Meet the AXA Startup Angel Winners 2025

Tech Tags

Founder: Denise Stephenson

In your own words, how would you describe Tech Tags?

Denise: TechTags is the world’s first AI-powered SmartTag solution developed to tackle returns fraud within fashion retail. Our SmartTags are an intelligent labelling system powered by AI-driven data analytics, helping retailers identify garment usage after sale and distinguish between genuine and fraudulent returns.

Returns fraud is one of the biggest challenges in retail today, costing UK retailers over £11 billion a year. Practices like wardrobing, tag swapping, and receipt fraud are on the rise, leaving honest shoppers caught in the middle of restrictive returns policies.

TechTags tackles that challenge head-on by combining advanced data insights with a patented SmartTag. We’ve re-empowered retailers to make fair, confident decisions on returns.

Our SmartTags are try-on friendly and designed with privacy in mind; they never track personal data. At the point of return, a simple scan reveals a clear indicator: used. Retailers gain certainty, shoppers get transparency, and both sides build trust.

What’s the motivation behind Tech Tags?

Denise: Ten years ago, I built a women’s fashion label from my apartment. We grew quickly but returns nearly destroyed us. Customers would wear items, send them back, and I’d be left with stock I couldn’t resell.

Like many small businesses, I was hit hard. Every return chipped away at my margins, my confidence, and my ability to grow. I remember thinking, “There has to be a better way to manage returns.” But there wasn’t anything on the market that was available or robust enough to tackle the problem. That’s when I knew the industry needed a smarter solution.

That’s when I invented TechTags, a solution that protects retailers and makes the shopping experience fairer for everyone. I always tell everyone. I can’t sing, I can’t dance but give me a problem and I’ll find the solution. I’m now using my gift of problem solving to reinvent returns management, using AI- powered SmartTag’s and data verification to transform fashion retail.

What does the future look like?

Denise: The future for TechTags is incredibly exciting. After becoming a runner-up in the AXA Startup Angel competition, I went on to win an Innovate UK grant, a real turning point for TechTags. We’re now finalising our MVP and preparing to debut at our first major trade show in early 2026. By Q2 2026, we’ll begin our pilot with six incredible retailers.

We’re balancing speed with strategy, because we’re not just building a product, we’re building a legacy. TechTags is pioneering a smarter, fairer, and data-driven approach to returns management, setting the global blueprint for how fashion handles (any) returns. Our mission is to bring a robust, intelligent solution to the market that protects retailers, empowers honest shoppers and redefines what fair returns look like in fashion retail.

HUID

Founder: Renuka Ramanujam

In your own words, how would you describe HUID?

Renuka: HUID converts onion waste into scalable circular materials for food packaging. Single-use plastic is an obvious issue, and there is an abundance of natural resources that can do the job. In our case, we are taking an example of nature’s own packaging – the dry outer part of the onion skins – and converting it into a format that works with packaging infrastructure now. Better yet, it’s a waste product, and one that is globally abundant, meaning it can be produced at scale, regionally. This prevents shipping packaging from one corner of the earth to the other to be used one time!

We are also working with onion packers and growers, to try and support them through our business model by giving them some income for their waste (that they often pay to get rid of). We want to support agricultural resilience – growers are the backbone of nations and are suffering with reduced government support.

What’s the motivation behind HUID?

Renuka: Growing up in South East Asia, I saw firsthand mountains of plastic being dumped, burned and even being sorted by children. I learned that a lot of this waste was being exported from western countries, who were able to achieve their recycling targets whilst these communities handling this waste were dealing with health and environmental issues from this ‘trade’. A lot of the bio-based material solutions I was seeing were limited by their raw materials and factories being concentrated in one region of the world; as a result the packaging or raw materials were being shipped across the world to be made into finished products – which is a crazy footprint for a single-use product! I was using onion skins for a textile dyeing project – I’m a textile designer by background – and after boiling them for hours, they still seemed quite robust! I started wondering if they could have other applications, and after a little bit of research and a lot of experimentation we’re here!

What does the future look like?

Renuka: We’re doing some scale-up trials of our onion skin pulp to see how we can make it more efficient to produce at scale, and doing some trials of our first product – onion skin pulp – in fibre-based packaging with paper mills, packaging manufacturers and large retailers. Onion skins also have lots of other interesting parts to them aside from fibre; food ingredients and anti-oxidants! We’re looking to develop more materials using more of these components, such as flexible films with shelf life extension properties for fresh produce.