Naked Wines triumphs at 2010 Startups Awards

Online wine retailer Naked Wines certainly celebrated its 2^nd birthday in style by taking home the top prize at this year’s Startups Awards.

The business, which launched two years ago this week, also announced a £10m investment pot to fund its global network of independent wine producers – double the amount raised last year.

After winning the Online Business of the Year prize at this year’s ceremony, the company then walked away with the top gong too.

Speaking about his Startups Awards win, founder Rowan Gormley said: “To win two Startups awards, especially the big one, is an absolute honour. And it’s thanks to two sets of people; thousands of UK wine drinkers, our customers, who took the plunge and trusted us with their money. And our first few winemakers, who trusted us with their wines and adopted a new way of doing business.

“Since launch, we’ve helped 22 winemakers set up shop, create 85 new wines and sell over a million bottles between them – and our goal for 2011 is to double this.”

Other winners of this year included e-commerce same day delivery platform Shutl, which took home the angel/VC backed award, DIG IT Projects which creates and manages allotment patches in schools, and The Thoughtful Bread Company, an environmentally friendly bakery based in Bath.