Fair By Design Fund

Fair By Design is a Seed venture fund backing scalable tech businesses tackling the drivers of the UK Poverty Premium.

An estimated 14.3 million people (22% of the population) in the UK are living in poverty. People in poverty or on low incomes pay on average £490 more each year for the same goods and services as people who are better off financially. For one in ten, this number is at least £780 and some low-income households can end up paying in excess of £2,250 per year. This is the “Poverty Premium” – the extra cost of being poor. It’s a real and unfair problem, worth over £3.8bn per year in the UK alone.

There is not one ‘Poverty Premium’, but many unfair increments in cost that, when added together, can represent a significant drain on tight household budgets. Such increments are typically centred on a specific set of issues - in energy, through expensive tariffs; credit, because of poor credit ratings; or food, transport and insurance in deprived postcodes. These market failures are often compounded by digital exclusion.

We believe these unfair systemic flaws are reversible and also provide unique opportunities to mission-led founders building winning solutions. Ascension works alongside a Campaign managed by Barrow Cadbury Trust, which collaborates with corporates, government, and regulators to design out the Poverty Premium.

This initiative is looking to unlock large scale systems change towards a fairer and more affordable life for low-income households across the UK.