The North’s tech sector has a bright future and is home to some of the UK’s leading lights in the industry, according to a leading law firm.
Ward Hadaway, which has offices in Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester and advises a range of technology and digital companies, made the comments after the final of the Northern Stars 2016 competition.
Organised and promoted by regional technology industry organisation Tech North, the competition set out to discover the most promising early stage technology companies across the North of England.
A series of regional pitch events culminated in the Grand Final which took place at the Old Granada Studios in Manchester when 10 winning companies were chosen by a panel of high-profile industry experts.
The winners were Airtime Rewards, which has developed technology linking retail transactions to mobile phone bill discounts; mobile-focused video advertising specialist Ash.tv; Dream Agility, which helps retailers get onto Google Shopping; DueCourse, which helps companies unlock funds in unpaid invoices; LivingLens, which provides deep video analysis for marketers; hi-tech parking payment company ProxiSmart; web-based broadcasting service Radio.co; augmented reality toy maker Swapbots; TopicDNA, which helps marketers analyse Twitter and Instagram and Valuechain, which helps power smarter supply chains for industry.
Ward Hadaway, which has a long track record of advising businesses in the technology sector from early stage and start-up companies to multinationals, was the official legal partner for the competition and helped to judge the entries.
The winning firms will each be receiving free legal advice and support in growing their businesses from Technology sector experts at the Top 100 UK law firm as part of their prize-winning package.
Northern Stars 2016 entrants had to be digital tech start-ups based in the North of England, have raised less than £2m investment and have a live product in the market.
As well as free legal support from Ward Hadaway, the 10 winners of the competition each receive a package of events and opportunities designed to raise their profile and build their networks, including places at high-profile industry events TechCrunch Disrupt in London, Investor pitch at Bloomberg, The Next Web conference in Amsterdam, the Northern Tech Awards and the offer of a subsidised trip to SxSW in Texas.