Rising Stars 4.0 is the UK’s most exciting competition for innovative, early-stage tech companies. Designed to showcase the best the country has to offer, we provide the platform for businesses from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to shine bright.
You’ll benefit from significant profile raising on both a national and international level, as well as the opportunity to put your business in front of leading investors, influencers and corporates. We’ll even work with you to ensure your business is investor ready.
Applications close on 20 October 2021.
Rising Stars 4.0 is the UK’s only truly national scaleup competition, designed to be accessible to the best early-stage tech companies from all areas of the country.
Entrants are supported throughout the application process, and given training and support at each stage of the competition to enable you to compete to your best ability and deliver the perfect pitch.
The competition culminates in the top 20 companies being showcased and promoted to a highly curated audience of investors, corporates, influencers and the wider tech ecosystem. The judging panel will then deliberate over the final 20, selecting 10 companies to be named as this year’s Rising Stars, who will feature in a high-profile celebration event on 24 March 2022.
We want to showcase the brightest and best that UK tech has to offer. Businesses must meet a few simple criteria though, including:
* no agencies or consultancies, sorry.
We’ve spent time listening to feedback from previous Rising Stars winners and curating a bespoke package of support to help take your business to the next level, including:
Opportunity to showcase your company to investors, accelerators, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders and the UK tech community
Tech Nation content campaigns and press coverage to raise your profile
Pitch training and coaching by Pitch for Success
Network with potential investors at the Rising Stars VC Office Hours
Induction into the Tech Nation alumni network
All the incredible companies that won Rising Stars 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0…
Belfast | Data Analytics & Cyber security | @budibase
Building custom software for your business in minutes, without coding, Budibase is an open source, nocode platform used for building web applications, to digitise your business. Small to medium sized businesses and digital consultants use Budibase to build and host apps, or for supporting their self-hosted deployments.
Manchester | Digital & Creative Tech | @cgherofreelance
CGHero is a collaborative marketplace for 3D & CGI content creation, bringing together the world's top talent to work on feature productions across gaming, architecture, TV & film, automotive and retail. The platform has been used by the likes of Valvoline, Sega, B&Q, Unilever, and NHS.
London | Fintech | @ClearGlass
ClearGlass is a digital intermediary between asset managers and pension funds. It collects underlying costs and performance data from asset managers and helps pension funds decide which is the best fund to invest in for their members.
Truro | Digital Entertainment | @quizkit
Codices Interactive provides viewers with a live interactive video platform, enabling any broadcaster to create interactive shows. Its first product is now the most used gameshow creation tool on the Twitch platform, with 1,000+ monthly active broadcasters and 300,000 unique monthly viewers.
London | Tech For Good | @hypdev
CoGrammar operates the largest coding education provider in Africa - HyperionDev. Through this, they source, select, train, and integrate full-time code reviewers from top African tech talent. This allows Western companies to affordably assess developers and technical team quality, whilst creating hundreds of jobs in African countries.hypdev
London | Lawtech | @trydefine
Drafting made simple, Define optimises the contract drafting and reviewing process by allowing users to quickly access key information (namely all defined terms and references) in legal documents without ever having to leave the provision they are working on and lose their context of review. Define acts as a risk management tool and efficiency software that helps lawyers save time when working on legal documents.
Norwich | Edtech | @developexperts
Empowering teachers and parents to teach science with confidence through a library of over 700 interactive, online science lessons.
Norwich | Healthtech & Biotech | @eSurgeryCares
e-Surgery is the UK’s leading prescribing service and sustainable online pharmacy. Patients simply need to go to their website, choose the treatment they need, fill in a simple health questionnaire and wait for next day delivery in discreet recyclable and biodegradable packaging. They're a private healthcare provider radically proving the idea that private healthcare can be affordable and that these efficiencies can be made available for the masses.
Derry | Healthtech & Biotech | @Its_Elemental
Elemental is an award-winning tech for good company with the purpose of empowering and enabling individuals, families and their carers to better connect into community-based programmes, services and interventions that make a positive impact on their lives. Through an innovative digital platform, it provides teams with the technical connectivity they need for multi-sector partnership working, leadership, and the measurement of mobilisation of support where needed.
Derby | Hardware & Devices & IoT
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, it’s the world's first wirelessly managed locker solution.
Cambridge | Hardware & Devices & IoT | @FoundriesIO
Rising Stars 2.0 winners Foundries.io address security and device management for IoT and Edge devices by developing software micro-platforms. They provide a self-service cloud solution with turnkey services to develop, secure, deploy and maintain embedded IoT and Edge compute products. They enable secure IoT devices and provide lifetime software maintenance at a fraction of current costs.
Aberdeen | Healthtech & Biotech | @LiberEatApp
LiberEat makes life easier for people with dietary restrictions. It provides bespoke menus, supermarket grocery options, and recipes to users with options filtered by their requirements, helping businesses such as restaurants and supermarkets become more accessible, and providing useful analytics and insights. It has the potential to seriously reduce harm from food allergies.
Bristol | Hardware & Devices & IoT | @MetasonicsCo
Developing the next generation of customised, scalable acoustic metamaterials, changing the way we use and interact with sound.
Edinburgh | Tech For Good | @neatebox
Tackling personal loneliness and communication, the Neatebox “Welcome” platform removes barriers and promotes empathetic relationships between consumers and customer service teams, promoting real societal change and heralding a new age of understanding and communication.
Ringwood | Artificial Intelligence | SaaS | @peoplematterltd
People Matter Tech’s mental wellness platform is a safe online space that measures and improves mental wellness at work, without surveys. Their AI learns who you are and how your digital environment impacts your burnout risk, offering personalised recommendations.
Chorley | Data Analytics & Cyber security | SaaS | @ppcprotect
Rising Stars 1.0 alumni PPC Protect develop automation software for PPC advertisements, aiming to minimise the effects of click fraud and ad fraud for digital media advertisers, a criminal activity that is estimated to cost up from $19bn in 2019 - and it shows no sign of slowing down.
Exeter | HRtech | @rolemapper
How jobs are designed and job descriptions are created is critical to attracting and retaining talent, but the process for designing jobs is broken, manual and disconnected. RoleMapper helps organisations to design and manage jobs, and create great job descriptions that increase hiring diversity and workforce flexibility.
London | Lawtech | @seedlegals
The world's first and only automated legal service for funding rounds, SeedLegals make it super easy for startups to raise investment and manage company equity at a fraction of the cost of traditional service providers. No paper. No law firms. No accountants. Everything's done digitally on their platform. Launching back in 2016, today they are the largest closer of funding rounds in the UK.
Harwell | Tech For Good | @serelaytech
Enabling mobile device users to capture verifiable photos and videos, and platforms receiving these to query them for authenticity of content, time and location.
Birmingham | Ecommerce & Marketplace | @shopperdotcom
Shopper.com is a community-driven global marketplace for online and offline voucher codes, covering thousands of e-commerce sites. It automatically applies the best value voucher code at checkout in one click for both mobile and desktop devices.
Southampton | SaaS
Working in the retail and fashion space, Sparkbox uses machine learning to reduce stock, improve profitability, and prevent over-discounting by optimising prices. Their AI helps retail teams leverage their data, understand the impact of pricing decisions and make the most of the inventory they own
Liverpool | Edtech | @supply_well
SupplyWell is a digital recruitment solution putting control in the hands of teachers and schools. It connects teachers and schools together directly removing the need for slow and costly traditional agencies, which allows teachers to earn more while schools pay less and ensure that wellbeing comes as standard.
Glasgow | Healthtech & Biotech | @TMedicines
Talking Medicines captures the digital voice of the patient, aggregating it into patterns of behaviours and commercialising it to brand managers in pharmaceutical companies through subscription access. They put patient centricity at the core of what they do, aiming to improve outcomes of medicines.
Lincoln | Hardware & Devices & IoT | @tended
Offering intelligent personal safety wearables and monitoring systems that provide all-round safety solutions for individuals and businesses.
Liverpool | Fintech | @my_tickr
tickr is transforming impact investment for Europe’s next generation of investors. For people who want to invest, but want to have a positive impact on society and the environment at the same time, tickr's app allows users to invest in socially responsible companies with as little as £5.
Manchester | SaaS | @tootootofficial
tootoot is award-winning software that supports the psychological safety and wellbeing of individuals within education, sport and the workplace. tootoot provides a way for individuals to raise a concern to their organisation with complete confidentiality
Leeds | Healthtech & Biotech | @PetJoii
Combining the expertise of qualified vets and groundbreaking new technologies to deliver mobile, on-demand veterinary care, direct to pet parents.
London | Digital Entertainment | @vimma_ai
Vimma is building a productivity suite for passion entrepreneurs. Its app helps bloggers, vloggers and content creators manage their day-to-day business with simple tasks and processes. Vimma has over 20,000 registered users, and users have completed over 2 million productivity tasks with its app.
Oxford | Healthtech & Biotech | @vitaccess
Giving patients a voice, Vitaccess are creating powerful, real-world evidence platforms to quantify patients’ experience of treatments and illness. Their smartphone app and real-time data analytics dashboards together provide biopharmaceutical clients with evidence of how drugs and treatments affect patients' quality of life every day, outside of the clinical setting.
Cardiff | Artificial Intelligence | @ebuild_bots
We Build Bots delivers AI powered automation to the public sector, helping organisations deliver better, faster and cheaper citizen services. Leveraging bots, voice and conversational analytics, they help the public sector make better use of the data they collect, making it more predictive and more productive.
“Being a Rising Stars Finalist gave us a massive stamp of credibility – both externally for investors and internally for the team.”
Deirdre McGettrick, Founder & CEO, uFurnish
“We’ve been approached by investors who saw us in the Rising Stars campaign – usually we are the ones chasing them – incredible!”
Jonathan Lloyd, Founder, CGHero
“Rising Stars has allowed us to gain additional market credibility at an early stage and take this momentum into our fundraising and sales processes.”
Rhys Hodkinson, Head of Growth, Define
No one likes being judged, but in the case of a competition, it’s a necessary evil. That’s why we’ve pulled together an industry leading panel of judges to impartially judge entrants to this year’s competition.
We’re hosting two live Q&A sessions with Rising Stars lead, Esme Caulfield. You’ll have opportunity to learn more about the programme, whether you qualify and what to expect if you’re a winner. We’ll then give you opportunity to ask any specific questions that you may have.
Sign up below:
