Deadline nigh for 35th Anniversary Business Weekly Awards

Just take three of the latest entries – CuspAI, ExpressionEdits and Tesselate Bio. The beauty of these businesses is that they appear to be built on solid ground – built to last. That is crucial when the trading climate is as challenging as it is for a lot of the time these days.

Companies still wishing to enter the Awards can still do so before the closing date – midnight, June 30. You can enter via https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/awards-submission or by emailing Tony Quested – tquested@businessweekly.co.uk

Winners will be announced at the Business Weekly Awards dinner, with a host of features, at Queens’ College, Cambridge on Monday, September 15. As well as a broad range of specialist category winners covering the broadest spread of business disciplines, the Awards will feature a Champion of Champions trophy for the greatest ever winner, plucked from our Hall of Fame. Experts from lead forensic sponsor, law firm Mills & Reeve, have already been out and about conducting confidential reports on a number of hopeful candidates.

Some of the contenders

Demonstrating the breadth of its proposition and core technology, CuspAI is tilting at four categories: AI Company of the Year, Disruptive Technology, Startup of the Year and Sustainability champion.

The frontier AI company is developing breakthrough materials to drive human progress and address global challenges like climate change. Its unique platform blends state-of-the-art generative models with chemistry simulators and a reinforcement learning agent. It raised a $30 million seed round – an excellent achievement – and has established key industry and research partnerships, including with Meta, to make carbon capture affordable and scalable.

The company has active programmes in other high-impact areas including advanced semiconductors and energy systems. CuspAI has secured the support of top AI advisers, including Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton and Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, reinforcing its growing influence in AI-driven materials innovation.

The prolific life science entrepreneur Allan Bradley is the brains behind ExpressionEdits, which started life at The EpiCentre in Haverhill and grew into new HQ premises at Babraham Research Campus. It is basically a platform biotech focused on therapeutics. It is redefining how protein expression constructs are designed, using its AI-driven Genetic Syntax Engine and proprietary intronisation technology. Co-founded by Dr. Kärt Tomberg, the team is the first to systematically engineer multi-intron constructs to unlock higher, more reliable transgene expression.

Tessellate, anchored at Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, has entered Collaboration of the Year and Life Science Innovation. It has entered into a strategic collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim, to jointly develop first-in-class treatments targeting tumours dependent on a mechanism known as Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (prevalent in ~10-15 per cent of cancers and associated with poor prognosis).

Kudos

Entrants to all the Awards categories stand to gain a highly rewarding payback. Many past category winners and Businesses of the Year have gained cash, kudos and collaborations along the way because the Awards are so thoroughly judged by such sound arbiters.

A modest launch Awards competition in 1990 has blossomed into a highly valued networking event and the 35th Anniversary dinner will be a special night at Queens' College, Cambridge where serial entrepreneur and consummate dealmaker Sherry Coutu delivers the address.

A number of companies along the way have enhanced reputations to such a level that they have been acquired for an estimated $80 billion - and that is only in the Business of the Year winners' Hall of Fame.

A large number of category winners have also either raised sizeable cash and enhanced reputations globally while a great many have also been acquired up by international big hitters. So the eyes of the investment world are open to all who enter here!

When Tony Purnell won the launch competition with Pi he didn't even have a business plan. It was an omission he was to correct immediately. The business was to later be acquired for many millions.

Also among the early winners was Domino Printing which stood proudly independent as American buyers hoovered up the rest of the inkjet industry in the East of England.

Superchip architect Arm was also an early winner, eventually to be bought by SoftBank in Japan while Cambridge Antibody Technology was snapped by AstraZeneca.

Whoever wins Business of the Year will go into the Champion of Champions category, chosen from all the most successful companies since launch in May 1990.

Women entrepreneurs, businesses enhanced by graduates, AI specialists, engineers across all manner of specialisms, TechBio businesses, market disruptors, startups, quoted companies and international trailblazers are all recognised across the categories. We cover the best collaborations and the most eye catching deals and all category winners are presented with lovely, engraved crystal obelisks.

Categories

Startup of the Year: For a start-up in any sector deemed to have the most potential to become globally successful.

Cambridge Judge Graduate Business of the Year: For a venture that in the last 12 months has benefited from engagement with the wider Cambridge ecosystem – in terms of support and giving back –and is retaining graduate talent.

Sir Michael Marshall Engineering Excellence Award: For a company or individual who in the last 12 months has added game-changing engineering to any product in any business & industry.

Disruptive Technology: For a company in any sector whose science or technology is deemed to be genuinely game-changing on a broad scale.

The Pathfinder Award: For a company whose science or technology is influencing next-generation Life Science innovation.

Technology Scale-up: For a hi-tech company that in the previous 12 months has broadened its market reach, scaled headcount, secured increased investment or added noticeable impact to its technology proposition.

Life Science Scale-up: For the Life Science business that has shown most progress in the preceding 12 months in terms of scaling headcount, broadening vertical markets or increasing the potency of its pipeline.

Life Science Innovation: For the organisation or individual who has done the most to further the cause of life science discovery for the benefit of human healthcare internationally.

International Trade Champion: For a business in any industry that has significantly broadened its export sales or access to global markets.

Collaboration of the Year: This Award is designed to recognise a meeting of minds and marriage of expertise in any field of activity in the last 12 months without which the driver of the initiative would not have been able to make such signifiant progress.

Quoted Company of the Year: For a company in the region based on any public exchange which in the last 12 months has fleshed out its proposition and maintained or enhanced value for its shareholders.

Female Founder in AI: For an inspirational female founder or co-founder of a growing company deemed successful in the sphere of Artificial Intelligence.

Sustainability Champion: For a company whose science or technology is deemed to hold most potential to dramatically reduce or eliminate the carbon footprint of industry and achieve demonstrable sustainability.

AI Company of the Year: For a business in any sector of business that in the last 12 months has made demonstrable progress in developing or monetising artificial intelligence.

Deal of the Year: For a deal that has raised significant growth funding, enhancing the recipient’s ability to deploy the investment in a game-changing manner. Or a significant Merger or Acquisition that has strengthened the local party’s ability to expand.