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120 high-potential start-ups from around the world descended on Tech City

31/08/2012

By Claire West

More than 120 high-potential start-ups from around the world convened in London this week to participate in the Start-Up Games, competing for the chance to be recognised as an international start-up champion. This morning, three companies emerged as winners: Gloucestershire, UK -based Versarien swept to first place; Porto, Portugal-based Tuizzi.com nabbed second; and London, UK-based MediaDevil took third.

Announced by the Prime Minister in January and organised by UK Trade & Investment’s (UKTI’s) Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) in partnership with StartUp Britain and main sponsor Kraft, the Start-Up Games saw 270 bright entrepreneurs from 120 start-ups being put through their paces during intense training and competition.

The participants represented more than a dozen countries including Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Russia, Spain and the US; competition was tight but there could be only one champion.

Neill Ricketts, co-founder of gold-medal winning Versarien, an advanced materials company, said: “Being recognised by our peers and the judges has given us such a boost; it’s real validation that we have a good idea. We didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for but it was a superb event and gave us the chance to meet and network with companies from around the world, and to have conversations with companies like Google, which we simply wouldn’t have been able to do without the Games.”

In addition to the medal winners, 16 additional companies were recognised as particularly strong competitors: The Avaverse, 001 Marketing, Actus Performance Management System, Intellixente, The Giving Card, Uvuu.Me, In Your Face Productions, Babelverse, BeefJack, Hedgehogg, Present.me, Ci-Co (Clock-in-Clock-out), Tyze Personal Networks, CogniCor, Fabsie and Lutebox.

The winners visited Number 10 Downing Street earlier today where they received their awards from Lily Cole, GREAT campaign ambassador, model and founder of start-up impossible.com, and Jonathan Luff, advisor to the Prime... continued on page two >

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