Bamboo Bicycle Club Archives

Programme run in partnership with the Bromley By Bow Centre offers grants of up to £24,000 to help solve problems in society across east London

Amitava Guha, enterprise team leader at the Bromley By Bow Centre - image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life — Amitava Guha, enterprise team leader at the Bromley By Bow Centre – image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life

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For the last 14 years, financial services firm Investec Bank has been fostering social entrepreneurship in east London.

Run in partnership with the Bromley By Bow Centre, its Investec Beyond Business programme has seen scores of businesses created with the aim of solving social problems.

These operations have a collective turnover of nearly £10million since the initiative was started in 2011 and support some 430 jobs.

Now entering its 15th year, individuals and organisations are encouraged to submit their applications by March 15, 2026, for up to £24,000 of funding each.

Ideas must have a clear social purpose and support communities in Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Newham, Waltham Forest, Islington or Barking And Dagenham

“We are typically looking for entry-level startups, which are no more than two years old, that will generate profit and reinvest this money in what they’re doing,” said Amitava Guha, enterprise team leader at the Bromley By Bow Centre.

“You don’t have to have a registered company – you might have identified an issue and want to start something to help address it. We can work with that.

“For 2026, I think we really want to elevate this programme, to support big ideas.

“People often opt for the safe route, but I think you can’t really become a successful entrepreneur if you don’t take risks.

“You have to have determination.”

The Bromley By Bow Centre in east London - image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life — The Bromley By Bow Centre in east London – image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life

mentoring, coaching and support

This is an area in which Amit is well versed.

Having founded and led digital consultancy Magicframe in India from 2006 to 2020, his own journey has been steeped in business development.

Having relocated to the UK and exited that company, he’s recently spent time coaching, mentoring and advising others on how to turn their ideas into viable operations.

“I joined the Bromley By Bow Centre in 2024 to take care of the Investec Beyond Business programme,” he said.

“Last year we received 148 applications, long-listed 30 and then short-listed 10 to present their ideas to the Investec panel, Dragon’s Den-style.

“Each year, we try to fund four or five enterprises.

“What’s essential is that, if you are called to make that presentation, you can explain your idea well so we can understand what you want to do because, ultimately, it will be you driving this change.

“Many of the ideas that are submitted have been quite good, quite interesting, but I think we can go further.

“We’d love to see some interesting thoughts coming out of Canary Wharf, for example.

“One of the important things to consider is that, while we understand people often come from a social action background, social action is not social enterprise.

“These ideas have to work as businesses.”

One of last year’s winners was Round Retail, a charitable resale platform for branded items where sellers get a third of the sale price and the balance goes to local charities and to fund expansion.

Feeling Social and TrailFam also won funding, providing mental health first aid training to organisaitons and offering trail running programmes to young people, respectively.

While Bamboo Bicycle Club is already an established business in Canning Town, the panel decided to fund its project to work with parents serving custodial sentences to build bikes for their kids to help maintain a tangible connection with their children.

Bamboo Bicycle Club founder James Marr received funding from Investec Beyond Business - image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life — Bamboo Bicycle Club founder James Marr received funding from Investec Beyond Business – image by Jon Massey / Wharf Life

ideas with the potential to spread

Amit said: “We made an exception for this company because it was such a good idea.

“It was quite emotional for us and the programme has gone really well.

“It’s a good example of exactly the kind of projects Investec Beyond Business wants to fund.

“They can be small ideas that start in east London but have the potential to spread everywhere.

“We really like ideas that get people to think differently.

“They don’t need to be absolutely radical or outside the box and it can be something that needs some development.

“One of the key things for us is that the £24,000 is seed funding, to support the person or the organisation the idea has come from.

“We don’t restrict how that money is spent, but we do have quarterly meetings with the winner and produce a report.

vWe’re also on hand to mentor and support them and many previous winners also participate in the programme in this way.

“That’s a process that continues beyond the first year.”

With 50 applications already received, the 2026 programme of funding is set to begin in May, after shorlisting and interviews in April.

Issues typically addressed by applicants include social enterprises working in youth unemployment, social isolation and loneliness, mental health and wellbeing, community cohesion, the rehabilitation of ex‑offenders, food insecurity and environmental sustainability.

Those applying – and IBB especially welcomes applications from under-represented founders – are expected to demonstrate how their idea would benefit at least one of the six boroughs it operates across.

Amit said one area of focus he would like to see tackled was the pervasive effect of social media on both the young and old.

“I think there are a lot of problems around attention and interaction,” he said.

“Through social media and AI, we’re in danger of creating generations of people who have no idea what they’re talking about and can’t articulate their ideas when they go for an interview, for example.

“I worry these technologies are damaging our ability to think independently and I’d love to hear ideas around what can be done to address this.”

key details: Investec Beyond Business

Applicants to the Investec Beyond Business programme are invited to submit their ideas to the programme by March 15, 2026.

You can find full details from the Bromley By Bow Centre here.

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Fast-growing material offers natural cushioning, offered by the business via kits and workshops

James Marr of the Bamboo Bicycle Club at Caxton Works

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James Marr was working in rural Wales as an engineer when he encountered the problem that would lead to the creation of the business he’s now run for 10 years in east London.

“I was doing a lot of commuting and I was really uncomfortable on my bike,” he said.

“I decided I needed a frame that would absorb more of the vibrations from the road and be a bit more pleasant to ride.

“I’ve always been someone who just gets on and does stuff and a bicycle gives you that ability.

“I’ve always cycled – it gives you a lot of freedom, and I really enjoy that.

“I’ve always tried to fix things and build things myself, so I thought I’d make my own bicycle.”

Having lived in the USA and seen people riding bikes with bamboo frames he began researching the material and found it to his liking.

“That’s where I got the original idea,” he said. “Bamboo bikes are about 120 years old now – they’ve been around for a while.

“Technology has obviously progressed in terms of how you build bikes over time and that’s made making your own much more accessible.

“You’re able to create something really decent now, so I thought I’d build one.

“I told my best mate Ian McMillan about it, and he joined in.

“We used to meet up at the weekends – we’d have some beers and build our bikes.

“That was really the inception of the Bamboo Bicycle Club.

“We really enjoyed building them and riding them – it was enjoyable and sociable and our mates asked if they could come and build with us as well.”

Build workshops take place in Canning Town every month

Initially the idea was to open up the club as a social project with James and his friend keeping their jobs in engineering while continuing to build and teach others at the weekends.

But the idea snowballed and James quit his job to run the business full-time.

He relocated operations to Caxton Works in Canning Town in 2020 after years in Hackney Wick, mostly because rents in the area were becoming prohibitive for a firm like his that needs a significant amount of space.

It’s necessary because the spirit of the original club still forms the spine of the business.

“We don’t sell finished bikes – only kits and building sessions in our workshops,” said James.

“Over the years it has been a temptation to sell finished bikes, but it was that early feeling I got when I rode the bike I’d built which is really key.

“I remember that when I rode it, me and my mate were giggling, because we just couldn’t believe that we’d built these bikes and were riding them for the first time.

“They were functional, they worked, and they definitely planted the seed of what could be achieved. That initial spark from riding them was unique.

“The first one I built was pretty shit, but it made me realise what I’d done wrong.

“When I’m teaching others, the first thing I say is: ‘Make mistakes, but just embrace that and learn from them – it’s a process’.

“This is something that’s not allowed in our society that much – you don’t go to work to make mistakes – but trying to give things a go and learning from doing them is what I believe in and that’s what we do here.”

That’s, of course, because the other thing the club does is build a lot of bikes and sell a lot of kits so people can make them at home.

“Our home-build kits are our biggest growth area,” said James. “We now do a lugged frame with pre-moulded components – it’s the Ikea of bike building.

“You get the bits in a box, slot all the bamboo into them and you’ve got yourself a bike.

“It moves away from the possibility of compromise, but it gives people the ability to use their hands and learn some techniques.

“It takes a few hours instead of the 70 you’d expect using a cottage industry method.”

There’s a sense, however, that James prefers custom builds – clients who want to get their hands a little dirtier by using flax and resin to join the lengths of bamboo into frames that will suit their needs and desires.

“When you have that combination of materials, the frame becomes a bio-composite and it’s a lot more interesting,” he said.

“The initial concept was to build a certain bike a certain way, but some of the bikes we’ve built are completely bizarre.

“Loads of people build crazy bikes with us in the workshop and we also do custom kits that we ship all over the world.

“People build mountain bikes out of bamboo and that just shows how robust and versatile a material it can be.

“We’ve done loads of BMX and stunt bikes as well.

“Everyone is following the same general blueprint here but each bike is different and unique. It’s down to the individual who is building it.”

A lugged frame from the Bamboo Bicycle Club

Visitors to the Canning Town workshop can see all sorts of machines created from bamboo including tricycles, electric variants and rides with oversize chunky backbones.

The business also sells a wide range of add-ons from gear and brake packs to the simple addition of water bottle holders.

“If you’re into bikes, you know there are hundreds of different types and variations,” said James.

“Basically a bamboo bike is just a bicycle, no different from any other, that you use or may have used regularly.

“The only difference is that you can customise it, create something you want and it’s a lot more accessible.

“If you want to build a custom bike from other materials, you’re talking tens of thousands of pounds, so bamboo bikes are quite affordable to build.

“From a ride perspective it’s also a lot more comfortable because the material naturally absorbs impact.

“We’ve done a lot of work with universities researching bamboo because there’s huge under-investment and naivety about it in the western world.”

Frame build kits start at £410, while one-day frame building workshops, which run once a month and must be pre-booked, start at £695.

Bamboo can be used to make a wide range of bikes