The SPARKies is done for another year, and as always the Scale Up of the Year award was one of the most hotly contested categories on the night. This year it went to Loqbox, marking a hat-trick of Scaleup of the Year SPARKies wins for the team.
Loqbox’s win couldn’t feel more fitting alongside the words of this year’s Scale Up of the Year sponsor, VWV, who told us ahead of the ceremony that scaleup success today comes down to resilience, adaptability, and having the right team in place to make the most of the opportunities available.
Our judges agreed, praising Loqbox as “fintech with measurable social impact at genuine scale,” noting the business had “demonstrated exceptional growth while remaining focused on delivering value for its customers.”
We sat down with VWV to hear more about their partnership with the SPARKies and what’s got them excited about the region right now.
What makes the SPARKies so special?
Quite simply, the people. We are so lucky to work in a region with so many amazing businesses and extraordinarily talented people. SPARKies is a brilliant way to recognise and celebrate their achievements. As a sponsor, it is one of the highlights of our year, because we get to spend the evening with some of our most favourite people – the amazing techSPARK team, so many of our wonderful clients as well as other friends and colleagues in the ecosystem.
As sponsors of the Scaleup of the Year award, what would scaleup success look like to you in the current climate?
The current climate is not without its challenges, so scaleups need to be resilient, they need to be able to adapt to the market dynamics and develop the foundations for sustainable growth. We are all aware that the investment market remains a challenge, but as we have seen over the last 12 months, the money is there for scaleups who have developed science or technology that meets a market or societal need, that can demonstrate commercial traction and that have the right team in place to make the most of the opportunities available to them. All of this requires inspiring leadership from management teams and a positive workplace environment that inspires and incentivises the team to stay and to work hard, and that puts the company in the best possible position to recruit and retain more amazing people to drive the business forward.
For any startup reading this, what's the one piece of advice you'd give them as they grow?
Fully engage with and embrace our amazing ecosystem – it is our region’s superpower. Whether it comes from engaging with brilliant organisations like techSPARK, SETsquared, Science Creates, Future Space (to name but a few), or from the advisers in the region, or from other founders, the support is there from people who have the experience and expertise that you need but, importantly, a willingness to roll their sleeves up and make a difference.
Outside of the SPARKies, what's happening in the region right now that excites you?
The recent opening of Science Creates OMX and the imminent opening of the University of Bristol’s Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus are both genuinely exciting developments! However, I am also particularly excited by the number of significant investment deals that our region’s startups and scaleups have secured over the last few months. We were delighted to have advised each of Astral Systems, Scarlet Therapeutics, Signable and Neuronostics (amongst others) on their respective investment deals and we are confident that we will see more significant deals in the coming 12 months as institutional investors become even more aware of the amazing opportunities in the South West.
Huge congratulations again to Loqbox on their Scale Up of the Year win, and a big thank you to VWV for their continued partnership and support of the SPARKies.
