Santander is offering early-stage startups across the UK the opportunity to win up to £25,000 of equity-free funding and business support through the Santander X UK Awards 2024.
Now in its 14th year, Santander’s annual entrepreneurship competition brings together the UK’s most innovative emerging businesses to pitch for their share of
To date they’ve supported thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs and given more than £1 million of funding over the last 14 years.
Last year’s final was held at Unity Place, Santander’s new head office in Milton Keynes, and featured judges including musician, presenter, and investor Tinie Tempah, former Olympic gold medallist and entrepreneur Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Dragon’s Den star and founder of Gener8 Sam Jones, alongside Santander UK’s CEO Mike Regnier and Chairman, William Vereker. The 6 winners in 2023 were Intotum, RREACT, Natantis, Lambda Agri, ACT Medical and Snowball Community Ltd.
This year the competition has 2 categories: University and Startup. The University category is exclusively for university-linked emerging businesses. The Startup category is open to UK incorporated early-stage businesses who are looking to scale.
Applications are open until 16 July 2024.
6 winners (3 per category) will get up to £25,000 equity-free funding and will go forward to represent the UK in the Santander X Global Awards, the bank’s international early-stage entrepreneurship competition, where they’ll have the opportunity to compete against the best early-stage startups from across Europe and Latin America.
Simon Sansome, CEO and founder of Snowball Community Limited, the ultimate disability app, was one of the winners of the Santander X UK Awards 2023 and went on to additionally win in the Santander X Global Award.
Speaking about his experience, Simon commented: “The Santander X Awards was a really tough competition. It was months of work and the businesses we were up against were incredible. I’m so grateful that the judges saw what Snowball is and what it can become in the future. With the prize money we can now pay to take on staff and get them trained to do Snowball Assessments [at venues] across the UK.”
If you’re interested in emulating the success of Simon and Snowball, visit the Santander X UK Awards 2024 web page for more information on eligibility and how to apply.
Applications for this year’s competition close on 16 July 2024.