Along with our partners, Innovate UK and Cambridge Wireless, today we announced the seven winners of the Internet of Things (IoT) Launchpad competition.

The winners represent some of the most exciting early stage companies in the IoT space. Based in London and Cambridge, the companies will share grant funding of up to £1m.

During the selection process the panel looked for pioneering projects taking Internet of Things activity into innovative new areas. The winning projects are:

• Digital Shadows Limited – A project to identify, enumerate and attempt to mitigate some of the IoT-related security risks facing businesses, cities and individuals

• Product Health Limited – A new service for connected batteries, representing a step change in the way batteries are managed in the off-grid energy sector

• ThinkInnovate Limited – An IoT defence scanner, consisting of a portable scanning device, a mobile app and a web app and designed to increase confidence in IoT

• Arjun Technology Ventures Limited – Wireless remote collection of data from multiple in-field sensors to make digitised farming enterprises a commercial reality

• 1248 Limited – A project to encourage and improve cycle journeys in London and Cambridge, by discovering, processing and providing relevant sensor data

• OpenTRV Limited – A venture to work out the optimum combination of sensors to use inside buildings and outdoors to detect environmental information, such as the presence of people and the weather

• Superflux Limited – A compact air quality monitoring and GPS tracking sensor that can be easily fitted to child’s pushchair

In addition to the funding grant, the winners will benefit from access to expertise and business support from the programme’s private sector partners: EE, John Lewis, Unilever, Bosch, Seedcamp, Red Gate, Cisco, Hive by British Gas, RPD and Fab Lab London. These partners will offer the winning companies the opportunity to access a range of support, from investment, and access to markets and mentorship, to retail for showcasing products to consumers.

IoT describes automatic ‘smart’ communications between objects – rather than between computers and mobiles – through the internet without human intervention. Through embedded sensors and other devices, such objects allow a wide variety of industrial and domestic activities to become fully automated, while also maximising efficiency and sustainability.

Market projections suggest an IoT industry comprising of 26bn devices by 2020, rising to a trillion by 2025. It is predicted to become a $500bn global technology market by 2019, supporting an even more extensive market for products and services.

Winners will have up to six months to start their projects and up to 24 months to complete the work they’ve set out to do. Innovate UK’s Monitoring Officers will observe the process.