Cambridge, 29 November 2007

Last night, Texperts won the Innovative Company of the Year prize at the Real Business/CBI Growing Business Awards. This marks the second award for Texperts in 2007, who picked up a National Business Award for Best Use of Technology back in July.

The high profile awards ceremony was held at the Marriott Hotel on Grosvenor Square, and has been called “the business equivalent of the Oscars” by PM Gordon Brown. Texperts’ CEO and co-founder Sarah McVittie was presented the award by Theo Paphitis, of Dragon’s Den fame, and celebrity impressionist Rory Bremner, who compered the evening.

McVittie dedicated the award to her company’s “brilliant team of hard-working Texperts, who have all made the service such a success.” Afterward the ceremony she said,

“it has been an amazing year, where we have really been in the national spotlight. It is exciting to be at the forefront of the mobile industry and we are really starting to achieve what we always aimed for: to change the way people interact on mobile.”

McVittie promised that more innovation was on the horizon for a company with a proven track record of delivering exciting and useful new consumer-oriented services.

Texperts, operated by RE5ULT Ltd. on the 66000 shortcode, is a multi-award winning “mobile find” service that answers any question by text for £1. Founded 4 years ago, the Texperts service eliminates the need to search and instead delivers a single answer optimised for the mobile “on the go” experience. Based in Cambridge, UK and originally operating under the name 82ASK, the company recently re-branded to take its service to a wider audience. Texperts has hundreds of researchers who work world-wide, and the company has grown rapidly since its re-launch.

For more information contact the team through the contact form on the website.

Breaking news! Texperts has been shortlisted for the Innovative Company of the Year in the Real Business/CBI Growing Business Awards, which Gordon Brown has dubbed “the business equivalent of the Oscars.”

Needless to say we’re delighted about this news, but this award is extra special for me because it’s all about how we interact with our Texperts, and how we’re changing the way that people work.

One of the reasons for our relaunch as Texperts on 66000 was to focus on the incredible people behind our answers. You can meet some of them here (more profiles should be up soon!), and find out more about our company here.

We’re really proud to be nominated for this prestigious award…fingers crossed!

82ASK is going to have to invest in a new trophy cabinet after picking up another gong in the National Business Awards Midlands and East of England region.

82ASK walked away with The Orange Best Use of Technology in Business Award and was highly commended in the Business Innovation of the Year Award.

82ASK CTO Paul Butcher said “We have an outstanding technical team here at 82ASK, and this award is a vindication of their hard work and dedication over the last two years as we’ve built the technical platform which will allow us to scale even greater heights in the coming years.”

Henry Addison, Fred Cheung, Sarah McVittie and Paul Butcher representing 82ASK at the National Business Awards

Well, another award for 82ASK! It’s much appreciated, as all encouragement goes a long way. Our tech team have worked closely with our customers and Texperts to build an amazing set of tools that allow us to deliver exactly what our customers quite rightly demand from a service like ours. They have used the best of some very recent developments in web and server technologies to do so. We’re very proud of them, and are over the moon that they have been recognised by such a prestitigious award.

Judges’ comments:

This is a simple, innovative service built on sound technology. 82ASK cleverly combines and uses two emerging technologies to provide a useful service to customers. There is also clearly a demand for a mobile search service. This demand is driven by changes to consumer behaviour which mean we want useful information on demand. The service has been growing at an average of 28% per month since launch and clearly has potential for future growth. They are currently pursuing partnerships with major media and directory enquiry groups. The business is clearly scalable and has outstanding growth potential.

NatWest award page

82ASK has been unveiled as one of four finalists at the Startups Awards 2006 in the Best Use of Technology category. The short listing judges were impressed by 82ASK’s concept and potential, placing the business among a handful of finalists selected from hundreds of entries. 82ASK is also in contention for the “NatWest Startups Business of the Year” prize.

The Startups Awards, organised by Crimson Business’ Startups.co.uk, comprises of 15 categories, each showcasing the best new businesses in the UK. Endorsed by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and underlining its commitment to identifying and rewarding the UK’s best new businesses, the third annual Startups Awards is organised in conjunction with NatWest. The winners will be unveiled at a prestigious awards ceremony at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington on Friday 20 October.

82ASK CEO Sarah McVittie said of the shortlisting: “We’re delighted to have our company’s innovations recognised by Startups.co.uk. We’ve worked incredibly hard to ensure that our technology systems are at the cutting edge, constantly improving our service for our customers.” 82ASK CTO Paul Butcher commented that “being a finalist in the Best Use of Technology category is a major accomplishment for the whole tech team — we’re proud of our hard work and creativity, and are very pleased to receive this recognition.”