[New] Profile: Tauseef Qadri

While he was looking for his next permanent move, Tauseef was offering leadership programmes which utilised horses to help develop the emotional intelligence in companies. One of his clients, Yum! Brands – the parent company of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell – offered him the role as director of transformation.

“I was based in the Middle East,” he said. “But I took best practices from around the world and applied them to various franchisees in Asia and then I went off to study AI and platforms at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was interested in that subject and I thought to myself: why am I selling fried chicken for a living?!

“I thought that I should be doing something for the horse world because of my love for it. I thought to myself that there was no real booking platform or technological access to horse businesses. I was in a position to build it and so I went ahead and built it, but then Covid came along.

“We went into stealth mode during that period but we’ve emerged from that and it’s been a stellar time for the business in terms of growth.

“A few months ago, we got selected under the Global Entrepreneurship Programme through the Department for International Trade (DIT). They select around 100 companies to be part of the programme. They told us their HQ had approved the application and asked where we’d like to set up the company.

“I said: ‘well, I went to school in Warwick’ and it was a case of, ‘the West Midlands it is then!’

“I have to qualify the answer. This is an equestrian-centric part of the country and we’re a start-up tech company that doesn’t need to be in London. We can access all parts of the UK to engage with us. And that’s how we built it. It wasn’t based on sentiment alone, this region is the perfect location.”

And now, from an Ignite incubator unit at the University of Warwick Science Park, the plan is to grow the Cavago platform in the UK and then roll it out around the world.

Tauseef said: “The UK alone has nearly a million horses and 374,000 horse-owning households. But you really don’t know where to experience a ride or the myriad of different disciplines and the hundreds of different breeds.

“You don’t know where to search or look and I experienced that first hand.

“That puts off a lot of people. There are 27 million people in the UK with an interest in horses but only 4.5 million will get on a horse each year. So, there’s a big gap and I think that’s to do with discovery and access.

“I thought if I can stitch all of my experiences together in a platform that’s akin to booking.com or Airbnb, then I would be on to something.

“Horse businesses tended to have a lack of technology. They don’t have many gateway options on their website, they don’t have SEO, I could go on.

“They are running their businesses inefficiently from that point of view so they have their backs to the wall when it comes to keeping horses alive, feeding them, and then getting people through the gates to access their services.

“I thought: ‘wait a minute, if we can create a two-sided market place and give this technology for free to horse businesses, they can modernise and by creating discoverability and access, the consumer, up to 27 million people in the UK, can start to search and book experiences.’

“The number is exponentially greater in the USA. It has 38 million households with at least one horse lover, which is 29 per cent of houses in the country. The overall impact of the horse world on the economy is $102 billion. That is more than motion pictures and it is un-digitalised, which is a shock!”

The company now has over 450 hosts across 40 countries but the UK – and Warwick – is definitely its spiritual home.

“By setting up HQ in the UK, I know the map and the territory and we are building a team that is scaling up,” he said. “We’ve partnered with the University of Warwick and Hartpury University to help us to develop projects where we can access grants and support.

“We’re based at the University of Warwick Science Park’s Ignite incubator. Through this link, I was in touch with a university professor on AI and discussed with him the kinds of projects we might be able to work together on.

“We are playing with the idea of how we map out the whole of the equestrian world in the UK and where are the hotspots? Where are the different disciplines more prominent? Racing is more east focussed however Oxfordshire and Surrey are more dressage focussed. We want to map that out.

“It’s all about helping our customers find what they are looking for really easily.

“By partnering with the universities, you also become a much more investible technology company. We get coaching from their team to be fitter to raise funding too.

“As a person, I can’t sit still. I’m quite energetic so that lends itself to being a decent entrepreneur I presume and I want to make things happen. When you get driven by ambition and potential, then you do look to make things happen.

“We’re now hiring people to share that ambition.

“I wouldn’t be shy of hiring over 100 people because I want to establish my technology unit here in the UK and my marketing unit here too. I’d suggest in the not-too-distant future there will be 100 people in a Cavago UK office.

“I chose Warwick for a reason. I always said that if I own a home in the UK, it will be on Myton Road!

“Sentiment aside, it’s a really good base for a number of reasons. The calibre of talent is fantastic and we have amazing universities on our doorstop. There’s also WCG, the agricultural centre as well at Stoneleigh and the Horse of the Year show comes to the NEC each year.

“When you put that mix together, it’s the ideal location to build an incredible team.”

And it could even lead to the next generation of ‘team-Qadri’ gaining an affection for the region.

“I have a daughter and a son,” said Tauseef, “and they both might go to Warwick School. We are just trying to sort all of that out!”