Six start-up champions of North Wales recognised at national awards

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A business on Anglesey has won the North Wales start-up of the year category at the 2021 Wales Startup Awards.

Founded by George Smithies and Aaron Vousden in 2018 and with its headquarters in Llanddona, innDex brings automation and transparency to the construction industry.

It does this by creating a better connected and digital workforce and improving the social impact of projects.

Inndex scooped the North Wales start-up of the year category at the 2021 Wales Startup Awards. (Image: POLLY THOMAS 2021)

This then allows public and private decision makers to better plan construction projects around the availability of a skilled local workforce, improving on sustainability in the form of social, economic and environmental impact.

Other winners from the region at the 2021 Wales Startup Awards are:

Graduate start-up of the year

Graduate start-up of the year was won by Pai Language Learning (Image: POLLY THOMAS 2021)

Pai Language Learning: An online language learning platform that aims to use data science to optimise the learning process and create learning content for minority languages.

Manufacturing start-up of the year

Manufacturing start-up of the year was won by LIMB-art at the Wales Start Up Awards 2021 (Image: POLLY THOMAS 2021)

LIMB-art: An innovative design and manufacturing company that is dedicated to producing the world’s coolest prosthetic leg covers.

Mobile and emerging technology start-up of the year

Innovative Dewin Open:Close technology has been unveiled by Dewin Tech, a new business founded by Geraint Hughes and Meinir Lloyd Jones (Image: Radar PR)

Dewin Tech: A husband-and-wife business that is determined and passionate to bring 21st-century technology to fruition, focusing initially on the natural resources and agricultural sectors.

Rising Star

The Scouted Hub: A leading global football consultancy that works in partnership with select clients to achieve success both on and off the football pitch.

Special Covid-19 award

Llaethdy Mynydd Mostyn: The firm installed a self-service milk and glass bottle vending machine that is open 24/7 and allows customers to buy fresh milk and milkshakes within hours of cows being milked.

Aaron, from innDex, said: “We’re absolutely honoured to have won this award after being nominated alongside such an amazing bunch of Welsh companies.

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“There are some really hot prospects coming out of Wales at the moment and we’re proud to be part of it.

“The past year has been mental with the construction industry going from strength to strength and luckily we have been part of this, working on some really exciting projects with some of the country’s biggest construction businesses. Onwards and upwards – we’re really optimistic.”

The Wales Startup awards showcase the best new businesses every year and is only open to Welsh firms less than three years old. The overall winner of the awards was Cardiff-based Yoello, a business that launched its mobile payments platform into the UK hospitality and retail market at the beginning of the pandemic and since then has been recognised as one of the top growing fintechs in the UK.

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Prof Dylan Jones-Evans, who created the awards in 2015, stated that despite the enormous challenges faced by businesses across Wales during the pandemic, new firms had continued to make a significant impact He said: “It would be an understatement to say that the last eighteen months has been a challenge to the North Wales business community.

Professor Dylan Jones Evans

“Yet, despite everything, there have been record numbers of new firms established in North Wales during the worst economic crisis in over three hundred years. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has not only created amazing new opportunities for entrepreneurs but, more importantly, startups have made an outstanding contribution to keeping the economy going at the most difficult of times.”

Alwen Williams of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, who sponsored the North Wales award, said: “InnDex have shown true entrepreneurialism through their venture, spotting a gap in the market and using their skills, talent and networks to provide a much-needed service for the construction industry.”

Other sponsors based in North Wales included BIC Innovation, Creating Enterprise, M-SParc, the GLLM Food Technology centre, and Town Square.

M-SParc managing director Pryderi ap Rhisiart said: “The biggest winner at the start-up awards was the Welsh Start-Up eco-system.

“I’ve never seen so many members from that system together under one-roof before, congratulations to the organisers for such an achievement.

“The atmosphere in the room was electric.”

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