Able — the trust layer for flexible work · June 2026

The end of understaffed.

Verified workers, matched on skill and availability and booked in minutes.

Backed by Innovate UK HM Government Mayor of London Local London University of Cambridge
The problem · two things break at once
01 · Understaffing is the norm
69%

of NHS shifts run understaffed.

61% of UK hospitality shifts understaffed.

UNISON shift survey, 2024 · CGA for UKHospitality, BBPA, 2023

02 · The market points the wrong way
85%

of the $620bn global staffing market is temporary work, run on a job board / application / offer permanent hiring process built for the other 15%. That inefficiency is the opportunity.

SIA · WEC, 2024. Temporary revenue share across major markets

Understaffing is the symptom. The hiring process is the cause.

Why now
01

Technology: Skills-first matching at scale is finally possible.

02

Behaviour: 81% of employers now use skills-based hiring — up from 56% in 2022.

03

Regulation: The rails arrived: EU AI Act, Platform Work Directive, Employment Rights Bill, W3C VC 2.0, EUDI Wallet (2026) converge to allow a new flexible ecosystem.

04

Market: The agency model is broken — 15–45% margins, days to fill, understaffing a major issue.

The solution

Gigfolio. Match. Offer. Pay.

Time to fill
Days → Minutes
Pay worker
Weekly → Same day
Cost to venue
15–45% → 8%
01

Gigfolio

One verified profile: skills, availability, video bio, right to work.

Verified credentials · B2B SaaS module, in stealth
02

Match

Multiple AI agents match on skill, availability and distance. Identity stays out of the algorithm.

03

Offer

Shifts offered directly to the worker, in minutes. Accept or decline.

04

Pay

Same-day pay via Stripe Connect, which holds the payment at the point of offer. Workers 0%, venues 8%.

Sarah Silver's verified Gigfolio — skills, credentials, availability and same-day booking
Example Gigfolio · Sarah Silver
Traction

Live, transacting, institutionally backed.

Built on £52k.

2
Pilot clients
Bookings increasing month on month
47
Clients waiting
Registered, queued for onboarding
440 / 72
Registered workers / managers
440 workers · 72 hiring managers
TRL 8
Commercialised
PAYG live since March 2026
Anchor & enterprise pipeline
  • Mission Kitchen — committed anchor · multi-team rollout
  • Global luxury fashion group — senior engagement · in confidence
  • Central London hotel group — 100+ event staff per night
  • Connect to Work — £338M · nine East London boroughs
Accelerators & institutional cover
  • Cambridge University Innovation Labs Accelerator — Spark 2.0
  • European Innovation Academy & Bayes Business School Accelerator — scholarship place
  • Innovate UK · Department for Business & Trade · Mayor of London
  • King's College London · UEL · LSBU · Peabody · Care Leavers Covenant
Size of the prize

Staffing today. Verified workforce infrastructure tomorrow.

TAM
$620bn
SAM
$150bn
SOM
$125M
TAM$620bn

Global staffing market (SIA · WEC 2024).

SAM$150bn

Serviceable market across our core geographies.

SOM · Yr 5$125M

Base-case ARR at Year 5 — 0.08% of the serviceable market.

A $2.15tn gig economy by 2033 sits behind the serviceable market.

The bigger line · credential verification engine
A stealth, government-funded B2B engine: verify a worker once, the credential travels with them across employers and borders.
The team

Alexandra Wright

Founder & CEO

Ex-BlackRock VP — corporate strategy and fixed-income business management, led Aladdin implementation. Ex-Deloitte — global HR transformation for Fortune 100 clients. King's College London.

Joe Fennell

Chair, AI Ethics Board

Cambridge MPhil, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Authors Able's open-source ethics framework.

Mike Gilgallon

Fractional project lead

Leads delivery and engineering programme management across the platform build.

Matt Winslade

Fractional CTO & database architect

27 years of software and capital-markets engineering. Owns architecture and the data layer.

Advisers

Aaron Alburey — HR-tech operator, early backer. Abigail Rappoport — fractional COO; ex Microsoft, Meta, Expedia. Dugie Carlean — commercial strategy and investor positioning.

SEIS / EIS eligible. Target close · September 2026. Round size and full terms on request.
Able — the trust layer for flexible work.
Alexandra Wright · Founder & CEO
[email protected] · able.global
linkedin.com/in/wrightalexc
B2B SaaS module · funded & run separately · in stealth

The credential verification engine

Today, credential verification is manual, employer-by-employer and profession-by-profession. Able's engine issues and checks W3C VC 2.0 verifiable credentials once, then lets the worker carry a portable skills passport across employers and borders. It is independently licensable as a B2B SaaS / white-label API, and runs as a separately funded line of the business through the stealth, government-funded project, beginning in healthcare.

·Issue once, reuse everywhere

One verification becomes a reusable, tamper-evident credential the worker owns.

·Regulated sectors first

Healthcare, then energy, transport, finance, security and construction.

·Standards-based

W3C VC 2.0 and EUDI-ready, so it interoperates with the rails the EU now mandates.

·A market on its own

Identity & credential verification is on track from ~$14bn today to $30bn+ by the early 2030s.

Funded separately. Run separately. Potentially the 10× of the business.

A new infrastructure layer, using AI

Able vs the field

AbleIndeed FlexStintCoopleTemperInstaworkWonolo
Operational
Time to fillMinutesHours–daysHours–daysHours–daysHours–daysHoursHours–days
Time to pay workerSame dayWeeklyWeeklyWeekly14–30 daysWeekly1–5 days
Cost to venue8%15%~25%25–45%20–30%25–40%35–45%
Architecture
Credential verification engine●○○○○○○
Pseudonymised matching●○○○○○○
Training & development enabled AI●○○○○○○
Bookable calendars●○○○○○○
Global compliance preparedness●○○○○○○

Same-day pay at 100% with no worker fee is unique to Able. Source data audited May 2026.

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Able · Platform Introduction · 40 seconds