, vitamin C, multivitamins, etc. And instead of it costing you X amount in stores, they're basically offering them at cost, which is exclusive to WeDonate donors. So,if you're a donor, you can get what you need to donate at a massively discounted rate - which is brilliant. We also partnered with Pure Gym to give free guest passes to donors to help get them fit and healthy! And, we’ve featured in some email blasts with BrewDog. It’s been crazy, we have a lot going on!
It sounds like it's been a busy time! What are some personal highlights?
The most important thing for us is the message behind WeDonate. There's been so much that's happened for us, and so we’re just trying to process everything. I’d say for me, it’s the small impact that we’re starting to have. We’ve started to really bring together a community of donors, and it’s been great seeing people starting to use the platform, and even to see people join from word of mouth!
We're even hearing some feedback directly from donors now, about how they're grateful for the platform or grateful for what we're doing. It's nice knowing that we’re able to do what we set out to do, by putting blood donors first and trying to celebrate them!
From a brand perspective, we've been in touch with loads of big brands, and one of the highlights for us was being able to offer a free steak dinner for donors thanks to, Gaucho. It’s such a big brand and it’s really exciting to be involved with them.
Having had your mentor sessions with the AXA Angels, how did it go? What was it like working with each Angel?
Raphael was brilliant. I started WeDonate off of the back of a personal experience, and so I often get caught in the position of wanting to do things for free. Raphael really helped us with striking a balance – knowing that it’s important to keep your social mission in mind, but also knowing that you need to cover your costs in order to be able to help people. If we can do that, we can help even more people. It was a helpful mindset shift.
The guys from BOSH!, Henry and Ian, we’re actually partnering with them and the NHS BT2 to look at creating some iron-rich recipes! It’s still early days, but there’s a conversation happening there. The mentoring sessions went really well.
Having had won one of last year’s top prizes, what do you think it was about your application that made WeDonate stand out?
I think it was our video. We put a lot of effort into trying to get our personality, mission and passion across. I think that's something you can't really do via text, so the video was a big thing for us.
What advice would you give to anyone who's thinking of applying to this year's AXA Startup Angel competition?
Just do it! There's a million and one hats to wear when you're a founder – but a lot of the time, you've got to be in the game to win it. And there's absolutely no harm in entering. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so just go for it!
In terms of the application, I’d suggest blocking out an hour to do the video properly, commit a good bit of time to it. Chances are, a good video is going to catch someone's eye, especially when you've got hundreds of people entering the competition!
For the pitch, think about why someone would be interested in your business. Just think to yourself, what makes you different? Try and tell that story! Don’t just say, this is what we do and this is how it works. Share your experience, share your ideas, share your research! Share the ‘why’ of your idea, and what you aim to do. You're telling a story to get people hooked and invested. Don’t forget to mention how the cash prize can help.
With the £25,000 prize money, how have you used it so far?
We want WeDonate to be a platform that’s best in class in the market for discount and offers with UK-based retailers for our users.
We also want to really grow the business and get our message out there. We want WeDonate to come to people’s mind when they think of blood donation, and we want our mission to be known. We’d love to expand our relationship with charities, and maybe even government bodies, if possible, to help really accelerate our message.