Innovation with impact: showcasing UK business successes
A new publication highlights how businesses across the UK are being transformed by innovation and by government support for their ideas.
The co-founders of Unmade, Hal Watts, Kirsty Emery and Ben Alun-Jones.
Successful technology businesses feature in a new Innovate UK publication celebrating the impact of innovation.
The booklet highlights 50 successful companies that have been helped by Innovate UK.
It gives examples of how a business can be changed dramatically through innovation and how government support has helped to get ideas off the ground and closer to market.
Among the successful businesses are:
AlertMe.com: the business developed an Internet of Things system connecting devices in the home with support from Innovate UK. It had grown to employ 100 staff when its biggest customer British Gas acquired it for £65 million in 2015.
Pilgrim Beart, founder of AlertMe.com
Unmade: Feasibility study funding from Innovate UK helped the business to get off the ground. It has since attracted £2 million in seed investment for its technology enabling industrial knitting machines to become ‘3D printers’ and produce bespoke knitwear. Unmade now employs 22 people.
Signal Media: this media intelligence start-up took part in a knowledge transfer partnership with the University of Essex to develop natural language processing. The work helped the business to grow from 3 to 38 staff in 3 years and to raise £1.2 million in private investment in 2015.
See more about how Innovate UK support has helped these and other businesses to achieve success.
Innovate UK’s investment in innovation
Innovate UK chief executive Ruth McKernan said:
Since 2007 Innovate UK has helped thousands of innovative companies to bring new ideas, products and services closer to market. Some firms have grown dramatically, or entered new markets. Some have attracted major new investment or floated their business.
These companies are just some of the outstanding examples of the innovative companies we have worked with in the UK. We look forward to working with many more, helping the UK economy to grow and create jobs.
Innovate UK has invested around £1.8 billion in innovation since it was formed in 2007. That investment has been more than matched by the private sector and has returned up to £13.1 billion to the economy.
Innovate UK has supported innovation in 7,600 organisations, creating around 55,000 new jobs – more than 7 for each company supported.
Find out more about how Innovate UK can support your business