GP Bullhound announces the winners of the Northern Tech Awards 2015

Manchester, 27 March 2015 – The invitation-only event took place at Aspire in Leeds, a growing hub in the internet sector and home to a large number of successful technology companies across a wide number of sectors.

The Northern Tech Awards are owned and managed by international technology investment bank GP Bullhound, and are held every year to recognise the fastest growing technology companies in the North.

This year’s event, hosted by David Rowan, Editor of WIRED magazine, and Hugh Campbell, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of GP Bullhound, was attended by a select group of 200 CEOs, entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and journalists.

Sponsors included Barclays, Squire Patton Boggs, Berenberg, Business Growth Fund, Crowdcube, Enterprise Ventures, Frazer John Recruitment, The London Stock Exchange, Scottish Equity Partners, Smedvig Capital and Silicon Valley Bank.

The Awards winners, the final ranking of top 50 companies, and the list of Rising Stars were announced during the evening:

Fastest Growing Company Award, won by Palringo, a leading platform for mobile communities all around the world

Fastest Growing Larger Company Award, won by Mobica, a global software development and integration services company

Most Innovative Company Award, won by Parcel2Go, the UK’s leading parcel delivery comparison web service

Judges Leadership Award, won by Missguided, an international online fast fashion retailer

Judges’ Award for International Success, won by Crisp Thinking, offering social risk defence services for brands, apps and broadcasters.

Overall Judges’ Award, won by Performance Horizon, whose technology enables global brands, agencies and publishers to optimize and take control of the performance of their campaigns

The panel of Judges comprised leading figures from the local, national and international entrepreneurial scene, including: Adam Balon (Founder, Innocent Drinks), Martin Bryant (Editor, The Next Webb), Michael Dimelow (ARM, VP Strategic Business Development), Sir Terry Leahy (Private Investor), David Rasche (Founder, SSP), David Rowan (Editor, WIRED), Charles Sharland (Chairman and Co-Founder, Appsense), Paul Walker (Co-Founder, Sage), Phil Webb, (EMIS Group, CTO).

“The Northern Tech Awards are a celebration of the boundless energy and global ambitions of tech entrepreneurs in the North”, said Hugh Campbell, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of GP Bullhound, praising the standard of the entries: “This year the quality and quantity of nominations is the highest ever, and the whole of the North is represented” He added: “We were blown away by the talent and ground-breaking innovation of the companies who won each category.”

GP Bullhound is strongly committed to the region and since the opening of its Manchester office in 2014, headed up by Hugh Campbell, the firm has advised on a number of successful transactions such as the sale of Textlocal to IMImobile, the sale of Realise to St Ives, the sale of Great Fridays to EPAM and the sale of Sumo Digital to Northedge.

Northern Tech Map
The Northern Tech Awards also saw the release of the Northern Tech Map, a unique interactive map built by GP Bullhound, locating and describing the region’s best tech companies, to discover on www.northerntechawards.com

Enquiries
For enquiries contact Hugh Campbell, Managing Partner, hugh.campbell@gpbullhound.com

GP Bullhound
As dealmakers in technology, GP Bullhound provides independent strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions and private placements to entrepreneurs, companies and investors. By combining a true passion for innovation with great access to global buyers and capital across Europe, US and Asia, GP Bullhound has completed transactions with many category leaders including Avito, Delivery Hero, Fjord, King.com, Pingdom, Pozitron and Spotify. The firm was founded in London in 1999 and today also has offices in San Francisco, Stockholm, Berlin and Manchester. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com