Member Article

Sheffield’s WANdisco picks up national AIM award

Sheffield-based WANdisco has won the Best Technology Award at the 18th annual AIM Awards Dinner, held at Old Billingsgate in London.

WANdisco (Wide Area Network Distributed Computing) is a provider of enterprise-ready, non-stop software solutions that enable globally distributed organisations to meet today’s data challenges of secure storage, scalability and availability.

There was a total of three winners across Yorkshire and North East, with South Shields-based Utilitywise picking up the award for Best Use of AIM and Robert Forrester of Gateshead-based Vertu Motors winning Entrepreneur of the Year, sponsored by PwC.

The awards come as the AIM market raised €564m through company floats during the third quarter of 2013 – almost 2.5 times more than the amount raised in the same quarter in 2012, PwC has found.

20 IPOs raised €564m compared to 13 IPOs generating €233m in Q3 2012, a 142% increase year on year.

BBC journalist Sophie Raworth presented awards to the very best of the fast growing entrepreneurial companies on AIM, both UK and internationally based.

Arif Ahmad, office senior partner at PwC in Leeds said: “The surge in AIM proceeds year on year is further evidence of the fair weather economic conditions which have been on the horizon for so long. With established iconic companies like ASOS and Mulberry gracing the AIM exchange alongside new trailblazers like WANdisco and Clinigen, it’s clear that entrants old and new have style and substance.

“In the past there have been occasional comments that companies on AIM suffer from poor governance. PwC research has shown this is not the case. Many companies choose to comply voluntarily with the code adhered to by plcs in the FTSE 350.

“It’s fair to say that AIM is prospering, but we need to ensure that we carry on this upward trajectory by providing the springboard for more high-growth companies- both homegrown and international- to evolve. This can only be achieved by making the UK and its capital markets as attractive as possible.”

WANdisco was co-founded in 2005 by David Richards, Jim Campigli and Dr Yeturu Aahlad, and the company has has dual headquarters in Silicon Valley and Sheffield. WANdisco grew, without raising any private equity, venture capital or angel finance to become a leading provider of global collaboration software to the software development industry.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mark Lane .