CorkYogis founder Lara Sengupta, will enter Dragons’ Den on Sunday to ask for funding for her yoga e-commerce store. CorkYogis has created ethical, natural cork yoga mats to provide yogis with a non-slip, natural surface for practice.
CorkYogis also has a strong social side that changes lives for women in North India. CorkYogis supports education and employment of human trafficking survivors in Kolkata, India by donating to vocational training courses (for every yoga mat that is sold we donate to either a sewing course or a literacy course) and then providing jobs by employing the skilled women to make yoga mat bags.
“ I wanted to use the popularity of Yoga in the West, to give back to vulnerable communities in India. I wanted to create a giving loop”
This is one of the first social businesses that will enter the Den this season. How will the Dragons react to a business that isn’t purely for profit?
This is a perfect example of the contrast between new age social entrepreneurship and the more traditional profit- first businesses of an older generation.
