Hull firm Halocycle has been crowned KPMG UK Tech Innovator 2024 at the national final in London.
The company has a vision of a circular lifecycle for PVC and other chlorine-containing plastics, leading to a dramatic reduction in plastic waste entering landfill, incineration or otherwise leaking into the environment.
Deploying established microwave processing technology in an innovative fashion, it says more than eight billion tonnes of plastic has been produced to date – and more than 90% of that has never been recycled.
It will now represent the UK in the global final at Web Summit in Portugal in November.
Dr Henrietta Boyd, CEO and co-founder, represented Yorkshire & the Humber/North East in pitching to a panel of judges alongside seven other regional winners: Cellexcel (East of England), Spinview UK (London), Graphene Innovations Manchester (North West), OGI Bio (Scotland), Infinitopes (South Central), Glaia (South West and Wales) and NetZeroNitrogen (Midlands).
Eighty regional finalists had been shortlisted from nearly 400 entries.
“We are delighted to have won the Tech Innovator competition which was a great opportunity for Halocycle to showcase our technology, among a really strong cohort of regional finalists,” said Boyd.
“We cannot wait to meet the other winners in Lisbon for the Global final and hope that winning this competition helps us to accelerate our journey to a circular economy for plastics.”
The annual competition, which showcases tech innovators from regions across the UK, has been running since 2013. Over the years it has uncovered outstanding tech from businesses including What3Words, Inovus Medical and HiiROC, who went on to win the global final during Web Summit in 2022.
Nicole Lowe, UK head of KPMG’s Emerging Giants practice, said: “Halocycle is a fantastic example of a UK business that has a very commercial technology which could solve a huge and really important global issue.
“They impressed the judges with a superbly delivered pitch which clearly outlined the growth opportunities for their business but most crucially, the impact their technology could have on helping to address the world’s plastic waste problem.”