Lanarkshire based eco-innovation business Plan Bee was named Small Business of the Year at the Business Green Leaders Awards in London on Wednesday evening.
Now in their fourth year, the BusinessGreen Leaders Awards are the UK’s most prestigious awards for the growing green economy and celebrate the leading businesses, executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and campaigners from across the green economy. The awards cover every aspect of the green economy from transport to energy and from small businesses to multinationals, providing organisations of all sizes with the opportunity to highlight how they are contributing to the new green economy.
“We are delighted to have won this prestigious award in what was a very tough category with some of the best small businesses from around the UK. It has been a rollercoaster journey from the beginning but it’s great to have national recognition of our achievements”.
Fresh from being named the UK green economy’s Small Business of the Year, the groundbreaking eco-innovation business which offers managed bee-hive services, has created a buzz by pulling off one of Scotland’s most successful crowdfunding campaigns as part of a second funding round which also attracted backing from the public and private sectors.
Advised by law firm Harper Macleod, the start-up raised £105,500 from 177 investors on the Crowdcube platform, almost 176% of its target of £60,000.
Added to further investment of £35,000 from Glasgow-based business syndicate Kelvin Capital – matched by the Scottish Investment Bank (SIB), the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise – it takes Plan Bee’s funding past £300,000 in total since last year.
This is the first time in Scotland that a business has utilised funding from crowd investors, angel syndicate and public sector investment making this a unique deal within itself.