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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Sarah Butler

‘The investment industry is just a wall of men’: Tessa Clarke of Olio on the battle facing female entrepreneurs

Tessa Clarke stands with her arms folded, smiling, in front of a sign saying 'I love Olio'
Tessa Clarke: ‘Until we change the gatekeepers of capital, we’re not going to change the fate of female-founder businesses.’ Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Observer

Tessa Clarke was moving house when she found a problem she could eventually build a business on. With a cabbage, some sweet potatoes and a few other bits of food left in her fridge on moving day, she hit on the idea of providing a way to share surplus food with neighbours.

Today, those left-over vegetables have grown into a social enterprise which has signed up 7 million people, up to a million of whom regularly engage every month.

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