Outlandish Co-operative

What Outlandish Co-operative does

Outlandish Co-operative is a UK-based worker-owned digital agency founded in 2006 (previously operating as Outlandish LLP and Outlandish Ideas) and headquartered at 113-115 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, London. Approximately 20 worker-owners operate under Sociocratic governance, sharing surplus and reinvesting profits in social-change projects and internal prototypes. The agency builds bespoke websites, campaign platforms, CRM/case-management extensions, and data-visualisation tools primarily for non-profit organisations, trade unions, funders, and international bodies including UNICEF, WHO, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Greenpeace, BBC, the British Council, NOW: Pensions, and the National Education Union. Its portfolio includes the School Cuts campaign site (10,000 users/hour at peak), the Propel grant-making portal for London Funders (£100m programme, 600+ applications), WashData for the UN/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme, Nook (an open-source CiviCRM extension for community energy), CoTrack for COVID-19 sample tracking, and the NOW: Pensions auto-enrolment gateway.

The technology stack is broad and pragmatic: WordPress is the primary CMS, with internal frameworks (Rowbuilder for layout customisation, Kasia as a React/Redux toolset for the WordPress API, Acadoowps as a WordPress framework) layered on top; projects span PHP/Laravel, Symfony, Python/Flask, Node/Express MEAN, PostgreSQL with JSONB, MongoDB, Highcharts, VueJS, and AngularJS, with integrations to Postcodes.io, the Parliamentary Digital Service, Salesforce CRM, PensionSync, and the Engaging Networks platform. Notable technical achievements include a 24-hour MVP build for Business Response COVID and a queue-based service-bus architecture for NOW: Pensions.

Outlandish generates revenue through professional services billed at project and day-rate levels (e.g., £685+VAT per day for senior developer work with charity clients), delivered via direct sales conversations, RFP/tender responses, referrals through the CoTech network of 26+ tech co-operatives, and an accredited implementation partnership with Engaging Networks. There is no software-licensing revenue; SPACE4, the wholly-owned co-working and events subsidiary, is primarily a community and lead-generation asset rather than a profit centre.

Name

Outlandish Co-operative

Legal name

Outlandish Co-operative

Website

https://outlandish.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2006

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Outlandish Co-operative is a UK-based worker-owned digital agency that designs websites, data-visualisation tools, and campaign platforms for non-profits, trade unions, funders, and international organisations. It operates with ~20 worker-owners and partners via the CoTech network of 26+ tech co-operatives.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Digital Agency Services

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Offshore Development Center (ODC) / Dedicated Team Services (BPAEAMAL)

Keywords

• Digital agency services
• Civic technology platforms
• Campaign website development
• Data visualisation tools
• Social impact web development

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Digital Agency Professional Services: Outlandish generates revenue by providing digital agency services including product strategy, UX research & design, web development, and data visualisation. Projects are delivered to clients on a project-by-project basis with quoted day rates (e.g., senior developer at £685/day for charity clients). Revenue is derived from professional services fees rather than product licensing.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Outlandish Co-operative is a worker-owned digital agency that builds bespoke websites, campaign platforms, and data tools focused on positive social impact. The agency provides product strategy, UX research and design, web development, and data visualisation services to non-profits, trade unions, campaign organisations, funding bodies, and international bodies. Engagements are delivered as project-based work on a day-rate or quoted fee basis rather than as packaged software licences.

Product overview

Outlandish Co-operative is a worker-owned digital agency that builds bespoke web tools and platforms for clients focused on social impact. Rather than a single commercial product, Outlandish operates a project portfolio spanning multiple named digital tools built for specific clients and sectors. Key platforms include Propel (a WordPress-based collaborative grant portal for London Funders), Nook (an open-source CiviCRM extension for community energy CRM), School Cuts (a data-driven campaign tool for education funding awareness), and WashData (a data analytics platform for UNICEF/WHO WASH data). Supporting these are internal frameworks including Rowbuilder (WordPress layout customisation), Kasia (React Redux toolset for WordPress API), and Acadoowps (WordPress framework). Additional client-facing projects include CoTrack (COVID sample tracking for Sanger), Listening Post (social media analytics for Hotwire), NOW: Pensions Gateway (MEAN stack auto-enrolment system), Social Monitor (British Council dashboard), NCOnline (education portal), Supporter Hub (GDPR charity preference centre on Engaging Networks), PNGi Central & Portal (anti-corruption journalism tools), and the COVID Business Response Platform. The agency delivers these across a tech stack including PHP/Laravel, Python, VueJS, Angular, React, WordPress, Symfony, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and AWS, and is an accredited implementation partner for the Engaging Networks campaign platform.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• SPACE4: A work, training, and events space in Finsbury Park where profits are invested back into the local community, democratic business, and social movements.

Products and services

• Propel A collaborative grant-making portal built on WordPress with custom Gutenberg blocks, designed for London Funders to manage grantee and funder roles. Provides step-by-step application workflows, a funder dashboard for assessment and management, and tools for grant impact monitoring data submission. Handles 600+ applications for the first round of grants, with 73% of surveyed users finding the site easy to use.
• Nook An open-source client relationship and case management tool built as a rich extension on top of CiviCRM, with an attractive sleek UI. Provides Kanban-style case tracking, configurable workflows, automated task creation, project/case/intervention level reporting, internal messaging, file upload, and a new sidebar navigation. Built specifically for the community energy sector to help advisors capture case information and manage workflow without fragile spreadsheets.
• School Cuts A data-driven campaign tool showing school funding impacts across England and Wales. Aggregates budget data for schools, allows postcode-based lookup using open-source Postcodes.io mapping, sources MP data from the Parliamentary Digital Service for lobbying features, and enables voters to email and tweet their MPs. Handles up to 10,000 concurrent users per hour during peak election periods using caching layers.
• CoTrack A COVID-19 sample-tracking workflow app built for the Wellcome Sanger Institute, allowing scientists and business managers to track samples through the genomic analysis pipeline from delivery through sequencing. Includes a VueJS-based UI Toolkit with generic components (buttons, avatars) and specialised components (multi-filters, virtually scrolling tables handling millions of rows).
• WashData (JMP) A data analytics and visualisation platform for UNICEF and WHO's Joint Monitoring Programme for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Renders complex global datasets accessible through interactive world maps, ladder charts, inequality line graphs, rank charts, bar charts, and trend charts, with data served via API for use by UN agencies, NGOs, donors, journalists, and academics.
• Listening Post A social media monitoring and insight tool developed for Hotwire's R+D lab (33 Digital) that analyses millions of Tweets and Facebook comments using semantic concept extraction to identify key influencers, trends, and conversation patterns for PR clients. Won the In2 SABRE Award for Best Social Media Insight Product in 2014.
• NOW: Pensions Gateway The UK's first online auto-enrolment pension sign-up system, built on a MEAN stack (Mongo, Express, Angular, Node) with queue-based service-bus architecture. Integrates with Salesforce CRM, third-party payments, and PensionSync API to deliver pension onboarding for thousands of businesses.
• Social Monitor A social media dashboard for the British Council that monitors nearly 300 separate social media accounts across global offices. Provides performance metrics, health scores, and comparative analytics across all accounts, enabling the cultural-relations organisation to track engagement and outreach globally.
• NCOnline An online education and events portal for the National Children's Orchestras of Great Britain. Features user-group-based content filtering, thematic event and resource grouping, and a pre-moderated content gallery enabling young musicians to upload videos safely. Received 13,000 site visits in one month and 990+ videos submitted by young users.
• Supporter Hub A GDPR-friendly supporter contact preference centre for CARE International UK, built on Engaging Networks' Supporter Hub functionality. Features full-screen emotional design, tabbed navigation, and positive imagery to reduce unsubscribe rates while meeting GDPR compliance requirements for managing contact preferences.
• PNGi Central and PNGi Portal PNGi Central is a journalism platform for anti-corruption research in Papua New Guinea built with Outlandish's Kasia React Redux toolset for WordPress. PNGi Portal cross-references court rulings and official reports with corporate ownership data using AWS Lambda, Elasticsearch, and PostgreSQL social network models.
• Business Response COVID Platform A COVID-19 business brokerage platform built in under 24 hours for Business in the Community, connecting businesses with resources to community organisations facing pressing needs. Built using Laravel 6, Postgres (with JSONB and Trigram index), SurveyJS, VueJS, and Datatables, deployed on AWS EC2 via Ansible/GitLab-CI.

Quantifiable outcome

• School Cuts campaign: 670,000 visitors and ~3 million page views in 6 weeks before the 2017 UK general election, helping change 795,000 votes.
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers20 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature9 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• CoTech (Co-operative Technology Network)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCoTech is a UK-based coalition of tech-focused co-operatives co-founded by Outlandish. The network pools resources and shared aims across 26+ member organisations and 159+ tech creatives. Outlandish co-founded the network to promote co-operation over competition in the tech sector and to drive social change through technology. CoTech provides a collaborative ecosystem for project referrals, knowledge sharing, and joint working between member co-ops.
• Agile CollectivecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAgile Collective is a fellow CoTech member that partnered with Outlandish on the UN/UNICEF WHO Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) website project. Agile Collective handled the Drupal website, design, and content while Outlandish built the data analytics tool (WashData). This partnership demonstrates how CoTech teams work in parallel, each leveraging their respective strengths.
• London FunderscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOutlandish built the Propel collaborative funding portal for London Funders, the only cross-sector membership network for funders in London's civil society. The portal facilitates a £100m, 10-year funding programme. The ongoing partnership involves further development of the platform based on user feedback and learning.
• Catalyst (Tech4Good Incubator)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCatalyst is a Tech4Good incubator/accelerator that co-ordinated the Social Tech vs Covid action group during the pandemic. Through this group, Outlandish was commissioned to build the Business Response COVID platform in 24 hours. Catalyst facilitated the collaboration between agencies and clients during the crisis.
• SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSCVO has an existing coronavirus support brokerage platform. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Outlandish evaluated reusing SCVO's platform for the Business in the Community brief but ultimately built a new solution due to fundamental differences in requirements. SCVO's team provided generous help and support during the evaluation.
• Engaging NetworkscoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorOutlandish is an accredited implementation partner for Engaging Networks, an online campaigning and fundraising platform. They design and build advocacy action templates (Email Your MP, Tweet Your MP, petitions) and extend the platform's functionality for clients. This partnership is an ongoing channel for campaign-focused digital agency work.
• UNICEF & WHO (Joint Monitoring Programme)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOutlandish worked with UNICEF and the WHO to build the WashData analytics tool for the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for water, sanitation, and hygiene. The tool handles global data from nearly every country, used by UN agencies, NGOs, donors, journalists, and academics. Outlandish continues to import new data into the platform alongside Agile Collective.
• The Small AxeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Small Axe (a fellow CoTech member) handled communications and marketing for the School Cuts campaign while Outlandish built the digital platform. Collaboration between the two co-ops demonstrated effective division of expertise on a high-impact election campaign.
• Enspiral (New Zealand)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEnspiral is a New Zealand-based network of tech co-operatives that served as a model for the Megazord concept and CoTech network formation. Outlandish has referenced Enspiral as inspiration for the UK's tech co-op coalition.

Scale indicators15 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Clearleft: UK-based digital agency with strong UX, research, and design focus serving similar institutional and mission-driven clients. Comparable size and service portfolio (strategy, UX, build).
• The Small Axe: CoTech member tech co-op that partnered with Outlandish on the School Cuts campaign (handling communications while Outlandish handled the platform). Directly comparable size, structure, and values-aligned agency positioning.
• Reason Digital: UK digital agency specialising in social impact, charity, and healthcare clients. Direct competitor for the same non-profit and public-sector contracts Outlandish targets.
• Agile Collective: Fellow CoTech member tech co-operative and direct partner on the WashData/JMP project. Operates the same worker co-operative model with comparable focus on social-impact digital builds for NGOs and public-sector clients.
• Manifesto Digital: UK digital agency focused on charity, membership, and public-sector clients (similar trade union and NGO segments). Competes for the same campaign and digital platform briefs.

Broad incumbents

• Equal Experts: Larger UK-based employee-owned network of digital consultants with comparable values-driven ownership model. Competes for similar public-sector and enterprise digital build contracts at greater scale.
• Thoughtworks: Global digital consultancy with deep technical delivery capability. Overlaps on tech-for-good and government engagements but at much larger scale and with broader portfolio of commercial clients.
• Blue State: Large digital agency specialising in campaigns, advocacy, and mission-driven organisations (formerly Blue State Digital). Competes for the same progressive campaign and NGO digital briefs but at significantly larger scale.

Regional players

• Enspiral: New Zealand-based network of tech co-operatives that served as Outlandish's inspiration for the CoTech model. Operates the same co-op structure with values-aligned agency services, primarily serving Australasia.

Others

• Engaging Networks: Campaigning and fundraising SaaS platform for which Outlandish is an accredited implementation partner. Adjacent ecosystem participant — Outlandish builds bespoke tools on top of Engaging Networks for shared NGO/campaign clients.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/outlandish
• GitHubgithub.com/outlandishideas
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/outlandish

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Outlandish Co-operative