Investec Beyond Business 2025: Bamboo Bicycle Club wins £24,000 award
Investec Beyond Business
29 September 2025 | Announcement
“A truly inspiring cohort — each of these social enterprise businesses are focused on addressing important societal issues, delivering meaningful impact in their communities.” — Ruth Leas, CEO, Investec Bank plc
Bamboo Bicycle Club was named one of four winners of the Investec Beyond Business 2025 programme on 29 September 2025 — receiving a share of approximately £100,000 in funding plus ongoing mentorship and business support from Investec colleagues.
The Investec Beyond Business (IBB) programme has run for 15 years in East London, backing purpose-driven social enterprises in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney. In 2025, a record 148 applicants competed for four places. BBC was selected alongside Round Retail, Feeling Social, and TrailFam — the full cohort collectively receiving c.£100,000 from Investec.
What Investec saw in BBC
The Investec programme page described Bamboo Bicycle Club as an organisation that “reconnects excluded learners with education by delivering hands-on, industry-relevant, accredited programmes in sustainable design and mobility to open pathways into further study, employment or enterprise.”
This description captures something precise about BBC’s positioning: it is not primarily a cycling business. It is an education and social mobility organisation that uses bicycle building as the mechanism. The programme doesn’t teach people to cycle — it teaches them to make something, which changes something in them. Investec’s judges understood this distinction.
The judging panel
The 2025 IBB judging panel included two former IBB winners (Eve Wagg of Well Grounded, David Schluter of Fluid IT), Marc Kahn and Deborah Sayagh from Investec, and Ruth Leas, CEO of Investec Bank plc. A 148-application field was reduced to four. The process was competitive; BBC’s selection required demonstrating both social impact credibility and commercial viability.
Programme history
“Bamboo Bicycle Club reconnects excluded learners with education by delivering hands-on, industry-relevant, accredited programmes in sustainable design and mobility to open pathways into further study, employment or enterprise.” — Investec Beyond Business programme description (investec.com)
Since 2011, Investec has committed over £1 million to the IBB programme, which has launched 72 social enterprises and created over 430 jobs combined. BBC joins a cohort of graduates who have gone on to grow and scale significant social businesses in London and beyond.
What the funding enables
At BBC, the Investec award accelerates three areas: expanding community workshop access (schools, community groups, rehabilitation settings); building a skills and employment pipeline through sustainable manufacturing training; and scaling the Build to Bond prison programme — which was, at the time of the award, already running at HMP Lowdham Grange with a waiting list of participants.
The award was announced the same month (September 2025) that BBC was profiled by the Financial Times in FT Weekend. The combination of FT coverage and an Investec award in the same period represented BBC’s highest-profile month in its 13-year history.