RECOVERY INTELLIGENCE PLATFORM
critical infrastructure for the justice system
Alma combines safe housing placement, meet-at-gate peer support, and AI-powered recovery coaching to break the cycle of addiction-driven reoffending.
80%
of all offending is reoffending*
40-50%
of people leave custody homeless
72 Hours
the most dangerous window in the system
£23.8bn
annual cost of reoffending in the UK
*in England and Wales
breaking the reoffending cycle
Reoffending outcomes based on housing on release
RELEASED
from custody
HOMELESS / UNSTABLE
THE REOFFENDING CYCLE
RELAPSE
within 72 hours
REOFFEND
Relapse in the first 72 hours after release is common. It is the most dangerous window in the system. Without stable housing and support, the cycle restarts almost immediately.
The problem is not a shortage of good providers. There are excellent recovery housing organisations doing vital work across the UK.
The problem is structural: no national marketplace, no shared standards, no digital infrastructure connecting supply to demand in real time.
“Without housing you do not stand a chance. You cannot sign up with a GP; you cannot get your kids back; you cannot get a job; you cannot enrol in longer-term mental health and drug and alcohol support
”
what we do
Alma is a digital platform for addiction recovery and justice reform. It combines safe housing placement, meet-at-gate peer support, and AI-powered daily recovery coaching to reduce addiction-driven reoffending. The starting cohort is women leaving prison. The expanding cohort is everyone on the same pathway.
safe housing placement
A confirmed, NARR UK-accredited address before release day. Without safe and sober housing, no other intervention holds. Alma begins here - always. 76% of people released homeless reoffend. 36% of those released into settled housing reoffend. The difference is a home.
Meet at gate peer support
A peer mentor with lived experience meets every person at the prison gate. A confirmed address, a recovery meeting in the diary, and someone who has been through it. The 72-hour window is the most dangerous period in the system. This is how we change the odds.
AI recovery coach
A daily touchpoint between human meetings. Not a replacement for AA, NA, or human connection — a scaffold for it. The AI coach keeps people connected to their recovery community, surfaces early warning signs, and helps caseworkers act before crisis hits.
outcome tracking
Outcome data from every placement feeds back into provider quality scores, commissioner intelligence and the NARR UK standards framework — creating a self-improving network that attracts better providers, drives up standards and compounds recovery capital across the system.
Noone leaves the gate alone
Alma is solving the information disconnect impacting offenders.
The first step is a solution that connects probation officers and housing providers to find suitable housing placements for offenders before release.
Two Components. One Pathway.
Alma addresses the housing and release crisis through two integrated components: a live national housing marketplace that confirms placements before release, and a meet-at-gate service that ensures no one walks out of the prison gate alone. These two components are designed to work together — but each has distinct implications for accommodation partners.
HOUSING
JUSTICE
alma
PROBATION
RECOVERY SERVICES
our principles
These are not aspirations. They are constraints on every decision Alma makes.
A home comes first.
Without safe and sober housing, no other intervention holds. The evidence is unambiguous. Alma begins with a confirmed address — every time, no exceptions.
No one leaves the gate alone.
A peer mentor with lived experience, a confirmed address, and a recovery meeting in the diary. This is not optional for Alma. It is the point.
Regulate the market, not just serve it.
The UK recovery housing market is entirely unregulated. Alma will not list a provider that does not meet NARR UK standards. It costs us placements in the short term. It protects the people we serve in the long term.
Technology serves relationships, not replaces them.
The AI recovery coach is a daily touchpoint between human meetings — a scaffold for the recovery community, not a replacement for it. AA and NA are not features of Alma. They are the destination.
AI acts, but humans decide.
Every output from Alma's intelligence layer is a recommendation for a human to act on. The algorithm does not recall, revoke, or exclude. A caseworker decides. This is the correct architecture for a system that affects people's liberty.
Measure real outcomes, not vanity metrics.
Beds filled. Relapses prevented. Recalls avoided. Lives sustained. The evaluation framework will be independently designed, assessed, and published.
outcomes
The metrics we hold ourselves to.
↓ 50%
Homelessness on release
65%→25%
72 hour post relase relapse
to under 25%
↑ 60%
at 12 weeks, up from 40%
Sustained accommodation
↓ 60%
Drug related deaths
in the first four weeks after release
↓ 30%
less people returning to prison
6 month recall rate
10,000
safe and sober beds by 2029
Annual avoided reoffending costs
£375m - £1.7bn
Depending on scale reached. The bed shortage is not incidental to the crisis — it is structural. Alma addresses it structurally.
the team
built from both directions
Alma is led by people who understand the system from inside the rooms where policy is made - and from the front line.
Ed Bathgate
CEO
Ed brings to Alma a combination of frontline and system-level experience that is genuinely unusual. He sits in the rooms where justice policy is made — and lives in the world Alma is designed to serve. The platform has been built from both directions simultaneously.
Simon Morris
CHAIRMAN
Simon understands both what it takes to build category-defining companies and what it takes to stay sober in a prison chapel. He has spent more than 20 years leading AA and NA meetings inside HMP Wormwood Scrubs and HMP Brixton. Sober for nearly 25 years.
Ella Pericolini
COO
Ella has worked across the systems Alma seeks to connect. From government departments to venture capital, she brings a systems thinker’s perspective to the team — understanding how people, data, institutions, and incentives interact across an entire system.
Ready to be part of this?
We're building the coalition now - housing providers, commissioners, technologists, and funders who believe this can be done.