Britain’s innovative tech firms are taking on the world - and here at BusinessLive we’re showcasing some of the best in the business.
Despite tough economic times, companies large and small are continuing to innovate to develop new technologies and shake up existing markets.
It’s big business. The Government estimates that last year, digital technology firms in the 海角视频 turned over £184bn. And it says £28bn was invested in 海角视频 tech firms from 2011 to 2016- more than in France and Germany combined.
Here we are showcasing some of the 海角视频’s most innovative tech firms, as selected by our editors and reporters across the country.
Several of our entrepreneurs are working on online innovations, including a former NHS worker taking on Snapchat and Instagram and a Nottingham man developing what he hopes will be the Uber of roadside breakdown assistance.
There are several software specialists, with people innovating in education, engineering and online payments.
But there are high-tech gadgets too, including an internet-connected meat thermometer and radiation detectors that are even being used around Chernobyl. And we also meet one of the North’s robotics pioneers, who has an upbeat message about what automation could mean for the 海角视频.
Smartphone app to cook your meat
Meater is a gadget developed in Leicester and billed as the world’s first wireless smart meat thermometer.
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The stainless-steel probe is built to withstand temperatures of up to 300C, sending data directly to your smartphone, wherever you are.
Insert it into the meat, tell the app what meat you're cooking, and whether you want it rare, medium or well done, and your phone lets you know when it's cooked to perfection.
The thermometers were developed by Apption Labs, and originally underwritten by Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns which the team hoped would raise £100,000. They actually brought in $4 million (£3 million) with backers getting pre-orders of the product.
The devices are made in Taiwan and 海角视频 and EU sales are now starting to pick up.
Chernobyl radiation detectors made by Uni spin-out
From small beginnings as a Durham University spin-out Kromek is now a force to be reckoned with in the world of radiation detection.
The Aim-listed business led by Dr Arnab Basu now has bases in Sedgefield’s NetPark as well as Huddersfield, Germany and the US, designing and manufacturing everything from thousands of handheld, dirty bomb detectors for the US defence agency, to next generation detectors used to helping doctors diagnose and manage diseases such as osteoporosis.
Its radiation detectors use cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) which manufacturers include when making the new generation of medical imaging devices.
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Kromek drones – which have radiation detectors built in – have even been used recently to map areas around Chernobyl, to analyse levels of radiation 33 years ago after the accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
A few years ago Kromek, which has customers in the medical, nuclear and security screening markets, was singled out as the most innovative firm in the country in a league table which scored firms on their intellectual property.
It topped the 2016 Intellectual Property League Table, which lists the top 100 海角视频 firms according to the number of patents they possess, with its 247 patents covering medical, nuclear, and security industries. It now sits at number three in the most recent publication of the list.
‘I was always taking things apart to see how they worked’
Like so many young children, a four or five-year-old Hayden Barton enjoyed taking things apart to see how they worked.
But by the age of 12, he was designing his own websites, fixing mobile phones and computers and tinkering with electronics, all from the comfort of his own bedroom in east Hull.
Fast forward another ten years, and the entrepreneur has created the world’s smallest Arduino, a thumbnail-sized piece of hardware which can control and interact with objects.
Hayden’s business, Nerdonic, is now based in Hull’s innovative C4DI building, and complete with a Chrysler car which he can control using one of his inventions, he has established himself as a leading digital player.
He said: “I was always taking things apart as a kid, to see how they worked and to put them back together.
“From there I started making little circuits and fixing phones and things, but this Arduino is the first mass public product I have made.
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“I used to make them by hand, and it would take me about five minutes for each one, but now I have a machine which can make batches of them.”
The Arduinos Hayden makes are the size of a thumbnail, making them the smallest in the world.
Previous Arduinos were much bigger and more expensive, the 22-year-old said, and Hayden now has plans to make an even smaller version.
It can be used to control flashing, lit-up signs, interact with robots and cars, and much more.
Former NHS worker takes on Snapchat and Instagram
Former NHS worker Luke Lucas is hoping to take on the likes of Snapchat and Instagram with his revolutionary new Papzie app.
The 31-year-old, from Kidsgrove in Newcastle-under-Lyme, has launched the new social media site where people can save money every time they post online.
Users are encouraged to post selfies and photographs in exchange for discounts at popular restaurants and attractions.
Luke - who gave up his full-time job to follow his dream - spent years teaching himself how to write code to develop Papzie using books and YouTube videos.
And earlier this year his new venture was picked up by Stoke-on-Trent's first entrepreneur incubator and accelerator, MyCleverHub, which aims to kickstart new businesses by providing them with financial, business and marketing support among other things.
Papzie is already being piloted in Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester, but Luke has big plans to roll the app out nationally.
Luke told BusinessLive: “It wasn’t too long ago Papzie was just an idea I’d had in my parents spare room. Now I’m so grateful to have the support of MyCleverHub and the people working in local businesses who have given us the opportunity to try something new.
"We are working hard for local people to get the best local deals, then we hope to launch nationally."
Robotics firm is upbeat about the future
There may be some across the country who fear robots are taking our jobs, but in the north west, they’re actually helping create new ones.
CNC Robotics in Liverpool is turning into quite a success story, and has announced “rapid growth” in the past year - expanding its team by 25%.
The aim of the innovative firm is to improve productivity of manufacturing across the country and overseas, for businesses in sectors such as automotive, creative and even aerospace.
Madina Barker, director of the firm, said: “Automation is having a tremendous impact in the Liverpool City Region and the North West. Robots actually do processes that probably aren’t very nice for humans to do. And that’s really what they’re for.”
Ms Barker said recent “rapid growth” came about with the help of regional initiatives such as the LCR 4.0 programme, a part-funded EU scheme providing financial support for innovative firms, and the Made Smarter North West Pilot, which offers funding for creative new technologies for firms across the region.
She added: “We are committed to developing and supporting skills within the region and are looking forward to further growth in the years ahead.”
Technology that's helping people learn languages
Learning Labs is a tech company behind a range of products aimed at helping people improve their foreign language skills.
The firm initially started out with something very low tech - a series of Post-it Notes with graphics of everyday objects coupled with a translation and phonetic pronunciation guide, known as FlashSticks.
The idea came from director Richard Allen who used to stick hand-written notes around his hotel room as a way of learning Spanish while away on business trips.
FlashSticks were picked up by retailers such as WH Smith, Staples and Tesco and later followed by an app which users simply point at an object in order to scan it and receive a translation.
Chief executive Veejay Lingiah said the tech behind the app took 12 months to develop and could recognise not only objects in a generic sense, such as a handbag, but also its colour and material.
The app also contains grammar tips and puzzles.
The company has expanded its portfolio again to launch the FlashAcademy, a platform for schools which supports teachers working with pupils who do not have English as their first language.
The platform can be used on a smartphone, tablet and PC and teaches English from over 30 different languages.
The company is based at city centre tech campus Innovation Birmingham and last year won the Innovation in Education category at the West Midlands Tech Awards, run by our sister website BirminghamLive.
Fast-growing Welsh firm working with the biggest in the business
Vizolution, is a SaaS (software as a service) company helps enterprises streamline complex customer journeys by replicating the qualities of face-to-face interactions within remote channels.
The Swansea firm counts RBS, HSBC, Santander and O2 are among its customers.
At the end of 2018 it secured £10m in funding from three of the world’s largest banks.
Santander Consumer Finance and Royal Bank of Scotland have joined HSBC as investors in Vizolution. Each of these banks is an existing Vizolution client and uses its transformative suite of solutions to offer effortless customer experiences, both domestically and internationally.
It was also listed in the 18th annual Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table, which ranks Britain’s private technology, media and telecoms (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales, as was one of only three Welsh companies to make the list.
Virtual reality firm that’s helping Rolls-Royce
Virtual reality technology devised by a Derby digital specialist is helping to train workers at engineering giant Rolls-Royce.
Bloc Digital is a Derby company that specialises in the creation and reuse of digital information.
It is a leader in immersive technology, including virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) - and has developed solutions for industrial training and simulation applications using both.
Its work with Rolls-Royce came to fruition in April this year when the aero engine-maker started using the technology to deliver training to engineers at Qatar Airways.
They are learning their trade by being immersed in a virtual world where they are able to work on a Trent XWB - an engine which exclusively powers the Airbus A350 XWB.
Previously, the engine would have needed to be transported to Doha, which is the capital of Qatar, for training - or a Trent XWB would have been taken out of service, resulting in the loss of valuable flying time.
But with the new technology, engineers can work on a virtual engine, immersed in the process, using sight, sound and touch.
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According to Rolls-Royce, real world practical training remains its main focus. But with the number of air passengers set to almost double by 2036, more engineers will need to be trained to maintain and repair a growing number of aircraft and their engines.
Chris Cholerton, Rolls-Royce’s president of civil aerospace, said: “At Rolls-Royce we are designing, testing, and maintaining engines in the digital realm, so it makes sense that we bring cutting-edge technology to our training programmes.”
Investment has boosted online hiring marketplace
Manchester-based Hiring Hub is the online marketplace that is helping companies find talent faster.
Used by more than 500 employers including BASF, Sykes Cottages, Music Magpie and B&M Retail, Hiring Hub simplifies the process of working with recruiters.
Employers post their jobs onto the marketplace, and for transparency set a fee upfront to incentivise recruitment agencies to submit their best candidates, only paying that fee if they hire.
Employers can manage their recruitment activity on the platform, streamline what can be a admin-heavy process.
In March, the Northern Quarter company secured a £750,000 investment to develop its platform and continue scaling its team and increase sales and marketing activity.
It followed a £1.35 million investment from Maven Capital Partners, on behalf of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, and existing investor VentureFounders to boost its technology in 2017.
Hiring Hub founder and CEO Simon Swan said: “The business has made real progress over the last 18 months.
“It’s fantastic to have investors onboard that back our vision of supporting the 海角视频’s 16,000 plus independent recruitment agencies, while using technology to provide transparency, choice and speed – in doing so enhancing the customer experience – in what is a £35 billion domestic market.”
The investments helped the company grow subscription income 181 per cent year-on-year.
Could this be the Uber of breakdown assistance?
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? You are driving along, then all of a sudden you get a flat tyre, run out of fuel or the car’s power fails.
Then, for those of us who thought it would never happen, comes that call to a vehicle recovery firm, a flat fee to join and extra for whatever service you require.
But an East Midlands entrepreneur has developed an app which he hopes will bring to an end the woes of motorists across the country.
Shaz Rahman, of Nottingham, has released an app called ResQ which allows users to select a number of roadside services including recovery, wrong fuel assistance and mobile mechanics.
The app detects your location and then individual organisations can provide the user with quotes. The user then picks a quote and can track the agent.
Mr Rahman, who also owns a vehicle valeting and detailing service, said: "People like to use things like Uber so I thought we could use that idea for on-demand breakdown assistance.
"I researched it for about a year and a half and found there is no app like it on the market. It was quite a lot of work getting agents signed up because it is a brand new concept.”
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After researching the industry, he reached agreements with individual organisations, such as independent car garages, to be part of the app. They will receive jobs from users within a 30-mile radius and can provide quotes.
The work is then paid for by the motorist through the app.
It is currently predominantly based in the Midlands but agreements have also been reached in London.
Mr Rahman added: "My platform is built around reliability and speed. A lot of people don't want to pay for a membership so why shouldn't there be pay as you go breakdown cover?”
Helping you ‘feel’ objects in mid-air
Bristol-based Ultrahaptics has invented a way for people to ‘feel’ virtual objects in mid air using sound waves.
Founded by Tom Carter in 2013 and based on technology developed at the University of Bristol, The company’s tech lets users interact with virtual objects and controls using only their hands.
Ultrahaptics works with multinational companies including global electronics giants Bosch and Harman.
The technology has also been developed to work with industrial controls, medical interfaces and augmented reality and virtual reality games.
The company also supports academics worldwide through a programme designed to enable additional research and development around the tech.
Tom spent six years developing the tech using old parking sensors from cars, which he rigged up to a laptop running software to manipulate ultrasound waves working in combination with gesture recognition hardware.
Chief executive Steve Cliffe, who was persuaded by Tom to join the company, said: “I could see great potential to be able to walk into a dark room and just having to hold out your hand so that the light switch comes to you.
“I was excited by the idea of being able to develop switches for manufacturing or even ovens that couldn’t get hot to touch because they didn’t really exist as physical objects.”
Devon firm taking on Silicon Valley
The Moment Content Company is creating jobs by developing groundbreaking technology which is even ahead of what competitors can do in the USA’s famous Silicon Valley – and doing it from a “cool place” to work.
The Moment is a film, digital, immersive and learning agency, based in Estover, in Plymouth, and one of the largest divisions of The Creative Engagement Group (TCEG).
The Moment’s workforce has a unique, world-class combination of skills in moving image, interactive and immersive content, working for blue chip clients in consumer marketing, employee engagement and learning and training.
The Moment has 80 staff in Plymouth, another 220 in Manchester, Buckinghamshire and London, and 50 in Philadelphia, where the firm is now providing services for clients that can’t even be sourced in Silicon Valley, California.
The firm delivers thousands of creative projects a year, including 4,500 hours of film, 500,000 lines of code plus hundreds of consumer and employee engagement campaigns.
Among clients are the BBC, Carnival (the world’s largest cruise ship operator) and HSBC, and others in the engineering, medical and defence industries.
And the firm is growing, particularly as its AR and VR innovations become more sought after by educational and business organisations wanting to train workers to the highest standard.
Clothing firm’s global success
Ravi Karia set up online clothes store Universal Textiles in 2010, and sells socks, thermal underwear, hats, gloves and bedding to shoppers all over the world, including branded gear such as Regatta, Craghoppers and Fruit of the Loom.
He operates out of a 30,000 sq ft premises in Braunstone, Leicester, with 80 per cent of his sales going overseas.
The young entrepreneur has a spin-off business, called Pertemba, which gives shoppers a direct online route to big name clothes brands via online marketplaces such as Amazon, La Redoute and Privalia.
The system saves suppliers effort and expense and the headache of overseeing individual deliveries all around the world.
Brands such as Craghoppers, Animal and Trespass have already put their trust in the new service, enlisting Pertemba to represent them in 18 countries across Europe, America, Asia and Oceania.
Kenilworth mum set tech firm ParentPay on way to success
An industry-leading businessman has praised the ‘Kenilworth mum’ who set the company he runs on its way to success.
Clint Wilson, chief executive of ParentPay, hailed the company’s founder Lynne Taylor for the idea which sparked the creation and success of the online school payments business which now dominates the market across the 海角视频.
The secure web application allows parents to make online payments for all their child’s school items, such as meals, trips and uniform.
The company is one of the fastest growing in the 海角视频 and completed two acquisitions in 2018 to continue its growth in the 海角视频 and across Europe.
ParentPay’s success was highlighted at the recent Coventry and Warwickshire Champions event to a group of 200 business leaders at the Ricoh Arena, which is now the headquarters for the company.
Mr Wilson outlined the growth of the business from the initial idea formed in Lynne Taylor’s conservatory.
“Lynne’s simple but effective idea came from her own experiences as a parent and the lack of a convenient solution for sending money to school for trips and lunches, other than children carrying cash,” he said.
“She realised parents had to find the cash, children had to carry the money to school, staff then had to collect it before taking it to the bank.
“It was so inefficient and inconvenient, there had to be a better way.
“And so, ParentPay was born - a simple solution for securely sending money to school, that has grown to become an industry leading company.
“Continuous investment and a lot of hard work has seen us expand to the size we are now, with 13,500 海角视频 schools and 5.5 million pupils using our service.”
Britain's most successful tech firm?
Chip designer ARM develops technologies that have powered the smartphone revolution - and that's why it has become known as Britain's "leading technology company".
ARM licenses its semiconductor technologies to technology giants across the world. The Cambridge-based firm estimates its technology can be found in more than 125bn silicon chips.
Among the products that rely on ARM are Apple's iPads, Amazon Kindles, Nest smart thermostats and Ford cars. It has also worked with .
In 2016, Arm was taken over by Japan's SoftBank in a £24bn deal.
Reporting by the BusinessLive team - Alistair Houghton, Charlotte Turner, Chris Pyke, Coreena Ford, David Laister, Enda Mullen, Graeme Whitfield, Hannah Baker, Hannah Finch, Jonathon Manning, Laura James, Matthew Bunn, Owen Hughes, Phil Winter, Robin Johnson, Shelina Begum, Sion Barry, Tamlyn Jones, Tom Pegden, Tom Houghton, William Telford