We’ve Been Shortlisted - Wales Start-Up Awards 2021
Great news folks, we have been shortlisted for the Wales Start-Up Awards 2021. After a tough year with many highs and lows we are in the running for Innovative Start-Up of the Year and Valleys Start-Up of the Year.
The awards were created as a way of recognising the achievements of Welsh entrepreneurs and are currently the only of their kind in Wales - specifically focused on recognising the achievements of new businesses. More good news is that the awards will be taking place physically in the Depot, Cardiff on September 9. In this year’s edition 90 firms will be competing for 28 awards.
Nominated in the same categories as us, are other upcoming Welsh start-ups.
Nominees for Valleys Start-Up of the Year are Care Ethics, Central Recruitment Service, and Infoteam International.
For Innovative Start-Up of the Year, we are nominated alongside Grafmarine, Intuety, and Starfish Labs.
Good luck to all.
To find out more and check out nominees from other categories head over over to Wales Start-Up Awards.
What the awards recognise
The Wales Start-Up Awards are the only awards programme in Wales specifically focused on new businesses. Unlike broader business awards that include large companies and established enterprises, the Wales Start-Up Awards are exclusively for businesses that are in their early stages — typically up to three years old — and are making a significant contribution to the Welsh economy or society.
Being shortlisted in two categories — Innovative Start-Up of the Year and Valleys Start-Up of the Year — in the same year is a significant recognition. The Innovative Start-Up category recognises the most technically or commercially innovative new businesses in Wales. The Valleys category recognises businesses that are contributing to economic development and opportunity in the Welsh Valleys communities.
The Valleys connection
Nightingale HQ’s connection to the Valleys reflects the company’s commitment to building a technology business that is genuinely rooted in Wales, not just headquartered there. The Welsh Valleys have significant industrial heritage — coal and steel, primarily — and a workforce with deep manufacturing knowledge. GoSmarter’s focus on manufacturing AI connects directly to that heritage and represents a pathway for those skills and that knowledge to contribute to a 21st-century industrial economy.
Being shortlisted for Valleys Start-Up of the Year alongside Care Ethics, Central Recruitment Service, and Infoteam International placed Nightingale HQ in company with other businesses making real contributions to Welsh communities, not just to the Cardiff tech scene.
The competition context
Nightingale HQ was nominated alongside Grafmarine, Intuety, and Starfish Labs for Innovative Start-Up of the Year — all companies doing interesting work in the Welsh tech ecosystem. The competition reflects the quality of what is being built in Wales, and Nightingale HQ’s shortlisting in both categories demonstrates the breadth of its ambition: innovative in technology, rooted in community.
The 2021 awards ceremony at the Depot, Cardiff, was one of the first significant in-person events of the post-lockdown period — itself a reminder of how much had changed and how much businesses like Nightingale HQ had navigated to reach the point of being shortlisted for national recognition.