A TECH firm in York whose turnover grew by 34 per cent despite the challenges of the pandemic has been nominated for a Press Business of the Year Award.

Netsells, a digital product consultancy which is vying for the Large Business of the Year title, helps organisations use technology to turn commercial strategies and new ideas into digital products.

The category in the awards is sponsored by Garbutt+Elliott.

Clients include fledgling businesses such as YourParkingSpace to household names such as Hiscox and Trainline.

While the pandemic posed numerous challenges over the past year, Netsells retained 100 per cent of its client-base, secured new clients including Warburtons and UK Bathrooms, and increased turnover growth by 34 per cent, reaching £3m.

York Press:

The team promotes diversity and inclusion in the industry and supports initiatives designed to get more young people into tech.

To support staff wellbeing, Netsells has invested in mental health first aid training and provided paid-for external support.

It also ensured social events continued during the pandemic with online events such as quizzes and cooking demonstrations.

The business has also supported training and skills development.

In 2020 they become one of the first UK agencies to release commercial applications using Google's cutting-edge software development kit, Flutter. Netsells went on to develop mobile applications for Costa and Red Bull using the Flutter framework.

Other clients include Trainline, Toolstation, Bradfords Building Suppliers, Jigsaw, Bridge Farm Group, Artists Ahead, Brawn, Centric Software, Handheld Health, Swimming Teachers Association, Reset Clinic, Pharma-e, and 24N Mayfair.

Netsells has two divisions: Netsells Agency and Netsells Ventures.

Netsells Agency works as a long-term partner of development services for global organisations, developing bespoke solutions.

Netsells Ventures, the investment arm, seeks out opportunities to combine its technical knowledge with start-ups who require development resources to build and grow their technology offering.

As businesses adopted remote-working solutions, Netsells devised a plan to ensure there was no drop-off in its service.

For the first half of 2020, Netsells reduced costs and extended credit for key customers to keep critical projects on track. Efforts to strengthen its sales and marketing saw sales return to pre Covid-19 levels by September 2020.

Accolades included being named the fastest growing technology company in the North by GP Bullhound and crowned Large Dev Agency of the Year at the 2021 UK Dev awards.

Over the past year it has also worked with an Innovate UK-backed team to develop HandHeld Health, an free mobile app designed to help patients recover from long-COVID and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The HandHeld Health platform will act as a hub for patients to manage and improve daily living with the disease, through individualised pulmonary rehabilitation programmes suitable for their current health needs.

Gathering data by taking the client through extensive fitness testing and questionnaires, a bespoke algorithm is then able to intelligently recommend an exercise routine that will promote the optimisation of health and wellbeing for each patient.

The app is due to go live later this summer.

There are 10 categories in The Press awards which are now in their 30th year.

Businesses of all sizes and sectors in our circulation area are being urged to shout about their achievements by entering the awards by the deadline, August 15.

Enter the awards here.