Glasgow spacetech firm Spelfie named among world's top innovators

Glasgow-based spacetech company Spelfie.com has been named among the top 100 of the world’s most innovative start-up and tech companies – the only Scottish start-up to appear on the list.

CEO Chris Newlands says the firm reverses the social and digital marketing model. Picture: contributed.

Spelfie.com came 17th in the in the TechRound100, after judging from a panel including Mark Wright, a former winner of The Apprentice, and Adam Brodie of Ignition Financial. Previous finalists have included TikTok, Monzo and Revolut, while this year’s top ranking companies included Zoom, Houseparty and Peloton.

Spelfie, which works in partnership with Airbus, captures satellite images of music festivals, sporting and large cultural events. It says it allows users and companies to use shareable personalised, experiential, organic and branded content, creating an effective event activation marketing tool.

Chief executive Chris Newlands said: "Spelfie reverses the social and digital marketing model, allowing brands to directly engage with their target audience at an event or those who choose to ‘participate’ from home.

"The power of a spelfie can help raise awareness of campaigns, product launches or large-scale events globally, encouraging the audience to digitally share their experiences, from a unique and new angle - space. Our marketing model is cookie-free, encouraging mass-engagement and micro-targeting for brands to promote their services to their audience.

"We have created a plastic pollution strategy for brands who champion this cause, we really are all about people, planet and purpose.”

TechRound co-founders Daniel Tannenbaum and David Soffer said: “​Spelfie is a superb company with a really great vision. The idea of the TechRound100 is not just to find businesses and start-ups with the most funding or the largest number of staff, but to find companies that are innovating and doing truly unique things to help the UK startup sector. Spelfie does just that.”

SCOTSMAN.COM

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism.

Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Joy Yates

Editorial Director