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Here are 11 technology start-ups that took home prizes at the 2021 Tech Trailblazers Awards in the UK.
The winners of the 2021 Tech Trailblazers Awards were announced last week, highlighting start-ups shaking things up in the enterprise technology ecosystem.
A panel of high-profile judges selected winners across 16 categories including AI, big data, blockchain, cloud, containers, developers, security, IoT, fintech, networking and storage. The UK-based awards programme was open to all private companies less than seven years old.
Here, we list 11 trailblazing technology start-ups that bagged the top prize in different categories.
Deeplite
Deeplite is a Canadian AI technology company. Its flagship Neutrino software accelerator uses AI and deep learning to optimise deep neural network models to make them faster, smaller and more power-efficient without sacrificing performance.
Neutrino’s AI technology has applications across a range of areas including automotive, smartphones, smart cameras and internet of things (IoT) devices. Based in Montreal, Deeplite raised $6m in seed investment in April, led by Boston-based VC firm PJC.
Era Software
This Seattle-based big data start-up creates products in the log management space. Formerly known as EraDB, its flagship product, Era helps large enterprises manage their hyperscale, cloud-native workloads. It launched a beta version of EraSearch Cloud earlier this year to help companies modernise log management with the power of big data.
In April, Era raised $15.25m in a Series A funding round led by Palo Alto-based deep tech VC firm Playground Global. This brought the total funding raised by the start-up to more than $22m.
Eqifi
Eqifi is a blockchain-based financial services start-up in the emerging decentralised finance (DeFi) space. Its platform is powered by a licensed and registered financial institution called Eqibank, which is a crypto-friendly digital bank that serves customers in more than 180 countries.
Eqifi’s DeFi platform enables pooled lending and borrowing of various cryptocurrencies as well as US dollars, British pounds and euros. The start-up, based in the British Virgin Islands, also allows users to lock their crypto assets and earn rewards in a process known as staking.
Stacklet
This cloud governance start-up helps enterprises manage their data governance across different clouds, accounts, policies and regions by offering them a set of pre-defined policy packs. Stacklet services focus on security, cost efficiency and compliance, and it also offers cloud-based analytics around policy health, resource auditing, real-time inventory and change management logs.
In January, Stacklet raised $18m in a Series A funding round led by New York-based VC firm Addition. Stacklet is based in Arlington, Virginia.
Buoyant
Buoyant is a San Francisco-based start-up in the space of containers, which are software units that package code in way that can run across multiple platforms – such as desktop or the cloud.
The company created Linkerd in 2016, an open-source service mesh to help developers, operators and enterprises operate their Kubernetes and cloud-native applications safely and reliably. Buoyant raised $10m in 2019 led by GV, the VC arm of Google owner Alphabet.
Tenner
This London-based software company builds digital tools for small businesses and SMEs. Tenner has developed apps for ticketing and queue management, and during the pandemic it developed a Covid check-in app for small businesses to help meet their operational needs.
Tenner’s name is inspired by the fact that it provides SMEs with digital tools for just £10 per month. The start-up was founded in 2020 by a group of small businesses owners to help SMEs through the digital transformation process.
Propine
Propine is a Singapore-based fintech start-up in the digital securities and IT space. It provides digital securities services for institutional clients and is licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Services include custody, asset servicing, trade settlement facilitation, and investor and regulatory reporting.
Founded in 2018 as a ‘digital custodian’, Propine is led by a team of bankers, cybersecurity experts, compliance lawyers and blockchain engineers. According to Crunchbase, the start-up has raised a total of $1.2m in funding over six rounds.
FloodFlash
This start-up aims to reduce the uncertainty, cost and time related to traditional insurance claims by using data and smart sensors. With a focus on flooding-related insurance, the insurtech start-up offers a way for customers to insure their property for flood risk – even in high-risk areas – by using an internet-connected water sensor. This means that when a flood happens, an IoT sensor is triggered and measures flood depth at the property.
FloodFlash is headquartered in London and raised £1.9m in seed funding in 2018 led by LocalGlobe, Pentech Ventures and Insurtech Gateway.
Prosimo
Prosimo aims to help enterprises simplify their multi-cloud infrastructure to build apps that are fast, secure and cost-effective. Its platform handles both user-to-app and app-to-app requirements to prevent multiple fragmented initiatives in the cloud, using one integrated stack.
Based in Santa Clara, California, Prosimo raised $25m in seed and Series A funding in April, in a round co-led by General Catalyst and WRVI Capital.
Salt Security
This Palo Alto-based security start-up is building a network of services to help those using and producing APIs to identify and eradicate security risks. The Salt Security platform is based on AI technology that attempts to identify issues and stop attacks across API libraries.
Salt Security was founded in Israel in 2016 by Roey Eliyahu and Michael Nicosia. It raised $70m in May in a funding round that valued the start-up at between $600m and $700m, according to TechCrunch.
Lightbits Labs
Lightbits Labs is a storage technology start-up that is developing a software-defined, disaggregated cloud platform for private cloud and SaaS providers. The company aims to solve a problem that many data centres face, where there is a trade-off between processing power and storage ability. Its technology helps drive high performance and low latency in operations.
In March 2019, it raised $50m in a funding round backed by strategic partners Dell EMC, Cisco, Micron, Square Peg Capital and Walden International.
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