10th Anniversary of the Northern Tech Awards

I’m back at home from attending an amazing and perhaps the best of the 10 Northern Tech Awards run since 2011. It felt awesome, perhaps more than ever, due to the hiatus from the pandemic lockdown.

It was the first large event (held at New Dock Hall in Leeds) I attended since the pandemic started in March 2020. But instead of going on about the event, I thought it would be fun to compare the 2011 vs 2021.

Back in January 2011, Techcelerate community was asking for a flagship event. Mike Butcher ran UK’s first ever tech awards, then known as Europas in 2009. I used this as the inspiration to launch Northern Tech Awards, UK’s first black-tie awards ceremony to recognise and celebrate tech entrepreneurship in the North of England.

So what are the differences between then and now? I ran Northern Tech Awards in 2011, 2012 and 2013 before Hugh Campbell of GP Bullhound acquired it in August 2013.

	2011 to 2013	2014 to 2021
Ownership	Techcelerate	GP Bullhound
Best described	Amateur. Only the photographer was professional.	Professional. Run by amazing Laura Wolfe & Co.
Celebration	Team focused	Founder/CEO
Budget	Barely scraped! Profitable.	Very high – top guns. Not profit focused.
Dress code	Black-tie	Smart casual
Value to Owner	Flagship annual event. An opportunity to party!	Deal flow. Party!
Compère	Who else, but me	Professional, now by amazing Edie Lush
Limit	70 in 2011. By 2013, just over 110 (I think)	Closer to 300.
Overall	Fun!	Fun! Band. After party.

2021 Winners

Companies celebrated included:

The full list of the 2021 Northern Tech Awards winners:

• Fastest Growing Company of the Year: Double Eleven
• Fastest Growing Larger Company of the Year: QBS Technology Group
• Judges’ Innovation Award: Connex One
• Judges’ Award for International Success: Crisp
• Judges’ Leadership Award: Peak
• Tech4Good Award: Twinkl
• Judges’ Entrepreneur Award: Matt Scullion, Founder & CEO of Matillion
• Judges’ Young Entrepreneur Award: David Chamberlain, Jamie Garside & Joey Xoto, Co-founders of Viddyoze
• Overall Judges’ Award: Matillion
• Northern Star Innovation Award: Flawless AI
• Northern Star Award for potential International Success: XR Games
• Northern Star Leadership Award: Culture Shift
• Northern Star Overall Judges’ Award: Modern Milkman

Congratulations to all of them.

Among many conversations I had, it was a pleasure to see two Manchester legends, Richard Young, a veteran of venture capital and Steve Purdham, one of the first tech founders of Manchester with multiple exits. They were both part of the old Techcelerate.

One last observation: Most people in the room were not in tech in 2013. It’s amazing to see how much the sector has evolved.

Back to 2011 Inaugural Year

Winners:

• Best Northern Bootstrapped Tech Startup 2011 – CapsuleCRM
• Best Northern Venture Backed Tech Startup 2011 – App55
• Best Northern ecommerce Tech Company 2011 – MPP Global Solutions
• Best Northern Enterprise Tech Company 2011 – CapsuleCRM
• Best Northern Mobile Tech Company 2011 – Apdami
• Best Northern Consumer Tech Company 2011 – VUME
• Best Northern Hardware Company 2011 – Thinspace

You may ask, where are these tech companies today?

• Capsule had a partial exit for the founders, but they are still driving the company forward from Manchester. I continue to use their product for the new Techelerate.
• App 55 – Richard Beaton had to shut down due to investor/company issues, if I recall.
• MPP Global Solutions – exited and it was awesome to see Paul Johnson attending the event.
• Apadmi – Garry Partington continues to support the new Techcelerate. Howard Simms was there at the Awards. What impresses me the most is that all four founders are still together.
• VUME – didn’t take off
• ThinSpace – Lisa Layzell and the team exited. Lisa is back with a new spin out from the University of Liverpool.

In 2012, we went live with a dedicated website, the content of 2012 and 2013 no longer exists due to ownership of GP Bullhound, but the pictures still remain live on social media.