How did the three of you cometogether to create VitaeGum and what were you looking to achieve?

We all met in Oxford, at various stages during our degrees. Harriet came up with the idea for VitaeGum while volunteering in Calais. She saw the horrendous conditions and thought: "There must be a better solution". She is a PhD Researcher in Biochemistry, which in the end inspired the gum + nutrition idea. Andrea has been active in the social entrepreneurship scene for quite a while so when the two met it was clear to Andrea that she could deliver value to the company. I just loved the idea. It is such a compelling product, solving a real problem and delivering good at the same time. I just could not resist onboarding! I would describe us as a combination of part social enterprise and part social profit. Whenever we deliver our product to NGOs, refugee camps and other social enterprises we try to keep the profit margin as low as possible, since we really believe in doing good and helping others. Obviously that's not the most attractive business model to investors!

I handle the product focus, so we are now also considering selling to normal consumers with a surcharge, through which we can then finance more projects in the NGO space.

How long did it take before you had a viable product that met your aims?

That's difficult to say. We're currently on our third prototype and still evolving! It easily took us 1 to 2 years beforehand, until we had the product that we are now sending out to NGO's in Calais and Norway. But then again, starting a company straight out of University with limited funding takes quite some time.

Did you have any financial backing in place at this time?

No! In the beginning it was a lot of trial and error with small sample sizes. We entered many local competitions (such as Oxford Inspires 2021). Some of those had minimal grant support. But the recent funding we received was the one enabling us to buy enough gum for our first pilots!

I see the product has received awards in the UK and Germany, how did that happen?

I am pretty pragmatic and well-connected in the German Startup scene. I heard about the Tech Oscars opening up their applications internationally and decided to redo our pitch deck and submit an entry from VitaeGum! Since I am German and still have many links to Berlin, it made sense for us to apply. The event was a big success. Many industry experts were interested in helping us, we even had people trying to persuade us to reincorporate to Berlin to get access to funds. But we're loyal to Britain!

How do you see VitaeGum developing over the next two to three years?

A. We'd like to be an essential part of every NGO's crisis response kit. From refugee camps to floodings and military operations. We believe VitaeGum can help many people.We also envisage ourselves as becoming a consumer product and channelling back those profits into NGO donations and at-cost production. VitaeGum could help people with substance use disorders as much as it could help refugees