Snap Fashion has beaten 300 UK companies to win first place in Cisco's BIG Awards 2012. Snap fashion was crowned winner at Cisco House, during an awards ceremony which also saw companies Digital Shadows and Six3 come second and third respectively.
Snap Fashion is an application designed for users looking for items across UK retailers. The app allows the user to take a picture, on their phone, of an item of clothing they like before scanning more than 110 UK retailers online to find similar items.
Snap Fashion was presented with a cheque for $100,000, in addition to winning a prize package which includes $30,000 of marketing support, $30,000 of PR and $15,000 in legal support.
Digital Shadows, which came second, was awarded with a cheque for $25,000 and third place winner Six3 was given a cheque for $10,000. Both companies will also receive 12-month packages of support from Cisco and legal advice from Bird & Bird.
On winning the award, Jenny Griffiths, founder and chief executive of Snap Fashion said: "I'm particularly excited about the fact we get PR and marketing support because it's something we have been wanting for ages.
"The money will also help us to make key new hires and develop the team, allowing us to really take Snap Fashion to the next level in the UK. The competition was incredibly tough, so I'm delighted that the judges thought Snap Fashion was a winning idea."
Launched back in February 2011, the competition originally saw 300 entries which was cut down to 13 semi-finalists and six finalists.
Each of the entries demonstrated impressive entrepreneurial spirit and skill
Phil Smith, chief executive, Cisco UK and Ireland
During a live Dragon's Den-style pitch, the six finalists presented to a panel consisting of Phil Smith, chief executive Cisco UK and Ireland; Mark Kimber, chief technology officer EMEA, JP Morgan Chase; John Harris, global head of IT strategy at GSK; Jon Lonsdale, managing director of PR firm Octopus Communications; Richard Eaton, partner at legal practice Bird & Bird and Drew Nicholson, managing director of marketing consultancy DNX.
Phil Smith congratulated the winners: "We are extremely proud of this competition, which has presented us with some truly outstanding talent and we are absolutely delighted to offer our support to the winners.
"Each of the entries this year demonstrated impressive entrepreneurial spirit and skill, which is a testament to how much undiscovered talent lies in the UK. We're looking forward to working more closely with all of our winners and seeing what the future holds for them."
The competition is part of Cisco's British Innovation Gateway (BIG) initiative. BIG is a five-year initiative to spark sustainable and scalable growth of innovative high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
