Nutracheck’s Award worth its weight in gold

Startups Awards win “added credibility to the business and played major part in raising finance,” says Nutracheck.

Winning ‘Innovative Business of the Year’ at the 2005 Startups Awards helped secure additional investment for Nottingham-based Nutratech Ltd, developer of Nutracheck, the UK’s first online and mobile phone weight management service. The thriving company is now reporting significant month-on-month growth and set to deliver against business plan for 2006.

The additional funding enabled Nutratech to develop and launch Nutracheck Mobile � – a new Food Diary & Calorie Checker for mobile phones that can be obtained without the use of a PC by simply texting ‘Diet’ to 60999. Nutratech now employs a team of five and outsources specialist skills such as PR and Search Engine Optimisation.

Rachel Hartley, marketing director at Nutratech Ltd comments: ” We won the award at a crucial time, when we were trying to raise finance. We had a private investor interested, but were still at the discussion stage, plus we were applying to banks for a small business loan.

Rachel continues, “The accolade provided added credibility to the business proposition and played a major part in our success in raising finance through both channels. It also added weight when pursuing various business development opportunities – some of which are due to come to fruition imminently.”

Nutratech Ltd was established in June 2004 and launched Nutracheck in February of last year. Nutracheck is an online and mobile phone service to help people keep track of what they eat and drink at home, work and on the go. It links into an exclusive food database of over 30,000 items including supermarket own label products, takeaway foods, coffee shops, proprietary lines, bar food and alcoholic drinks. It is searchable using the last four numbers of a product barcode, or by text.

In addition, a unique mobile phone program is available to keep track on the move. The application can be downloaded from the website – www.nutracheck.co.uk – by a text message and installs on a phone in under two minutes. It provides a calorie counter for up to 20,000 products and food diary, allowing the user to keep track when away from their PC.

Startups.co.uk has just launched the third annual Startups Awards 2006 in conjunction with NatWest. Winners of the 15 categories will be announced at a prestigious awards ceremony and three-course luncheon to be held at the Royal Garden Hotel on Friday 20 October.