Judge's comments:

Allbirds shoes are the brainchild of a New Zealand professional footballer looking to use his marketing and design skills to create a life beyond the beautiful game. He found collaborators and capital In San Francisco and in under five years has sold over a million shoes to more than a million customers. The judges were delighted equally by the shoe’s minimalist design, the merino, eucalypt and sugar cane materials, the ethical supply chain, the influential and substantial client base and the impressive financial results. Tim Brown’s quest to transcend the garishness of the football boots and casual shoes his sponsors provided him as a player has created a business with enormous upside.