In its third year, Rising Stars 3.0 is the UK's only national competition for innovative, early-stage tech companies, designed to showcase the best in the country and to help companies on their growth journey.
The five regional winners for each region and nation across the UK have been selected by a panel of industry experts, and are regarded as tech leaders within their respective regions. These companies will now compete nationally for the chance to be named as one of Tech Nation’s 10 Rising Stars 3.0. The Rising Stars UK Winners will be revealed in February 2021.
Tech Nation’s Rising Stars are on track to become the world leading tech companies of tomorrow, using technology to tackle the world’s greatest challenges. The competition provides the opportunity for the best of the nation’s early-stage scaleups to meet leading investors, influencers and corporates.
The competition received 330 applications in total, with 62% of applications from outside London. The competition also received 39% of applications from female founders and co-founders, of which we're proud to say that Upside is one of!
Esme Caulfield, Competitions Lead, Tech Nation comments:
Everyone knows that 2020 is a challenging year. We're honoured that so many companies took the time to apply for Rising Stars 3.0, and are truly excited about the calibre of our Regional Winners. It's great to see companies from every imaginable sector in the competition, and from every corner of the UK - from Aberdeen to Falmouth and everywhere in between.
“The 55 Rising Stars Regional Winners are companies that are proving their resilience and adaptability, building products that will support businesses and customers both now, and into the future. They are all deserving of recognition - and here at Tech Nation, we're thrilled to celebrate and showcase them.”
Since the company founded early in 2020, Upside has blasted through several milestones including:
- Becoming FCA regulated
- Launching the app to 250 beta testers
- Limited spaces 'selling out' in a matter of hours
- Crowned winners of InvestEast / UEZ / Rising Stars Tech Nation / Top 3 at Startup Grind Global
- Having coverage of 80+ banks
- Gaining coverage of 20 top retail brands (subject to constant change)
- Successfully finding cashback effortlessly through the app
- Launching multi-linking of accounts
- Successfully raising preseed round on Seedrs of £350,000
Upside has a long and exciting road ahead and fantastic wins such as this Tech Nation's recognition helps immensely by confirming, what we're doing is disruptive, innovative and most importantly, truly useful to people looking for ways to save.
CEO Andries Smit comments:
We're humbled to be a Rising Star Winner for East Anglia. It is a great testimony to the Upside team's results in helping consumers get frictionless cashback. We are looking forward to helping even more customers get more in 2021!
Tech Nation has years of experience facilitating and helping UK tech companies scale, both at home and abroad. Over 20 cohorts and 600 companies have successfully graduated from Tech Nation’s growth programmes. Alumni include Skyscanner, Darktrace, and Monzo - some great companies demonstrating the level of success Upside hopes to also achieve.