Startups Awards 2016 unveils 12 UK start-ups with bright futures

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The winners of the 13th annual Startups Awards have been announced, with intelligent background checking platform Onfido victorious as the overall winner – crowned Sage Startups Business of the Year.

Unveiled at an glitzy awards ceremony at Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington on Thursday 17 November, 52 ambitious and exciting start-up finalists gathered with entrepreneurs and investors to hear host Oli Barrett MBE name the winners of the 15 award categories.

From a cross-sector of backgrounds, businesses, and regions across the UK, the Startups Awards 2016 named 12 start-ups as winners, with 20 additional early-stage businesses awarded highly commended and commended titles.

View the Startups Awards 2016 winners here.

London-based Onfido took the top title of the evening – selected from the winners of the other categories – due to its young founding team’s success in creating a disruptive tech platform which has attracted over 1,000 clients globally and investment of more than $30m.

Alongside Onfido, which also went home with awards for Tech Business of the Year and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, award winners included dog food subscription service tails.com; named Product Business of the Year, and handmade spectacle start-up Cubitts; Retail Business of the Year.

Pip Murray, founder of fast-growth nut butter brand Pip & Nut, was triumphant as winner of the Women in Business Award while innovative router software Netduma bagged two awards for Export Business of the Year and Lean Start-up of the Year.

For a second consecutive year, the People’s Champion Award – as voted for by the public – went to shaving kit subscription service Cornerstone, with an incredible 5,000+ votes.

Backed by headline sponsor and the UK’s multi-national enterprise software company Sage, the Startups Awards is the longest running awards of its kind to celebrate the country’s most ambitious, creative and game-changing businesses launched in the last four years.

Alongside Sage, the awards has a roster of stellar sponsors for 2016. Silver sponsors are Start Up Loans, Simply Business and All Response Media, while bronze sponsors are haysmacintyre, Printed.com, 123Reg, Made Simple Group and DeVono Cresa.

Now in its 13th year, the awards attracted more entries than ever before which gave our stellar judging panel – including Moonpig founder Nick Jenkins, Cath Kidston MBE, and Innocent Drinks’ co-founder Jon Wright –the challenging task of deciding on the winning businesses.

Without further ado, the Startups Awards 2016 winners are:

Sage Startups Business of the Year: Onfido
People’s Champion: Cornerstone
App of the Year: Laundrapp
Crowdfunded Business of the Year: LOVESPACE
Export Business of the Year: Netduma
Franchisee of the Year: Daniela Coutinho, Heritage Healthcare (Ealing & Richmond)
Innovative Business of the Year: PensionBee
Lean Start-up of the Year: Netduma
Product Business of the Year: tails.com
Retail Business of the Year: Cubitts
Service Business of the Year: Housekeep
Tech Business of the Year: Onfido
Venture Funded Business of the Year sponsored by haysmacintyre: ClearScore
Women in Business Award: Pip Murray, Pip & Nut
Young Entrepreneur of the Year: The founders of Onfido

Startups.co.uk founder, David Lester, commented: “Congratulations to all of our inspiring winners and finalists!

“In spite of the Brexit result and economic uncertainty, the success of our winners and their growth plans over the next 12 months just goes to show that the future of British business is bright.

“We look forward to tracking the progress of our winners across the coming year and we’re confident that many of them will go onto become household names, like that of previous Startups Awards winners Notonthehighstreet.com, Naked Wines and Made.com.”

Sage marketing campaign manager, Evan O’Shea, added:

“Entrepreneurs are the true heroes of the UK economy, and supporting them is Sage’s passion.

“The Startups Awards 2016 is a fantastic event which recognises the hard work and achievements of new business builders in the UK. We can’t wait to see this year’s start-up winners progress into thriving small and medium enterprises!”

Check out tweets from the awards and show your support for the winners using the hashtag #StartupsAwards