Trying to get my head around "Inside Success" (station magazine sellers) and their various companies

Inside Success is a Community Interest Company (CIC) which has attracted a lot of attention for both the way some staff have behaved towards the public and the way in which staff have been treated by the company. They have been investigated twice by the Fundraising Regulator in March 2023 (1) and January 2024 (2) for pressurised fundraising and for not having the relevant licence to accept donations. ITV did a piece on them (3) which indicated that some of their staff had not been paid. Barking Council (2019) and Manchester City Council (2023) fined them for collecting money without a permit (4) and the Daily Mail drew attention to the large sums of money being collected (5).

As far as I'm aware CICs can ask for donations publicly if they have been given a permit to do so by Metropolitan Police (in London) or the local council. That doesn't appear to be the case here. (Companies don't actually have to be registered with the Fundraising Regulator to fundraise however; registration is voluntary).

I think that without such collecting permits in place they are only allowed to sell magazines.  

There are a lot of different companies operating in a similar way in London and elsewhere and I've itemised the ones I know about here (6).

How many Inside Success companies are there?
I think it's four; two active, two dissolved.

Active
Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) is the one investigated by the Fundraising Regulator. It was incorporated on 11 May 2016 (previously known as Inside Success Union Ltd) and its accounts are currently delayed (should have been published in February 2025). The company is run by Darren Olawale and David Sonowo. 

There's also Inside Success Ltd (15932606) which is not a CIC but a private limited company. It was incorporated on 3 September 2024, its accounts aren't due until next year and it's run by Darren Olawale.

Dissolved
Inside Success LLP (OC357911), a limited liability partnership, was incorporated on 15 September 2010 and dissolved on 26 February 2013. It was also run by Darren Olawale and David Sonowo.

Inside Success UK CIC (08237681) was incorporated on 2 October 2012, dissolved on 20 December 2016 - five months after it was supposed to have submitted its accounts. It was run by Darren Olawale, David Sonowo and Cecil Hugh Quartey.

How many correspondence addresses?
All of these companies have different company addresses (perfectly reasonable!) which also means that the officers and directors etc also have different addresses and consequently different appointments records. This does make it a bit harder to keep track of things and as far as I can tell there are four records for Darren and three for David (there may be others).

Darren Olawale has one appointment here (for the dissolved Inside Success UK CIC [08237681]), seven appointments here (for Inside Success Ltd (15932606) active, Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) active and, Inside Success LLP (OC357911) dissolved), and several unrelated companies - see more in reference (7). 

There's also a Darren Ola who has one appointment for an unrelated company. I think it's the same person because the other officers for the company are David Sonowo (and Anthony Sinclair Greenidge). I also found a record for a Darren Olawalw (typo) with one appointment for another unrelated company. The company's correspondence address was changed from an WC2H address to an SW8 one in 2021; both of those addresses are used by other companies Mr Olawale runs too.

David Sonowo has three appointments here (for the two dissolved Inside Success companies and an unrelated company), five appointments listed here (for Inside Success Union C.I.C. and four unrelated companies) and one appointment here (unrelated to Inside Success companies).

When did Inside Success begin?
The first Inside Success company (Inside Success LLP) was incorporated on 15 September 2010 but this tweet from November 2009 made me wonder if there might have been an earlier company (if so I can't find it on Companies House).

http://pic.gd/20adf9 Delighted to meet Darren Olawale & David of Inside Success (http://bit.ly/11LfMw) for interview, out January 2010

— King of Shaves (@KingofShaves) November 17, 2009

The links don't work now but point to an earlier version of the Inside Success website which exists on the Wayback Machine - the pic•gd link goes nowhere but the bitly one points to (dead) https://ww1.insidesuccess.co.uk/lander whereas their current website has the insidesuccessuk format.

References

(1) Investigation summary: Inside Success Union CIC (March 2023) Fundraising Regulator
Registered company no. 10174759.

Code themes examined: Pressurised fundraising, dealing with vulnerable donors, fundraising licenses, causing an obstruction.
Code breach? Yes

(2) Investigation summary: Inside Success Union CIC (January 2024) Fundraising Regulator
Registered company no. 10174759.

Code themes examined: Pressurised fundraising, misleading fundraising, fundraising licenses, causing an obstruction, wearing appropriate identification when engaged in street fundraising, complaint handling and learning from complaints.
Code breach? Yes

(3) Anti-knife crime group Inside Success Union accused of harassing public to raise cash (1 August 2023) ITV

(4a) Bosses of magazine Inside Success Union are fined for selling in Barking without a licence (4 February 2019) Barking and Dagenham Post

(4b) Company who illegally 'pressured people into donating' to them on streets of Manchester fined (3 November 2023) Manchester Evening News 

(5) Exposed: Where the £3million we hand over to anti-knife 'charities'' pushy High Street collectors REALLY ends up (25 May 2024) Daily Mail

I hope the writer of this Reddit post, about the company fundraising in Bristol, won't mind me excerpting a bit of their comment as I think it's important - "It's worth noting that a section of the racist arsehole press in the UK (the Daily Mail and GB News) is down on this organisation because it is predominantly run by people of colour. Racists and racism can of course fuck off, this is Bristol after all, but ... I'd encourage everyone to respectfully engage with each of them [IS staff collecting at stations] and encourage them to do something better with their lives..."

(6) Community Interest Companies (CICs) selling magazines, collecting donations ('chugging') at many of London's stations (9 June 2025) Brodiesnotes: Stuff that occurs to me (this blog)

(7) Companies listed are: Inside Success Ltd (15932606) active, My Sounds Global Ltd (15096639) active, U Got Jokes Comedy Ltd (14290194) dissolved, Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) active, Inside Success LLP (OC357911) dissolved, U Got Jokes Limited (07163628) dissolved, Kick Up Academy Limited (10052282) dissolved.