Cococure started as an opportunity for members of the Imperial College London & University College London Afro-Caribbean Societies to network and mingle. Back then socializing between students and alumni was almost always done in the confines of the talking section of the library. The Cococure brand took this elite group of people and together with London’s most exquisite venues, threw some incredible events. Unknown to this group of budding intellectuals, this was to be the birth of something bigger. The brand has gone on to establish new businesses within the apparel, entertainment and technology space.

The business started as a side hustle, hosting 3 to 4 events a year. Inspired by Cokobar at the time, which had become a fully fledged business on the back of hosting weekly events, an oppurtinuty presented itself for the events to be hosted weekly. Transitioning from organising parties every Bank holiday to putting on events of a similar quality every week understandably required a great deal of adjustment. The stress of balancing weekly events with full-time employment created a chain of events a which eventually led to the business becoming a full time endeavour.

Beyond visions of expanding Cococure, we also had plans to diversify the business on the platform of the events we created. We saw a gap in the market for suitable and effective dating opportunities tailored to the black community. We recognized the stigma of online dating in a culture which can be quite conservative, and observed that many people met their partners at parties we hosted. As the backdrop for many of these encounters in a vibrant city, we saw an opportunity to develop solutions to this using our already successful events as a platform. This came to fruition as the Cococure App. An events ticketing app which also doubled an app for meeting others that attend the same events post event. Although the app got a tremendous amount of traction while it was live. We had to take it offline as the costs of running the app did not allow us to be able to fully capitalize on other oppurtunities that arose.