Krystal partners with Virgin StartUp to support entrepreneurs

Krystal is proud to announce a new partnership with Virgin StartUp to help founders build better businesses.

What is Virgin StartUp?

Virgin StartUp is the not-for-profit Virgin company created for entrepreneurs. It provides government-backed StartUp loans and one-to-one business advice to founders launching or growing a business in England or Scotland.

What does Virgin StartUp do?

Virgin StartUp’s mission is to promote entrepreneurship in the UK and to empower people to turn their visions into reality through access to business advice, mentoring and funding. Founded by Richard Branson in 2013, it’s helped tens of thousands of founders to start and scale.

Businesses funded by Virgin StartUp survive longer, generate higher turnover and hire more people than businesses supported by other start-up support organisations in the UK. It has an unrelenting focus on the founders that it exists to support and looks to use the platform and network it has to help them thrive.

Virgin StartUp is also dedicated to closing the gender funding gap - for good. Currently only one in five start-ups in the UK has a woman founder and only £1 in every £100 of startup funding goes to women founders – Virgin StartUp thinks that’s something that needs to change. In 2019 it became the first start-up support organisation to pledge equal funding for men and women with its 50:50 pledge – and it’s making progress towards achieving this goal.

Why is Krystal partnering with Virgin StartUp?

To maximise the help it provides new businesses, Virgin StartUp works with a number of partners who are also committed to helping founders thrive. Krystal is perfectly placed to help new businesses get off on the right foot and succeed online.

Virgin is entrepreneurial at its heart and so is Krystal. As a fellow industry disruptor and champion of business, we’re delighted to partner with Virgin StartUp to help new and exciting business ideas get off the ground while minimising their digital emissions. Our ethos of using business innovation and resource as a force for positive change to inspire others and improve industries (codified within our B Corp certification), aligns perfectly with Virgin’s restless spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation and market disruption.

We also believe businesses should support their communities and the planet. For many entrepreneurs, making business decisions with the environment in mind is a top priority. We’ll be working together with Virgin StartUp to help founders make better choices when it comes to embedding sustainability across their businesses.

We’ve already been supporting UK startups for years with free business hosting. We’re excited to now be able to help even more succeed and scale through this new partnership with Virgin StartUp.