Kane Fulton, December 3, 2020 5 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 Yorkshire regional winners – Beaconsoft, Bombyx PLM, Cognito Learning, Hyper Group, and Klaxon.
Beaconsoft is looking to significantly reduce the problem of online fraud. Its first product – Beacon – empowers CMOs & CFOs to make better digital marketing decisions based on accurate independent unbiased data and insights, reducing waste and fraud, improving results and increasing digital ROI. Their new product Veracity uses AI and Blockchain technology to identify a human in an internet transaction.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We are delighted to be selected as a regional winner. Having spent the last couple of years developing what we believe is ground breaking technology and gaining validation through early sales traction we are now at the point of looking at accelerating our growth. The timing is therefore excellent as we will be looking at our next investment round in 2021 to “go big” and address a very large and growing global market.
What is it like being a tech company based in Yorkshire?
Leeds has a rapidly growing tech and digital business sector, supported brilliantly by the local authority and the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership. We have a fantastic office location in Dock Street right in the heart of Leeds, and it’s a great environment in which to grow our business.
Bombyx PLM manages the entire lifecycle of a product from inception, through engineering design and manufacture, to service and disposal of manufactured products. Integrating people, data, processes, and business systems, it provides a product information backbone. The platform reduces time to market, improves product quality, reduces prototyping costs, identifies potential sales opportunities and revenue contributions, maintains and sustains operational serviceability, and reduces environmental impacts at end-of-life. Founder and CEO Lucy Blackley spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We’re absolutely ecstatic to be a regional winner representing Yorkshire. Bombyx has had a brilliant year engaging with brands, manufacturers, and educational institutes. After quite a few years of building away at our product innovation platform, it’s such a great feeling to be recognised for what we’re doing and how we’re transforming product design and manufacturing industries.
What is it like being a tech company based in Yorkshire?
The Yorkshire region is the place to be for entrepreneurs and startups, especially Hull and our Centre for Digital Innovation (C4DI) incubator. There’s a mass wealth of knowledge between those four walls and throughout the city itself. We have such a supportive community here. Bombyx has gone from strength-to-strength since inception, but being located here has certainly progressed us further than we could have imagined in such a short space of time. It is without a doubt through the constant support of our regions tech community and especially the members of C4DI itself.
Cognito Learning is a digital learning app that uses the power of AI and engaging gamification to continuously help employees to understand, reinforce and retain their learning and knowledge in less than two minutes per day. Described as a “Fitbit for the brain”, Cognito learns and adapts to the learning needs of your employees, because learning never stops. MD Mike Routledge spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We are delighted to be one of the winners representing the Yorkshire region. It’s brilliant to be recognised for our use of advanced tech solutions and artificial intelligence to change the employee learning landscape and support workplace wellbeing.
What is it like being a tech company based in Yorkshire?
Yorkshire is a fantastic place to do business. It has a ‘can do’ attitude and is relatively central making it a great location to service clients across the UK from. In recent years Yorkshire has also established a reputation as a place where technology companies can thrive and is now home to a wide array of innovative and ambitious businesses that are often at the forefront of their industries.
The data science brain for customer-led retail decisions, Hyper enables retailers to use AI and data science to improve marketing, merchandising and supply chain performance. Through its cloud-based data platform, proprietary AI engine and intuitive user interface, Hyper gives non-technical people access to powerful insights, helping them make decisions which increase customer loyalty and profits. Cofounder and Director Peter Denby spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We’re proud to be recognised as a Rising Stars Regional Winner for Yorkshire. Rising Stars is such a prestigious competition for scaling businesses. Our achievement is recognition of the value we’re delivering to clients through the hard work and talent of our team.
What is it like being a tech company based in Yorkshire?
Hyper are very active in the Yorkshire tech community and have truly benefited from the collaborative spirit of the region. A combination of our involvement in Leeds Digital Festival, the support of Jem Henderson and Kane Fulton from Tech Nation, and close working relationships with our peers across Yorkshire have made a significant difference to the development of our business.
Klaxon is a cloud-based major incident, mass notification and planned maintenance communication solution. It helps organisations keep their people safe and productive during an emergency or crisis. Helping organisations to send emergency communications, such as broadcasting information concerning pandemics, business continuity, disaster recovery and IT downtime. CEO Yew Hong Woo spoke to Tech Nation.
How does it feel to be a Rising Stars regional winner?
We are delighted and proud to have been chosen as Yorkshire Regional Winners. It has been an incredibly exciting first year for us and we are pleased that our tool has been able to assist in keeping employees informed throughout this years’ coronavirus pandemic. To finish the year on such a high note is a great endorsement of all the effort we have put in as a team.
What is it like being a tech company based in Yorkshire?
Leeds City region has a supportive and inclusive digital community, which has an ever-growing diverse tech scene and talent stream. The community has opened doors for us to collaborate with others in the region and attract new talent to Klaxon, something which has been instrumental in our growth. Leeds has a strong start-up culture where new businesses can thrive, we were lucky enough to receive enormous support from our peers within the region at our launch event early last year and many of our initial clients are global businesses with head offices based in the city centre.
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