Innovation Community – Eco Ventures Counsel
Legal support for climate saving innovators
The life of a start-up is never easy, with founders in a constant battle to improve their technology, find funding and learn about all things business! Thankfully, within the community, there are accelerators or other entities to help support founders on this learning journey, providing business planning assistance, and pitching help and even the chance to access some funding. But there is one part of the company growth phase which is often overlooked and challenging to access in a cost effective way, legal support. This is a broad area, covering fundraising, regulatory compliance, employment, tax, contracts, data protection and intellectual property to name just a few. In order to properly understand these areas and be successful, external support is essential, but as we all know interacting with lawyers is not cheap!
This is where Eco Ventures Counsel come into the picture! They are a great example of the essential role some of our network partners play in connecting innovators with the expertise and knowledge required to help them scale. This new pro-bono programme targets early stage greentech companies who have a game changing solution to help save the planet. The programme connects these innovators with leading law firms who have committed to provide free full service legal support and advice in whatever capacity is required for 12 months. Eco Ventures Counsel currently works with several leading law firms, with the first cohort made up of 21 ventures active in green technologies, with solutions including replacing plastic packaging with fish waste, software to suggest greener product alternatives in supermarket apps, a new aerodynamic design of lorry trailer and a battery powered by the soil.
Eco Ventures Counsel was founded by Mitesh Jagatia, who worked as a senior in-house lawyer for 16 years for the likes of Sky, Bloomberg and Moody’s. Five years ago, he co-founded the Green Tech Legal Collaborative, which provides free legal advice for early-stage ventures in the green technology space, specifically connected to Imperial College London and Undaunted. Following this success, he decided to start Eco Ventures Counsel to provide a wider reach, connecting more innovators with legal advice across the UK and hopefully expanding internationally in future.
The first cohort proved incredibly popular, launching in May 2025 with a second cohort launching in November 2025, with the Eco Ventures Counsel team accepting applications in August. In order to apply for the programme and gain access to free expert legal advice and assistance you must be at an early stage of development, ideally pre-series A, be UK-based, have a technology that is planet positive and receive valuable external support (as validation of the venture’s credibility). The programme is open to start-ups, spinouts and social enterprises who require legal support to help grow their innovation and ultimately change the planet!
As part of the programme, you can expect access to legal help for free for 12 months, with the scope of this help very broad, essentially providing a single point of access for the wide range of legal advice required by entrepreneurs navigating the commercial journey to take their innovations to market. The programme also provides bespoke IP support, with a free IP strategy review and advice on next steps.
If you are interested in joining cohort 2, you will have to fill out an application which provides insight into the innovation, its impact, commercial potential and the legal needs. This is expected to take 1 – 2 hours and provides the Eco Ventures Counsel team with the information required to pick the best candidates and connect them to the correct legal experts. Applications will be open for the first 3 weeks of August, and if you are interested to learn more, or know innovators who may be interested, please reach out to either Strategic Allies Ltd or Mitesh!
We’d also love to hear from law/IP firms who want to get involved, or if you are a university, incubator, accelerator, venture builder/studio or makerspace/workspace seeking trusted legal support for your affiliated ventures.
Good luck to all applicants, we are looking forward to seeing their journeys and the wider impact of Eco Ventures Counsel!