Innovative firms get £700k boost

TEN Greater Manchester companies have secured a share of a £700,000 funding pot to help develop innovative products.

They have been backed by the Creative and Digital Launchpad, a programme run by the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, in conjunction with the Business Growth Hub.

The winners will have up to 60% of their product or service development project funded.

Richard Jeffery, director of the Business Growth Hub, said: “Today we recognize and congratulate these ten companies whose innovation and ideas have been justly rewarded.

“We will now go on to work with the winning companies to help them develop their ideas and to prepare for further investment and, just as importantly, we will also be continuing to work with all of the companies that entered this competition, to make sure that they are able to access the funding and specialist support services that will support and drive their future growth.”

Nick Johnson, director of winning company EventBeat, said: “The Technology Strategy Board has presented us with a huge opportunity as we strive to become recognized globally as market leaders in social signage technology. This project funding will enable us to develop a ‘self-service platform’ to deliver a scalable solution to a mass market.

“We are extremely excited at the prospect of the next eight months as we undertake our project which will look to grow our business, both within the Manchester community and to a global audience.”

The winning companies are:

Shortbite, Salford – it is developing an automated process to convert pictures and video into digital models for applications using augmented and virtual reality.

Hardy & Ellis Inventions – interactive displays that can transform any surface in a room into a computer interface.

EventBeat, Stockport – ‘social signage technology’ that broadcasts audience social media comments and pictures direct to screens displayed at live events.

Empiricom Technologies, Manchester – an interview tool, which provides a structured interview technique and documents an individual’s entire expertise on any subject.

Reason Digital, Manchester– helps customers to gauge a company’s ethics using an online software-as-a-service.

Movobi, Stockport – The Movobi platform currently has the ability to capture data about on-screen information and present it to users via clickable screen shots.

Tickvantage, Manchester – The company is working on online security by developing a stronger authentication procedure that uses any mobile phone, not just smartphones.

Play Creative, MediaCityUK – a digital finance product that combines personal financial activity with multiple external data sources of information to provide both a meaningful analysis of past behaviour, and guidance on future decision making.

Carbon Co-op, Chorlton – a partnership of creative digital design companies developing a house retrofit design and assessment web tool that supports  the implementation of large scale home energy efficiency refits.

iBurbia Studios, MediaCityUK– this project looks at creating a service which delivers innovative web and social media services – such as recommendations, clip sharing and storage services – into TV set top boxes and internet connected ‘Smart’ TV screens.