Imin aims to transform health and wellness by giving sports apps the physical activity data they need to scale
Bio
- Age of business: 18 months
- Name of business: Imin
- Location: London
- Team: Nick Evans, Nish Desai, Dom Fennell, Luke Winship, Ben Kirk, John Cowie and Tom Oakley
- ODINE funding: €100,000
What does Imin do?
Imin aggregates open data about physical activity opportunities – such as empty squash courts and yoga class spaces – and provides a suite of APIs for organisations to build the next generation of engaging digital health and wellness applications designed to help people be more physically active.
How did you meet?
Nish introduced his friend Dom to his colleague Nick in 2014. We shared the same vision for a healthier nation with stronger communities. We started our social good journey in a coworking space in Kings Cross, and can now be found in our Shoreditch office with our talented, passionate team.
Where did the business idea come from?
Imin started life as a sports app trying to stop the rising physical inactivity epidemic, but like organisations before us, it failed to scale due to the inaccessibility of physical activity data. Now Imin provides these organisations with that data so together we can get people more active.
Are you working with any other partners?
Imin is an Open Data Initiative Startup and the lead organisation of Openactive.io, a community of sector organisations advocating open data and collaborating on open standards. Imin is also proud to be technology partner to London Sport, working together to get 1 million people more active by 2020.
How has ODINE helped you so far?
The true value in an incubator is the network of individuals, mentors and organisations that it exposes you to. ODINE is no exception. Our ODINE Slack channel now contains 21 organisations originating from 12 countries across Europe who all share the same vision for a better world built on open data.
What advice would you give to other companies pitching to ODINE?
Never forget the importance of collaboration. We are a tech-for-good startup that is revolutionising how people access fitness and physical activities, but there’s no way we could have got where we are today without the innovative organisations we’ve met along the way. This is a core principle of ODINE.
How would you encourage big business to buy into the open data movement?
Data grows in value the more it’s connected, as demonstrated by TfL’s 58:1 return-on-investment thanks to innovative apps like CityMapper using its open transport data.
What’s the key trend in open data at the moment?
Support from within the government is growing, and awareness within the sector along with it. We’re seeing a trend in education and understanding of what open data can do for us.
(This interview first appeared on The Guardian)
