Public Funding for Flexa Ltd

Flexa, founded in 2019 by three founders that saw the societal and economic benefits of flexible working, are building an innovative AI and machine-learning driven digital platform to boost business flexibility, diversity and productivity. They have already demonstrated feasibility with dozens of companies who urgently need this solution. Flexible working could add £40 billion to the UK economy each year (CEBR) by increasing economic participation from parents and carers, people with disabilities, and those in rural areas. Yet, most organisations are struggling to realise these benefits as they lack access to data-driven evidence and instructions when trying to optimise their workplace practices. Businesses lose an estimated £2bn/year by failing to accommodate flexible working (Pragmatix Advisory). The level of change required to transform these working environments to meet new demands and goals cannot happen on the scale required with the current solutions of consultancies and market reports. Flexa's new platform will democratise access to data and insights, making national-scale (and eventually international-scale) change possible. To respond to the rapidly evolving world of work, companies need rapid answers to complex questions. What location flexibility or flexible hours should they offer, why, and how do they implement that? To hire more women, what do they need to change? To be disability inclusive, what should they do? After implementing a hybrid approach for a year, what can they optimise? Companies will log onto Flexa's platform, input data around their working environment, diversity, productivity, and associated challenges. The platform will analyse and benchmark this information against millions of proprietary data points that Flexa has already collected (and will be continually supplemented with new data). The company will be presented with action items to follow in order to improve their working environment; with similar outputs and results to a consultancy project, but for a fraction of the cost and at greater speed. The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 and the pandemic have combined to force 86% of companies (LinkedIn) to rethink how they approach flexible working. Every month that passes where companies remain unsure of how they should implement change negatively affects our economy, and millions of people's lives. This project is an opportunity to pioneer new technology, build a proprietary data warehouse, build additional revenue streams, and respond to significant demand for this solution, all whilst improving the lives of millions through increased supply of flexible work.