Bradley Evans
- Aug 5, 2021
- 3 min read

Ship Shape’s Happy Business Birthday

Updated: Jul 11, 2022

2021 has been an extremely positive year for Ship Shape.

Incorporating in July 2020 amidst a pandemic, founders Daniel Sawko and Alistair Baille had an idea to democratise funding in the U.K. Along with pulling together a great team working remotely from day 1, Ship Shape has grown and naturally evolved as challenges and opportunities presented themselves. In November 2020, Ship Shape was recognised by Innovate UK’s Sustainable Innovation Fund for our technology and the vision we strive to achieve. This grant enabled us to develop and scale technology that is now the backbone behind our unique investor recommendation engine.

Fast-forwarding 5 months, we have now been recognised as the finalist in two separately respected awards. Within Fintech Awards Wales, Ship Shape is the finalist for FinTech Start-up of the Year sponsored by Confused.com alongside Monva, Wagonex, Coincover and Yimba.

The process involved an application followed by an interview to demonstrate the core IP technology developed by Ship Shape that is powered by AI and NLP. Our CEO Daniel Sawko, was asked various questions regarding how the technology has developed over the past 6 months, how it is currently being applied and the impact it has on the VC industry. With progress stemming from a no-code solution to a fully standalone code with an in-house API, Ship Shape made fast but careful progress before going live in March of 2021. As the code is developed, new features are richening the code which translates to better, faster and more accurate results.

“I’m hugely impressed by the vision of Daniel and his team – and the commitment they have shown in bringing this vital service and unique competitive edge to our fintech ecosystem here in Wales”

-Sarah Williams-Gardener, CEO of Fintech Wales and judge of Fintech Awards Wales

The criteria also questioned why Ship Shape is a unique company. Distinctively, Ship Shape was founded amongst a global pandemic. This positions Ship Shape as one of the first of remote companies where staff work at home and collaborate fully online. Fintech Wales was taken aback by the progress such a young company had made despite never meeting each other in person.

This progress was and still is driven by the synergy and harmonious skills that the team at Ship Shape have formed. You can read more about the Fintech Awards here

Within the same week, Ship Shape was also informed of being selected as the finalist for Wales Start-up Award for Fintech Start-Up of the Year sponsored by Cognis Capital alongside Kuva, Monva, and Yoello. Similarly, the selection process was based on a number of factors and included an interview and questions to Daniel Sawko surrounding Ship Shape, the progress we have made and the vision of the company. Read more about the Wales Start-up award here\

Entrepreneurship remains an important element of economies around the world, and it is clear that companies like our finalists, who perceive an opportunity and take a risk to create a new business, will be critical in ensuring the recovery of the Welsh economy over the next few years:”

- Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, assistant Pro-vice Chancellor at the University of South Wales and creator of the awards

One common denominator of both awards is the geographical location, Wales. Despite being founded as a remote company, Ship Shape is proud to be Welsh. Daniel had the luxury of freedom of choice between a vast number of locations within the U.K in which to incorporate Ship Shape. Ultimately, he chose Wales. His choice of Wales stems from his time spent in Wales during the U.Ks first major lockdown. It was the local community's welcome and support for Ship Shape from UWTSD, Business Wales and Fintech Wales in the early days of the business that cemented Wales as home.

“The blasting bellows of ecosystem support and community welcome are helping Wales to continue to forge ahead with its reputation as a country of Innovation and Fintech.”

- Daniel Sawko, the CEO and co-founder of Ship Shape:

Ship Shape is becoming a known disrupter of the financial services industry and with the award nominations recognising our efforts, Ship Shape has cemented its position in Wales. We are proud to be finalists in both awards and look forward to the announcement of both awards in the latter half of this year.

To further add to the celebrations, Ship Shape joined the Fintech Wales Foundry Accelerator. The programme is a non-profit that encompass serval promising Welsh starts-up with the drive to see them succeed, grow and strive in the Welsh community. You can read more about Ship Shape and Foundry here.