Take your early-stage tech company to the next level
Rising Stars 2.0 is the UK’s most exciting competition for innovative, early-stage tech companies, designed to take your business to the next level.
With a prize package built to significantly raise the profile and awareness of the winning companies on both a national and international level, you’ll also be given the opportunity to connect with top investors, influencers and corporates along the way.
Applications for Rising Stars 2.0 are now closed.
10 companies fended off competition from 400 applicants to win Rising Stars 2.0.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Rising Stars 2.0 is the UK’s only truly national startup competition, designed to showcase and raise the profile of 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.
The competition culminates in a Grand Final in London where the top 20 companies, as selected by our judging panel, will pitch to a high profile panel and audience to be named as one of our 10 Rising Stars.
We’ve spent time listening to feedback from the inaugural Rising Stars winners and curating a bespoke package of support to help take your business to the next level, including:
Facilitated introductions to investors and corporates
Business plan diagnostic, delivered by accounting and business advisory firm, BDO
Pitch training and coaching by Sunderland Software City
Opportunity to pitch your business in front of over 200 investors, accelerators, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders
Tech Nation content campaigns and national press coverage
Induction into the Rising Stars alumni network
Speaking opportunities, thought leadership and press through the Tech Nation network
We want to showcase the brightest and best that UK tech has to offer. Your business must meet a few simple criteria though, including:
* no agencies or consultancies, sorry.
Our expert judging panel deemed the following companies as the brightest prospects in the UK tech scene, and winners of Rising Stars 1.0:
Norwich | Edtech | @developexperts
Empowering teachers and parents to teach science with confidence through a library of over 700 interactive, online science lessons.
Bristol | Hardware & Devices & IoT | @MetasonicsCo
Developing the next generation of customised, scalable acoustic metamaterials, changing the way we use and interact with sound.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oxford | Healthtech & Biotech | @vitaccess
A platform that produces real-time data on how diseases and treatments impact patients’ everyday lives, based on tailor-made apps installed on their smartphones.
“There were 3 reasons we entered Rising Stars – it raises your profile and spreads your name among other startups and investors, being involved with Tech Nation is a great stamp of approval and builds trust and recognition, and finally it’s a big morale booster for everyone involved in the business”
Anthony Rose, Founder & CEO, SeedLegals
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.
