“This is going to be the pivotal year for us” An interview with Kenny Ewan, Mission Studio Director

As we take Mission Studio into 2025, we sat down with Studio Director, Kenny Ewan , to get a sense of his motivations for building Mission Studio 2.0, the challenges we’re tackling head on, and our goals for 2025 and beyond.?

Keep reading to find out how Nesta’s Mission Studio is working to shape the future of startups with a real purpose.?

As an ex-founder who's built a network of over 3.5 million users at Wefarm and raised over $35 million in venture capital, what drew you to take on building Nesta's Mission Studio?

For me, it all comes down to the size and scale of the opportunity. I can see that Nesta are building something really great with their vision. The chance to be part of a team creating great startups, while also having the personal opportunity to learn, manage a fund, and make investments, is incredibly exciting. It’s the ideal balance of what I’m looking for at this stage in my career.

I’ve also witnessed the transformation in the startup and investment space over the years. Back when I raised WeFarm's seed round in 2016, impact investing was still relatively niche, and we faced skepticism from mainstream VCs. But over the last decade, the landscape has shifted dramatically. There are now numerous specialist impact VCs, and it’s become mainstream to consider companies with an impactful mission.

I’d like to think that WeFarm played a role in driving that change. Raising $35 million from top-tier VCs on both sides of the Atlantic, while demonstrating that rapid growth and impactful business models can coexist, helped prove that this approach works.

Now, with Nesta’s Mission Studio, we’re aiming to continue that momentum. There’s still a gap in the infrastructure and support for early-stage, mission-driven businesses to truly leverage capital effectively. Our vision for Mission Studio is to fill that gap and become the best place in the world to build a mission-driven startup.

We’ve got big ambitions for the studio… so looking 5 years ahead, what does the studio look like, and what has it achieved?

We would have established Mission Studio as the best place in the world to build mission-driven companies, with a portfolio of successful startups that demonstrate our ability to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.?

Right now, our goal is to spin out at least four startups every year. If we steadily increase that output, it’s not unrealistic to envision having 50 to 100 startups created, built, and launched over the next five years. By then, the first few of those could have reached significant scale, showing that it’s possible to achieve both commercial success and meaningful impact. Ultimately, in five years, I want the studio to be recognised as a proven hub that can conceptualise, build, spin out, and successfully exit high-impact businesses.

Your goal is to create, and spin out eight new mission aligned ventures by September 2026 - what are the critical factors for success here?

Spinning out 8 ventures from nearly a standing start is certainly an ambitious goal, but I believe it's entirely achievable. To make it happen, we need to continue recruiting top talent and ensure we're maximising the potential of our incredible team. We've already made strong progress in the early stages, and now it's about coming together as a unified force to deliver on some very ambitious targets.?

A key part of that will be leveraging Nesta's expertise, research, data, and ecosystem—these resources are absolutely critical. Ultimately, we want to build startups that advance Nesta’s bold missions - to reduce carbon emissions from homes; narrow health inequalities; and break the link between family background and life chances.?

We also want our startups to become commercially sustainable, world-class software companies. Strong partnerships will be a crucial element in making that vision a reality.

You've gone from three people at the Mission Studio, to a team of ten in a space of six months. How's it going? What are the main challenges and wins?

Things are going really well. We've assembled an exceptional team in a relatively short amount of time, and I’m incredibly proud of the quality and diversity of talent we've been able to attract. This is a clear validation of just how exciting the opportunity is within Mission Studio.?

We've spent a lot of time laying the groundwork to build great startups, and now, for 2025, the focus shifts to execution. This year, we plan to spin out our first three, maybe four startups, which marks a major milestone. So, while everything has been progressing well so far, this is going to be the pivotal year for us to really make it happen.

You’ve built teams of 100+ in the past. In your opinion, what’s key to maintaining and continually pushing for your desired culture?

Building a great culture is absolutely vital for the kind of company you want to create. Reflecting on my 10-year journey at WeFarm, I’ve learned that many of my insights on culture come from mistakes—seeing firsthand what doesn’t work. For me, the fundamentals of a strong culture come down to two key elements. First, it’s about behaviors—people need to clearly understand how they can embody the culture in their day-to-day actions. It's not enough to just say you have a certain value; it needs to be something tangible that people can see and demonstrate.

Second, counterfactuals are crucial. Often, companies claim to do everything—move fast, collaborate, innovate—but in reality, these things are often mutually exclusive. It's vital to be clear about what your culture isn't about. Many organisations try to embrace a little bit of everything, which simply isn’t achievable. Culture needs to be intentional and rooted in specific behaviors.

Finally, ownership is key. Do people feel like they truly own the culture? Do they understand it and genuinely buy into it? Culture is essentially a collection of human behaviors, shaped by what’s praised and what’s criticised. If you can align everyone in the organisation, getting them to believe in the same values and point in the same direction, you can create a culture that truly thrives.

What are you most excited about in 2025, and what should everyone keep an eye out for?

Stay tuned for our first startups in 2025—we’re currently in the process of building our first in-house startup, Mendara, which aims to provide accessible, evidence-based therapeutic support for mothers struggling with birth trauma.?

Our goal for 2025 is to have four startups successfully spun out by the end of the year. It’s going to be a challenging few months ahead for the studio team, but we’re excited for what’s to come.?

These startups will cover a range of areas that align with Nesta’s mission, so we’re eager for everyone to follow along and engage with what we’re doing. Building and supporting startups to create lasting impact takes an entire ecosystem, and we’re excited to have people join us on this journey.