Santander paying out 12 payments worth up to £25,000 before Christmas

Santander has announced the winners of its annual awards competition for innovative early-stage entrepreneurs. The UK high street banking giant's 12 finalists pitched to a panel of high-profile judges, including Gary Neville and Dame Jess Ennis-Hill.

Others in attendance were BBC Dragon’s Den star Sam Jones, and former Head of Social at Gymshark, Elfried Samba, alongside Santander’s CEO, Mike Regnier on 14 November. Santander has been running an annual entrepreneurship competition for 14 years and in this time has provided more than £1 million in equity-free funding to thousands of UK start-ups and small businesses.

Tom Scrope, founder of Soil Benchmark, said: “We have a product, we know it works - we just need to get the word out and more farmers using it, so any publicity we can get is invaluable. I’m not going to pretend that standing up in front of Gary Neville and Jess Ennis-Hill wasn’t nerve-wracking, but what a brilliant experience. The Santander X UK Awards is a very high-profile competition for start-ups and we’re so grateful and proud to have won it.”

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Mike Regnier, Santander UK CEO, said: “I thoroughly look forward to judging at the Santander X Awards each year. Start-ups play a vital role in stimulating growth and innovation in the UK economy, but they face many challenges. The X Awards are just one way we’re helping the country’s most exciting new entrepreneurs to overcome these challenges through vital funding, skill-building, and fostering connections along the way. A huge congratulations to this year’s six winners – I look forward to watching your businesses grow.”

In first place - bagging a £15,000 payment - were Even, comprised of Sarah Bailey, Anushka Mahesh & Aurusha Kharas, from the University of Bristol, who had radical, low-cost period underwear for the humanitarian sector and low-income communities.

£10,000 went to iNatural's Abhishek Gupta from University of Wolverhampton, which is a biotech start-up developing advanced hydrogel as dressings that leverage natural biomaterials to promote wound healing. £5,000 in third place went to Sealeo's Diana Epel and Emanuele Griccioli from Imperial College London.

Sealeo ensures the delivery of life-saving medicine with innovative, affordable, and biodegradable packaging. The startup category saw £25,000 paid to Soil Benchmark, which helps farms improve soil health by creating AI-driven Soil Management Plans, now serving 1300+ farms covering 4% of England.

£15,000 went to Innerworks which prevents fraud and improves trust online with intelligent bot detection and user authentication, and third place went to Luna, the World’s first digital health and wellbeing companion for tweens/teens.