Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
💪 How this Start-Up is changing the narrative on mental therapy
👜 How you can turn your every day product into a catwalk icon
✍️ A tool that helps you write professional documents

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Redrice who have just raised a £75m fund to back early-stage consumer brands, platforms and B2B tech solutions!

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

💰 Founders, Inc. are looking for exciting startups from across the globe for the next cohort, writing cheques of up to $250k - apply here!

🌉 The Bridge Summer 2026 is open for applications for recently graduated Europeans looking to build global companies, giving you 8 weeks in San Francisco and a $250k cheque - apply here!

🥇 Entrepreneur First are accepting applications for their London Fall 2026 cohort, with successful applicants getting up to $250k in investment - apply here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍🎨 Lead Product Designer, DevAlly
🧑‍💻 Fullstack Engineer, Tano
👷 Forward Deployed Engineer, Noxus

💽 AI Chip startup Axelera AI raises $250m to take on Nvidia. Sifted

🎨 Canva acquires startups working on animation and marketing. TechCrunch

📈 Stripe’s valuation soars 74% to $159bn. TechCrunch
 
🍻 Guinness Ventures targets £3m for new SEIS fund. UKTN

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

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Book your rental here!

From Asda last week to Lidl this week, I promise I don’t just follow the marketing efforts of popular supermarkets. However, they do seem to be playing in a different league with marketing stunts at the moment!

As London Fashion Week rolls around, there’s always a competition for eyeballs - even for supermarkets! So, Lidl had the genius idea to turn one of their shopping baskets into a bag to be held on the prestigious runway!

When a prestigious event like London Fashion Week is in town, how can you make your product relevant? I’m not saying you actually need to make the product, as I’m confident you could mock something like this up with AI and see exactly what social media thinks of it!

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Liner Write is a Cursor-style writing agent for professional documents. Co-write business plans, proposals, reports, and more with an AI backed by the world's most accurate search (Liner Deep Research, 95%+ on SimpleQA). World-class output. Near-zero hallucinations.

💪 Mettle: Building the World’s Biggest Brand in Men’s Mental Fitness

The mental health industry is worth over $500 billion.

Yet despite the scale of the problem, and the growing conversation around wellbeing, there isn’t a single category-defining brand built specifically for men.

That’s the gap Mettle was created to fill.

Founded by Neil, Mettle is the first digital mental fitness toolkit designed exclusively for men - particularly those who wouldn’t normally feel that traditional wellness or therapy spaces are “for them.”

It’s not positioned as therapy.
It’s not positioned as vulnerability-first self-help.

It’s mental fitness.

Available via the App Store and Google Play, and also purchased by businesses for their teams, Mettle is a subscription-based app containing over 1,000 pieces of science-backed content built specifically for men. It was co-designed with Imperial College London and is the first digital men’s mental health product verified by the National Health Service.

Its mission is simple: help men, at any stage of life, build resilience, take control of their mental fitness, and live happier, healthier lives.

From Global TV to a Global Mission

Neil didn’t have to look far for his Co-Founder.

His business partner is Bear Grylls — the TV adventurer known worldwide for extreme survival challenges and unshakable resilience.

The two had already built a strong working relationship producing global television hits together, often jumping out of helicopters into volcanic lakes and remote terrains around the world. But beyond the adventure, Bear had also written extensively about mental fitness and resilience.

When Neil explained the scale of the male mental health crisis, and the absence of products that truly spoke to men, Bear’s response was immediate: “We’ve got to do this.”

Mettle was born from that shared conviction.

Launching Like a Consumer Brand

Unlike many health-tech startups that begin in clinical or institutional settings, Mettle launched like a modern consumer app.

The team leaned heavily into paid social advertising, particularly on Meta platforms, where direct click-through and conversion tracking made it ideal for subscription growth.

They also invested in brand awareness early on, including a TV advert featuring Bear on Sky Sports.

While the TV campaign didn’t necessarily drive a flood of immediate subscriptions, it played a crucial strategic role: it put Mettle into men’s consciousness. Awareness built on TV later converted through digital ads.

It wasn’t just about performance marketing, it was about brand building.

Scaling Through Experimentation

As Mettle moved beyond its first users, the team continued refining its growth engine.

They:

• Tested different messaging angles across Meta

• Ran out-of-home campaigns, including train advertising

• Focused on broad awareness as well as direct response

Now, they’re doubling down on affiliate marketing and partnerships - seeing it as a more cost-effective and scalable channel compared to paid acquisition alone.

The strategy is evolving from pure advertising to ecosystem growth.

Backed by Belief

Mettle raised an oversubscribed pre-seed round made up of angel investors.

The investors weren’t just backing another wellness app, they were backing a commercial opportunity with a clear societal upside. A massive, underserved market combined with a strong founding team and credible positioning created what Neil describes as a “win-win.”

After six months of building the app, Mettle launched and began generating revenue.

For many of those early angels, belief in the mission was as important as belief in the market, and once a few committed, they spread the word.

The Reality Behind the Brand

Behind the mission-driven messaging, the journey hasn’t been smooth.

There have been challenges across tech, marketing, and team dynamics. Like any startup, Mettle has faced its share of setbacks and missteps.

But Neil’s perspective is pragmatic:

As long as you stay in the game, and keep learning, failures aren’t final.

They’re part of the build.

Lessons From the Journey

Looking back, two core insights stand out.

1. Find the others.
Neil’s personal motto is about surrounding yourself with the right people, but acknowledging that they can take time to find. The right team compounds everything.

2. Put community at the heart from day one.
If starting again, he would prioritise building community even earlier. Not just users, but connection between users. In a space like mental fitness, belonging is powerful.

Redefining Mental Health for Men

Mettle isn’t trying to compete with traditional therapy platforms.

It’s trying to redefine how men engage with mental wellbeing altogether.

By reframing mental health as mental fitness, something you train daily, like your body, Mettle is positioning itself as a movement as much as a product.

And with science-backed credibility, NHS verification, and the storytelling power of a globally recognised adventurer, it’s aiming to do something far bigger than launch an app.

It’s aiming to build the defining brand in men’s mental fitness.

Next week I’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up, as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.

P.S. Connect with me on LinkedIn…