Kane Fulton, December 7, 2020 4 min read
Rising Stars is the UK’s only national competition for innovative, early-stage tech companies. Last year, 10 companies were crowned Rising Stars 2.0 Winners at our London Grand Final. Now, five regional winners for each region and nation across the UK will compete nationally for the chance to be named as one of the 10 winners of Rising Stars 3.0. Read on to find out more about our five Midlands regional winners – BoardSecure, eLocker, Felloh, Predictiva, and Recap.
Helping charities and SMEs build stronger boards, BoardSecure is a digital platform enabling company directors and charity trustees to lower their risk, improve their skills and strengthen their accountability and investment readiness. BoardSecure helps boards learn what they don’t know about a subject, manage the correct risks and processes and embed those lessons through the use of a portal tool. Director Clive Bawden spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
At BoardSecure we are delighted to be chosen to represent the Midlands in this prestigious competition. We hope it will help us towards our mission to help company and charity boards become stronger, more productive and more diverse as the economy bounces back in 2021.
What is it like being a tech company based in the Midlands?
The West Midlands ecosystem has already proven its worth in offering us testbeds for our early product iterations. This feedback has helped us continue to improve our offering and is immensely valuable as we grow.
Locker management made easy, eLocker connects Bluetooth-enabled locks to the internet via an IoT gateway. Already working with Amazon, DHL and Kuehne and Nagel, eLocker is the world’s first wirelessly managed locker solution. Technical and Sales Director Jacob Hinson spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
As a bit of an outsider in the tech community (because we offer both hardware and software), it’s fantastic to be recognised for our achievements and we are really excited for the next round of the competition.
What is it like being a tech company based in the Midlands?
Support from Medlilink via the Northants SEMLEP and the Manufacturing Growth Grants have been instrumental in the development of our products.
Felloh! is a payments platform for good which cuts costs with every payment. By embedding payments and banking into clients’ journeys, they improve customer experience, simplify reconciliation and innovate to improve profitability while embedding giving to good causes into the business model. Founder Will Bicknell spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We are thrilled to be recognised as one of the most innovative, early-stage tech companies in the Midlands. All credit to our team that has achieved so much already in our first year.
What is it like being a tech company based in the Midlands?
Nottingham and the East Midlands has a wealth of fintech talent and experience that we have been able to tap into to develop our innovative payments platform. It is also a pretty nice place to live.
Predictiva is making advanced AI available to everyone. Its advanced AI models utilise Deep Reinforcement Learning for fintech and other industries focused on predictive analytics; leveraging the cloud to provide an enterprise-scale yet easy-to-use platform which automates the analysis and management of financial trading. Cofounder and CEO Ashraf Attia spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We’re absolutely delighted to be one of the Tech companies representing the Midlands in TechNation’s Rising Stars. The timing could not be better as we have just opened our investment round, which should be concluded in Q1 2021.
What is it like being a tech company based in the Midlands?
We have always loved to be in Leicester. It’s not only a historical, refreshing, and energetic city, but also one buzzing with digital tech innovations. Working with startup support centres like the Leicester University Innovation Centre, Leicester Startups, and LCB Depot was extremely beneficial in our journey.
Cryptoasset portfolio tracking, analytics and tax reporting, Recap is an end-to-end encrypted crypto asset accountancy app. It collects transactions from a user’s crypto asset exchanges and services to help them understand their entire portfolio and comply with local tax reporting. Uniquely, this is done entirely within an end-to-end encrypted platform, so only the user ever has visibility of their sensitive financial data, protecting them from novel risks in the industry. CEO Dan Howitt spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We’re excited to be one of the companies representing the Midlands. It’s a massive opportunity for us to showcase our innovations and technology. The timing could not be better as we’re due to close our seed round Q1 2021.
What is it like being a tech company based in the Midlands?
We have accessed grant writing support from the University of Lincoln and Greenborough management, which helped us win our ¬£135k Innovate UK grant in 2018. We also participated in the Lincolnshire wide 10×10 accelerator programme, which got us pitch-ready and enabled us to close our pre-seed round.
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