Tech Corridor shines bright in Tech Nations’ Rising Stars 4.0 regional winners

Tech Nation announced its regional winners for Rising Stars 4.0 and the Tech Corridor community shone as three companies, two from Cambridge and one from Ely took three of the five regional top spots.

Rising Stars 4.0 is the UK’s most exciting competition for innovative, early-stage tech companies. Designed to showcase the best the country has to offer, it is the UK’s only truly national scaleup competition, designed to be accessible to the best early-stage tech companies from all areas of the country.

Entrants are supported throughout the application process, and given training and support at each stage of the competition to enable them to compete to the best of their ability and deliver the perfect pitch.

The competition culminates in the top 20 companies, made from the regional winners, being showcased and promoted to a highly curated audience of investors, corporates, influencers and the wider tech ecosystem. The judging panel will then deliberate over the final 20, selecting 10 companies to be named as this year’s Rising Stars, who will feature in a high-profile celebration event on 24 March 2022.

The regional winners have been announced and, from the East, three of the five organisations selected are from the Tech Corridor region. These include:

Arete Medical Tech (Cambridge)

Arete Medical Tech are transforming respiratory clinical pathways by combining an innovative and novel medical device with a digital health platform. They augment AI and ML with a patented device that allows them to collect previously untapped data for risk stratification, medicine optimisation, and prediction modelling. In addition to transforming patients’ lives and improving clinical resource usage through remote monitoring and self-management, Arete Medical Tech brings specialist-grade clinical solutions into patients’ homes.

Founder and CEO of Arete Medical Tech, Graeham Douglas, commented on being part of the region “Cambridge and the wider region is a global cluster for medical technology innovation, with leading hospitals, universities, corporates, and talent. We also have access to leading manufacturing, research and business opportunities in the rest of the East of England, the Midlands, Oxford and London. There is nowhere better in the world for the density of and access to the resources we need to build our solution in respiratory medicine.”

electronRx (Cambridge)

ElectronRx is a deep tech company of interdisciplinary scientists and engineers paving the way for personalised digital medicine through the development of novel chronic disease management solutions. Their proprietary machine learning algorithms harness sensors readily available in a standard smartphone to extract medical-grade heart, lung and vascular health insights with no additional wearables or devices needed.

When asked how it felt to be a rising Star regional winner, CEO and founder Bipin Patel said “We are delighted to be recognised as a Rising Star in a region with such fierce competition as Cambridge; one of the world’s leading tech hubs full of companies who, like us, are working on the cutting-edge of deep tech discovery and innovation to solve big global problems. The chronic disease epidemic is crippling our healthcare systems with no signs of abating. Our scalable disease management tools are transforming how we deliver healthcare and treat these conditions, enabling a shift from reactive to proactive care. We have a fast-growing, world-class team ready to further capitalise on the renewed appetite for digital health technologies post-COVID to skyrocket our success and improve quality of life for chronic disease patients across the globe in 2022.”

Fintellity (Ely)

Fintellity offers regulated businesses tools that contribute to socially responsible payments by providing services that prevent financial crime and protect vulnerable groups, as well as facilitating bank transfers to be a cheaper alternative to traditional card processing.

Ely based Fintellity CEO Shardri Cosgove was asked about how the region has supported her journey so far, she said “The support from our local region has been instrumental in the progress Fintellity has made so early in our journey. Starting with early membership at Innovation Labs based in Stowmarket, through to bespoke mentoring from Innovate UK EDGE based in Cambridge, and then attending Tech Nation’s monthly virtual meetings for Ladies of the East.”

Joining them from the rest of the East is HR DataHub (Houghton Conquest) and MYNDUP (Epping).

Would Rising Stars be right for you?

Tech Nation want to showcase the brightest and best that UK tech has to offer. Businesses must meet a few simple criteria though, including:

• Seed to pre-Series A funding stage OR if revenue focused, generating annual revenues below £1.5m
• A digital tech business with a product or service to sell*
• At least one active client or pilot
• Able to demonstrate market traction
• HQ’d in UK
• Company incorporated between 1-3 years
• Able to commit to key dates in the Rising Stars calendar

If you feel that this could be for you, you can pre-register your interest for Rising Stars 5.0 through this link: Rising Stars – UK pitch competition for early-stage tech startups – Tech Nation and make sure you are in the mix to potentially be one of the winners for 2023/24.