Emily Brooke- Beryl

Emily Brooke is a British inventor, industrial designer and entrepreneur whose journey began with a simple yet bold idea: make cycling in cities safer and more accessible. Born in November 1985, she attended the Royal High School in Bath and then went on to study physics at University of Oxford. After finding physics less fulfilling for her goals, she switched to product design at the University of Brighton, where she began to direct her attention toward urban mobility and safety. While studying product design, Emily cycled through urban areas and realized that the biggest danger to city cyclists was being unseen by motor vehicles — especially when a vehicle turned across a cyclist’s path. She learned that 79% of accidents occurred when a cyclist was going straight ahead and another vehicle maneuvered into their path. From that insight came her “eureka” moment: she designed a bicycle light that projects a green bicycle symbol onto the road some meters ahead of the rider, increasing visibility and alerting other road users to the cyclist’s presence. In 2012 she founded a company originally called Blaze (later rebranded to Beryl) to bring her invention to market. The Laser light product was adopted by the London hire-bike scheme Santander Cycles and sold in 50+ countries. Over time Beryl expanded from just the lighting product to a full micromobility company: they now offer bike-sharing systems, e-bikes, e-scooters, and a smart “on-bike IoT” system for city rollouts. Emily’s path reflects classic entrepreneurial themes: seeing a problem from personal experience (riding in a city), developing a technical/design solution (the Laser light), then scaling via commercial partnerships and product expansion. She raised investment (including from Richard Branson’s family fund and venture capital) to grow her business. She also emphasizes social purpose: making cycling safer, reducing car-traffic and supporting sustainable urban transport. Her achievements have been recognized: in 2017 she was awarded an MBE for services to transport and the economy. Beryl has also been certified as a B-Corp, showing her commitment to environmental and social standards alongside business growth. In recent years, the impact report for Beryl shows the micromobility scheme in Norwich removed over 225 tones of CO2 and logged millions of kilometers of e-bike rides — indicating tangible real-world impact beyond just product sales. Despite her relative lack of household name status compared to tech unicorn founders, Emily Brooke embodies what entrepreneurship at its best looks like: identifying a meaningful problem, leveraging design and engineering, launching a venture, iterating, and scaling with purpose. Her story is a strong example for young founders, especially those interested in hardware, sustainability or urban mobility.