Top Tech: Yorkshire class of 2019 celebrate a stellar year
The winners of Mills & Reeve’s Top Tech: Yorkshire 2019 have had a stellar year.
And with this year’s event now open for entries, the class of 2019 have shared how the Top Tech: Yorkshire helped boost their business.
Top Tech: Yorkshire, in partnership with TheBusinessDesk.com, is open to companies which have developed world-leading technology, are disrupting markets and whose technology and services are helping others become leaders in their fields.
Mobile workforce technology company, BigChange, has had a bumper year, with strategic acquisitions and expansion in the UK and overseas. It attracted 400 new customers and saw the number of mobile workers and back-office staff using its technology double. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, this growth is being sustained in 2020.
BigChange brought 166 new customers onto the platform and secured £13m worth of contracts in the first half of 2020. The business generated revenues of £8.2m in the six months to June 2020, up from £7.6m during the first half of 2019.
Martin Port
Martin Port, founder and CEO of BigChange, said: “Yorkshire is an economic powerhouse, a hotbed of innovation and a fantastic location to find great talent to propel our business forward. Top Tech: Yorkshire offers us the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of technology companies in Yorkshire and showcase what is happening at BigChange to that community.”
It has been a record year for RapidSpike which is embarking on an ambitious expansion strategy after growing 550% in the last 2 years. The Leeds-based cybersecurity and website performance firm has recently secured a £1m funding package from Praetura Ventures in a move that will see it step up marketing to add more blue-chip e-commerce brands to its portfolio. RapidSpike will also use the funds to recruit developers to its growing team and build its team to scale.
RapidSpike was founded by Andrew Mason and Robin Hill in 2015 and is led by CEO Gav Winter who joined the company in 2018. The company helps businesses defend against client-side cyberattacks and improve their customer experience.
RapidSpike interacts with digital platforms exactly as customers do, monitoring real and synthetic customer interactions, providing insight on how to monitor, improve and protect their digital experience.
Customers include US retail giant Helen of Troy and William Hill who have recently been joined by Kurt Geiger and White Stuff.
Gav says RapidSpike has had a phenomenal year with sales between April and August up 40 per cent compared with the whole of 2019.
He said: “The coronavirus pandemic has seen online activity increase significantly and, as a result, clients have focused on firstly improving their online customer experience on their sites and also taking their cybersecurity more seriously.
“It has been a really exciting 12 months and being part of the Top Tech: Yorkshire has enhanced our profile with potential clients and new recruits as well as creating networking opportunities with other like-minded technology companies.”
Since featuring in last year’s Top Tech: Yorkshire as one of the future stars, Leeds-based software developer Calbot has secured its first round of funding.
Calbot, set up by former Leeds University student, Taras Lanchev, has developed a simple and intuitive tool which helps professionals find the best time for a meeting.
Instead of asking people for their availability (like Outlook, Doodle or Calendly do) Calbot privately scans people’s calendars and, using AI, determines the best time when everybody is available. This way, people can finalise the meeting in seconds. Calbot estimates that scheduling meetings take around 15 – 17 minutes per meeting and costs UK industry £100m a year.
Taras, originally from the Ukraine, is a recipient of a Tech Nation Visa which grants work visas to people with exceptional potential. He set up Calbot in 2019 with funds from the sale of a cryptocurrency company.
Calbot, which secured the funding from software supplier Nephos Solutions, is targeting the financial services and professional services markets where many companies are currently trialling the Calbot software.
Taras says being part of the Top Tech: Yorkshire has boosted their profile with potential clients and investors. “As a fledgling company it can be difficult to gain profile. However, being part of Top Tech: Yorkshire has helped us attract new business leads as well as increasing the visibility of our business with funders and investors. It has been fantastic for raising our profile.”
Top Tech: Yorkshire entrants will be judged on technological innovation, leadership, growth and financial performance, client service and delivery and employee engagement.
Entries will close on 6 November 2020. The companies who made it into the Top Tech: Yorkshire will be revealed on 9 December 2020. The report will be published on TheBusinessdesk.com and available for download.
To submit your entry Click Here
For further information visit Top Tech: Yorkshire
