Startups Awards finalists announced

Startups can exclusively announce the finalists of our annual Startups Awards.

Thirty-six start-up businesses across 12 categories have been shortlisted, with entries ranging from new start-ups, such as two-month old frozen cocktail makers Rocktails, to established global brands, such as The Cambridge Satchel Company, which was incorporated in 2008.

The finalists’ applications will now be passed on to next week’s judging day, where they will be scrutinised by an esteemed panel of entrepreneurs including Joe Cohen, founder of Seatwave, and Lara Morgan of Pacific Direct Group.

All finalists will be invited to attend the Startups Awards ceremony and lunch on 2 December, where the 12 winners will be announced.

The Startups Awards, which are in their eighth year, will be held at London’s Kensington Roof Gardens and will also see one of the shortlisted businesses named the overall winner, the NatWest Startups Business of the Year 2011.

Steph Welstead, editor of Startups.co,uk, said the standard of entries was extremely high: “Our finalists this year are as diverse, exciting and creative as ever. Painful as it was, some fantastic companies didn’t quite make it this far from the hundreds of entries we received.”

Previous winners have included The Book Depository and BeatThatQuote.com, both of which went on to be acquired by major global companies – Amazon and Google respectively.

Welstead added: “For those that have made it to the 2011 final, competition for the honours in each category will be incredibly fierce and we anticipate one of the toughest judging days we’ve had since the awards launched in 2004. We wish all of our finalists luck and look forward to meeting them at the ceremony in December.”