When you talk to Becky Lane, the founder of Furbnow, one phrase keeps surfacing: keep your head in the boat. It is rowing shorthand for staying focused on what matters, even when everything around you is noisy, painful and trying to throw you off rhythm.
It is also the mindset that has carried Furbnow from an idea to a fast-growing climate tech business fixing hundreds of UK homes and slashing energy bills for thousands of households.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Ms Lane was a lightweight rower, competing in three Oxford Cambridge Boat Races and representing Great Britain at the European Championships.
Rowing, she says, taught her discipline, resilience and the underrated art of saying no. In a startup world obsessed with chasing every shiny opportunity, that focus has proved invaluable.
Becky Lane spoke to GB News about how her business became one of the country’s fastest-growing startups, and helping households cut their energy bills
|
FURBNOW
She shared: “I learned early on that growth is not just about what you do. It is also about what you choose not to do.”
That clarity became essential when she turned her attention from elite sport to an equally demanding challenge: fixing Britain’s inefficient housing stock.
Before launching Furbnow, Ms Lane worked in energy and retrofit across the public and innovation sectors, helping households upgrade their homes to make them warmer, healthier, and cheaper to run, rather than demolishing and rebuilding them.
It was there she saw the same problem repeat itself again and again. Homeowners wanted to improve their homes, but the system was confusing, fragmented, and, in many cases, actively hostile to non-experts.
To deepen her understanding, Ms Lane became a qualified retrofit coordinator, learning not just the policy but the practical reality of what home upgrades involve.
Ms Lane was a former rower for Great Britain before launching Furbnow
|
FURBNOW
She saw firsthand how stressful renovations could be, how vulnerable homeowners were to poor advice or outright scams, and how difficult it was to know who to trust. That was the moment Furbnow began to take shape.
Ms Lane explained: “There was a clear gap for independent, expert advice that people could actually rely on. Not another installer. Not another consultant. Something that genuinely put the homeowner first.”
The decision to launch the business came after more than a decade in the sector, and a growing frustration with how broken the system had become.
Millions of UK homes were failing the people who lived in them, while homeowners trying to do the right thing were forced to navigate complex grants, unclear schemes, and inconsistent standards.
She added: “You should not need expert knowledge and a complicated spreadsheet just to work out whether insulation or a heat pump makes sense for your home.”
Furbnow has addressed Britain’s housing energy inefficiency
|
FURBNOW
With millions of homes still not fit for purpose and widespread examples of poor-quality work under previous schemes, the need for a trusted one-stop solution was obvious.
Furbnow was built to cut through that chaos, giving homeowners a clear plan and a single accountable partner to manage everything from assessment and design to installation.
From modest beginnings, the growth has been striking. In its first year, Furbnow worked with only a handful of customers. Three and a half years later, it has helped improve more than 750 homes across the UK.
Along the way, the company has partnered with local authorities to reach homeowners actively seeking trusted advice on making their homes warmer in winter, cooler in summer, and cheaper to run year-round.
The team has grown to 18 people, and more than £3.5million in funding has been raised to build the backbone of the business, including an AI-powered planning tool and a nationwide network of vetted installers.
Furbnow’s team of retrofitters have worked to make the startup one of the fastest growing in the country
|
FURBNOW
The ambition now is even bigger. Furbnow plans to fix a further 500 homes this year, with a long-term goal of improving 100,000 homes by 2030.
Recent Government backing for home energy efficiency is expected to accelerate that growth, enabling deeper partnerships with councils and greater support for communities most exposed to high energy bills and inefficient housing.
Industry recognition has followed. Being named one of Europe’s fastest growing startups was, Ms Lane says, welcome validation, but not the real measure of success. That comes from customers.
One homeowner in Solihull was able to take a four-month direct debit holiday because their heating bills dropped so dramatically. Another in Leeds saw their property value increase by £80,000 after completing the work. In Surrey, a family cut their annual energy bill by £1,084 and enjoyed their warmest winter yet.
Those stories, she says, are what make the long hours and hard decisions worthwhile. The hardest part of leadership has been learning when to let people go. As the business evolved, not everyone was right for the next stage, even if they were talented and well-liked. Making those calls was painful but necessary.
Ms Lane reflected: “I have learned that doing right by the business and doing right by people are not always the same thing. But you can still part ways with respect.”
Looking ahead, she believes momentum is finally building behind home energy reform, but warns that technology alone is not enough. Grants for heat pumps and solar panels are welcome, but without proper insulation, much of that energy is simply wasted.
“There is no point heating a home if the warmth leaks straight out,” she added.
For aspiring founders, her advice is simple and hard-earned: “No one is going to make sure you succeed. People will support you but it all comes from you.
“Be clear about the problem you’re solving and who you’re solving it for. If you get that right, everything else becomes easier.”
