Tech Nation reveals 33 early stage scaleups to watch in 2023

by Startacus Admin

The lowdown on the Regional Winners of Tech Nation's Rising Stars competition - some of the UK's most promising early stage tech companies.

For the past decade, the Tech Nation team have worked tirelessly to promote and nurture the UK’s tech sector, from developing innovative Fintech and AI programmes through to creating important resources such as the Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit. The tech sector’s dismay and reaction to the news that they’re ceasing operations at the end of March highlights just how important an impact they have had.

For now though, Tech Nation are continuing to do what they do best, shining a light on some of the most innovative businesses across the UK. 

Tech Nation today revealed the top 33 early stage scaleups to watch in 2023 in every region, representing the brightest of UK tech with the most potential to scale in the year to come. The 33 regional ‘Rising Stars’ comprise the three most promising tech companies from 11 regions and nations of the UK. The selected companies or ‘Regional Winners’ will benefit from significant profile raising, masterclasses and networking opportunities to put their business in front of leading investors, influencers and corporates. 

While 80% of startups fail within their first 2-5 years, over 95% of startups on Tech Nation’s growth programmes have gone on to scale, including companies from Rising Stars. This year, ambitious growth plans are evident among the finalists which Tech Nation will support - 82% plan to expand internationally in the next 12 months and 97% are currently raising investment. Companies have secured funding from a variety of sources demonstrating the range of options available to UK entrepreneurs: 44% have had VC funding, 44% have had angel funding, 38% have had government funding and 21% have had funding from family and friends. 

Key trends amongst the 2023 cohort show that 1 in 3 companies are using AI technology in their product or service development. When looking at sectors, healthtech, cleantech and marketing tech came second as top areas of focus for this year’s Regional Winners. Additionally, 45% of companies include at least one female founder and almost 20% include a founder from a ethnic minority. 

The Regional Winners are progressing to the Semi Finals in February where the competition will culminate with a showcase of the top 10 National Winners in March. Supporting early stage tech companies to succeed is at the heart of Rising Stars - a Tech Nation competition programme specifically designed to not only showcase the most exciting innovative business on a regional level across the UK, but also to provide them with tailored support, opportunities, network, and access to coaching and masterclasses to help take their business to the next level. Previous regional and national winners of the competition include uFurnish, SeedLegals, Elemental, People Matter, Tickr, and Vitaccess. 

So, without further ado, the 2023 regional winners are:

East of England

• Purrmetrix provides better insights into building performance by combining energy and environmental data from a redeployable IoT toolset.
• Medwise AI helps clinicians quickly find answers to their questions at the point of care. 
• RippleXn enables brands to ensure advertising compliance is met in real-time, at scale across social video.

North East

• PulmoBioMed develops AI-based technology and product design for a medical device to capture and analyze exhaled breath. 
• Vibbl reduces teacher workload by enabling better, faster and more collaborative feedback.
• Safer Date was created to protect people from online crimes. 

South West

• digiLab's self-optimising Machine Learning platform transforms decision efficiency and sustainability in safety-critical applications.
• Amutri is a 3D Visualisation software product delivered via a Software As A Service (SaaS) model.
• Siloton develops optical-coherence-tomography-based chips.

Midlands

• AppScore is a SaaS platform that helps partners and businesses assess, plan and execute cloud migration and modernisation.
• Inicio A provides businesses and organisations that are managing debt books with an alternative solution to capture the income & expenditure (I&E) information for their customers that are in debt.
• Digital INNK is disrupting the traditional leasing and mobility sector through its ViSN platform, which makes running a fleet easier, cheaper, and more efficient.

Scotland

• Danu Robotics is currently developing a highly innovative intelligent robotic waste sorting and mining system.  
• MyCustomerLens is the always-on client intelligence platform for professional services firms.
• SENSEcity specialises in the development of AR and MR experiences for the cultural heritage and tourism sectors.

North West

• VidiVet gives pet parents instant access to a vet from anywhere in the world at any time of day.
• RiskSmart operates an online risk management platform designed to digitalise and streamline processes.
• BetMate's vision is to become the home of social betting.

London

• Trumpet centralises the whole sales cycle with one link that follows a buyer on the whole sales journey.
• Augnet extracts unique data through an encrypted global network of devices to validate the quality of hundreds of SMS providers. 
• SPOKE is a music-led mindfulness app. 

Wales

• Stratigens software provides strategic decision intelligence. 
• Virtus Tech is a Google backed UK leading expert in virtual reality technology 
• Pai Language Learning is a multilingual NLG (Natural Language Generation) company.

South East

• OneShot AI is a fully autonomous sales prospecting solution for B2B companies.
• Artscapy is the most comprehensive platform dedicated to art buying, collecting and investing.  
• Labl.it is an all-in-one commercial kitchen label printer.

Northern Ireland

• Bioledger provides SAAS for biofuel supply chain traceability and compliance for businesses regulated by the EU Renewable Energy Directive.
• IncluTech's award winning software helps people feel safe and secure in an emergency and enables them to know what to do and when to do it.  
• Anneal makes collaborative software for the acceleration of multidisciplinary, R&D intensive engineering.  

Yorkshire

• Interact DC's world-first machine-learning tool reduces data centre energy use, emissions, and waste by analysing server efficiency and suggesting optimal hardware replacements. 
• Answer Pay secures bill payments in banking apps.   
• JUST:Access is disrupting the manual transcription sector, where prices are stubbornly high with poor turnaround times. 

Innovative, dynamic and most certainly ones to keep an eye on!

 

 

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Published on: 8th February 2023