Leap Automation has been crowned the Scotland winner of KPMG’s annual UK Tech Innovator competition, which shines a spotlight on potential game changers.

The Aberdeen-based business won for its use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

The company’s Co-CEOs, Ben Stuart (pictured) and Ben Bamford, will now go on to pitch at the competition’s UK final on 24 July.

A total of ten fast-growing businesses based in Scotland went head-to-head on 20 June at KPMG’s Edinburgh office. Each pitched to a panel of five judges, which included ultra-endurance athlete and investor Mark Beaumont of EOS Advisory, Gopalan Rajagopalan, Head TCS Scotland, Tata Consultancy Services, and experienced business consultant Julie Grieve.

Ben Stuart, co-CEO at Leap Automation, said: “It’s a real privilege to be representing Scotland at the UK finals. The standard of applicants at the pitch event was incredible and spoke volumes to the breadth, depth and ingenuity of the entrepreneurial community in Scotland.”

Amy Burnett, Head of KPMG Private Enterprise Access at KPMG in Scotland, said: “It was always going to be difficult to choose one winner from ten fantastic entries this year.”

The ten Scottish businesses that were selected from nearly 400 UK applications to the competition were:

• Dyneval
• Forrit
• Gigged.AI
• Invizius
• Kenoteq
• Leap Automation
• MI:RNA
• Pawprint
• Recast
• ZIPZERO Global