Recognising a range of exciting Scottish companies pushing the boundaries in digital technologies, the 2014 Digital Technology Awards were announced yesterday. Contributing £4bn in GVA to the economy, some 80,000 people work in Scotland’s digital technologies industry, which is increasingly contributing to export revenues. The awards, organised by trade body ScotlandIS, feature nine categories.
The Best New Product or Service Award category was won by DeltaDNA, formerly Games Analytics. The judges considered their new product, revolutionising the way games publishers interact with their players, has significant global market potential.
StormID were awarded the Public Services Innovation Award for their ground-breaking “Council Toolkit” which allows local councils to rapidly and efficiently build responsive public services websites.
The Digital Agency of the Year Award went to Glasgow-based digital studio ScreenMedia, who impressed the judges for re-investing profits from a successful fitness app to develop their mobile technology and design prowess, building on an already remarkable client portfolio.
The Best Newcomer category has a track record for predicting rising stars in the digital industry. This year’s winner was Mallzee for its fashion shopping mobile app, having recently completed an impressive round of angel funding and well on their way to becoming the “go-to shopping destination on mobile”.
Another young company making strides in a challenging and competitive market is Nucleus, winners of the Innovation within Financial Services Award. The Edinburgh-based team of former financial advisors created an independent investment management platform, aimed at challenging the dominance of traditional fund providers and rebalancing the market in favour of clients and their advisors.
App development specialists Kotikan won the Outstanding Performance in Business Growth award, recognising their continually expanding client list and highly regarded brand, successfully established in a highly competitive market.
Recognising Scottish companies successfully taking on challenging overseas markets, the International Growth Award was another contest almost too close to call. Having been strong contender’s in previous years it was great to see comms software specialists Calnex win through to first place in this category, recognising their significant gains in several foreign territories, including tough markets such as Japan.
Highlights of the evening were the winners of the Digital Technology Company of the Year awards, with categories for smaller and larger companies.
Overall winners, for the second year in a row, of the Small Digital Technology Company of the Year Award are FreeAgent, who continue to grow their business, disrupting the accounting services market with their software, with a rapidly expanding customer base with exceptional retention rates.
Craneware scooped the highly coveted large Digital Technology Company of the Year Award in recognition of their inspiring performance over the last year and impressive ability to continue to transform financial administration in the US health market.
