Tech North’s Northern Stars competition celebrated its second successful year last night, as 20 Tech start-ups pitched for the chance to win the fantastic award. Taking place in the old Granada Studios in Manchester’s city centre, the event was exceptionally grand and theatrical. A huge turnout of industry professionals from fresh faced journalists, to experienced technophiles all came to view and experience the pitching competition. Up for grabs, at the event, was a chance to be involved in some of the biggest Tech events around the world, including: entry into TechCrunch Disrupt, Northern Tech Awards; Bloomberg and many more!
The promise of increased exposure for their startup business was clearly a big incentive, and the line-up featured a number of innovative new companies from a variety of industries, including: AirTime Rewards, Ash.TV, Dream Agility, DueCourse, JooVuu, Kuorum, LivingLens, Lumici Slate, Neatly.io, Proxismart, Radio.io, Ruler Analytics, Smart Money People, Solution Path, Swap Bots, Synap, Textocracy, TopicDNA, Tutora; and our very own, Valuechain. The promising companies needed to provide a 3 minute pitch of their business to an esteemed panel of judges, including Simon Calver (LoveFilm & BGF Ventures), Harry Davis (Open Future North), and Karen Kerrigan (Seeder), who would then select 10 winners to receive the incredible award package on offer.
Clearly saving the best for last, Valuechain were the final company to pitch at the event, and Tom Dawes confidently strode onto the stage to present our upcoming project. His pitch revolved around the Valuechain’s iQluster solution which strives to create a business-to-business networking platform for manufacturers. This would to revolutionise and improve the global supply chain network structure, by focussing on collaboration to build continuous sustainable improvement, and optimise performance of SMEs. Discussing its potentially revolutionary effects on the manufacturing world, the judging panel were clearly impressed by Tom’s pitch, awarding Valuechain one of the coveted prizes.
Also among the winners were AirTime Rewards, Ash.TV, Dream Agility, Due Course, LivingLens, Proxismart, Radio.io, SwapBots, and TopicDNA.
Overall, Tech North’s Northern Stars was a fantastic event, with a glowing future ahead of it. As for us, we thoroughly enjoyed the event, and met some fantastic like-minded companies that we are looking to work with in the future. We are now very much looking ahead to the fantastic progress we can make thanks to the incredible opportunities provided by the event.