The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) has launched the next edition of its celebrated start-ups programme, the Tech Rocketship Awards at Mobile World Congress.

The Awards will identify the brightest and best tech companies from across Europe, Israel & Turkey to help them on their journey towards internationalisation, offering the opportunity to experience a fully-tailored market visit to the UK.

The entries will be judged by experts on a country level before going through to a European grand finale with live pitches in front of high-profile judges that will include business leaders, venture capitalists, dealmakers, and tech specialists.

The competition accelerates the global growth of the winners, through personally-curated direct meetings with the UK’s world-leading ecosystem of investors, incubators and High Potential Opportunity clusters.

Following the success of programmes in Europe, India, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, Tech Rocketships seeks scale-up businesses with innovative, technology-led solutions across a wide spectrum of industries and are ready to internationalise. The finalists will battle it out in a ‘Dragon’s Den’-style live pitch to identify Gold, Silver & Bronze winners.

The Categories

The Tech Rocketship Awards Categories are:

  • AI
  • 5G
  • Agri-Tech
  • Digital Health
  • Cybersecurity
  • Climate Tech

There has also been a new award created to address the recent Atomico report highlighting the lack of funding for diverse businesses, a Diversity in Tech Award. 

Further, as part of the campaign’s outreach programme, the UK Department for International Trade will run a series of workshops in partnership with the Global Entrepreneur Programme, awards partners, and UK nations and regions, aimed at providing applicants with expert personal advice on:

  • High Potential Opportunities in the thriving UK tech ecosystem
  • Insights from companies who have successfully expanded to the UK
  • Workshops on pitching for investment and refining global market strategies

Speaking on the Awards, Chris Barton, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Europe, said that “there is no better place for ambitious tech companies to grow than the UK. This is the number one country in Europe for Unicorns, and UK tech VC investment is the third largest in the world. Our tech sector is the home of forward-thinking innovators, venture capital, R&D clusters and opportunities for growth across the whole of the UK.”

“Tech Rocketships will provide the lucky winners with a rocket-powered, fully-tailored direct route to the financiers, incubators, tech-savvy customers, and all the infrastructure needed to help them make that next great leap from ambitious scale-up to unicorn.” - Chris Barton, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Europe

Application Deadline

Closing date for submissions is 1st May 2022. Full details about the competition, including terms and conditions are on the Tech Rocketship Awards website. Winners will be announced in November 2022. The six selected finalists will get to pitch live to a high profile judging panel and the top three Tech Rocketship Awards winners (gold, silver and bronze) will be crowned during the Grand Finale.

Closing date for submissions is 1st May 2022.