**Swansea’s Dill Wins Top Honours at 2025 Wales StartUp Awards, Showcasing Vibrant Welsh Innovation**
The entrepreneurial landscape in Wales received a significant boost this week as Swansea-based tech venture Dill was declared the overall winner at the 2025 Wales StartUp Awards. This annual celebration of innovative new businesses shone a spotlight on a dynamic range of companies, but it was Dill’s intelligent AI-powered labelling system that claimed the evening’s greatest accolade.
Founded by Swansea University alumnus and Romanian native Alex Coldea, Dill has quickly expanded from a modest start-up into a global operation. The business provides a cutting-edge, smart labelling platform that allows firms to generate and print compliant product labels instantly, removing the often laborious manual processes previously needed for things like barcodes, QR codes, ingredients and expiry dates.
Coldea expressed his pride at the award, noting that the company’s rapid rise has mirrored a growing frustration in the industry at how unnecessarily complex labelling had become. “Winning the 2025 Wales StartUp of the Year is a huge moment for our team, and it reflects the impact Dill is already making across the food and retail industries,” he commented. His decision to pivot the company’s original focus and rebuild from scratch, he said, marked a turning point that led to today’s success.
Dill’s platform is now used by prominent brands such as BrewDog, Atis, Nisa Local, and a range of supermarkets, fine-dining establishments and even major international service stations like BP, Shell, and Esso. The technology helps businesses adhere to a diverse array of international regulations, from Natasha’s Law in the UK to standards set by the US Food and Drug Administration and beyond.
According to the company, more than 40 million labels have been printed via their system – enough, they claim, to stretch from New York to Washington, D.C., and back again. Following a recent launch in the United States, Dill is also expanding its footprint across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, working with hardware partner Brother to fuel further growth.
Reflecting on the future, Coldea shared their ambition to build a robust AI-driven infrastructure that makes labelling “invisible” – a universal solution compatible with any site, device or industry. While Dill’s origins lie in food and drink, the company aims to revolutionise labelling processes across every sector.
The Wales StartUp Awards, established by Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, celebrate the drive and ingenuity of Welsh founders who are reshaping the national economic landscape. “The awards have demonstrated, once again, that Welsh entrepreneurs are reshaping the economic landscape, turning bold ideas into thriving ventures and ambition into meaningful impact,” Professor Jones-Evans said. He highlighted the geographical and sectoral diversity of entrants, from digital technology to green energy, as evidence of Wales’s dynamic entrepreneurial scene.
This year, 32 winners across various categories will now progress to compete nationally at the UK StartUp Awards final, to be held at Ideas Fest on 11 September. These businesses represent the very best that Wales has to offer in terms of innovation, creativity and economic contribution.
Beyond Dill’s top accolade, the awards recognised an impressive roster of young businesses. Some of the notable winners include Pilates Class UK (Business to Business StartUp of the Year), Nellie Technologies (Cleantech StartUp), and The Full EV (Green StartUp of the Year). Start-ups in fields ranging from consumer products to digital innovation, rural enterprise and social impact were all honoured.
The growing success of these ventures underscores the important role entrepreneurship is playing in building Wales’s economy for the future. As new rounds of funding, international deals and partnerships emerge from these flagship awards, the winning companies are set to inspire the next generation of Welsh business leaders.
With such a diverse range of sectors represented and growing global ambition on show, the Wales StartUp Awards 2025 signal that the nation’s start-up scene is more energetic and ambitious than ever before. The innovation and vision embodied by this year’s winners highlight a promising future not just for the companies themselves, but also for Wales as a whole.