At Yorkshire AI Labs (YAIL), we don’t just invest — we champion bold ideas, ground-breaking research, and enduring impact. Our Awards page exists to shine a spotlight on the exceptional founders, teams, and technologies that are raising the bar across AI, manufacturing, and industrial transformation.

This year has been particularly inspiring. We’re thrilled to celebrate the success of DigitalCNC, winners of Start-Up Organisation of the Year at the Sheffield Business Awards 2025, and newly nominated for Best Business Start-Up at the Yorkshire Post Business Awards 2025.

We’re also proud to recognise IntelliAM, named Manufacturing Tech Company of the Year at the UK Business Tech Awards, further demonstrating the impact of the Yorkshire AI Labs model — building AI-driven, industry-ready companies with global potential.

These recognitions validate not just the achievements of the companies themselves, but the strength of our broader strategy: combining deep technical expertise, commercial focus, and regional collaboration to accelerate innovation across Yorkshire’s advanced manufacturing and AI sectors.

Our Awards catalogue is more than a trophy shelf. It’s a narrative of progress, tracing how early-stage scale-ups evolve through research, resilience, and market validation. Here you’ll find current and past winners across research, entrepreneurship, technology, and societal impact — each one reinforcing our belief that the North holds some of the UK’s most untapped innovation potential.

If you’re building something bold, solving a real-world problem with AI or data, or redefining industrial norms — we want to celebrate you, too. Explore the awards, see how we support winners, and imagine where this could lead next.

Yorkshire is positioning itself at the forefront of the UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, as the newly launched Oberon Yorkshire AI EIS Fund announces plans to invest up to £100 million into the region. The fund, supported by a strategic partnership with Yorkshire AI Labs LLP, highlights significant investor confidence in Yorkshire’s potential to become a national centre of AI innovation and economic growth.

The Oberon Yorkshire AI EIS Fund will target pioneering AI-driven companies across Northern England, capitalising on the region’s industrial heritage, strong technology ecosystem, and leading research institutions. Investments will focus on transformative sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, and financial services, where AI integration offers substantial economic and societal benefits.

The Fund is delivered in exclusive partnership with Yorkshire AI Labs (YAIL), a specialist incubator that has already built and scaled some of the region’s most innovative AI companies. YAIL is known for its unique model that combines sweat equity, capital, and hands-on commercial strategy to create investor-ready businesses from scratch.

David Richards, Founder of YAIL, commented:

“This isn’t just a fund—it’s the next phase of a blueprint that’s already working. We’ve shown that you can build nationally significant AI companies right here in Yorkshire. The Oberon Fund allows us to take that model and scale it — to back more founders, accelerate more platforms, and build an ecosystem the whole country can be proud of.”

Paul Sheehan, Director of the Fund, said:

“The Oberon Yorkshire AI EIS Fund represents our belief in the significant economic and technological potential of the North of England. In collaboration with YAIL, we are afforded early access to a pipeline of rigorously selected high-potential growth companies in the AI space. With Oberon providing the investment structure and YAIL identifying the regional talent, this new venture is ripe for success in transforming untapped talent into high-performing, scalable businesses.”