EY Entrepreneur Of The Year nominates companies once a year. It is the biggest award of its kind in the world and competition is fierce. The winners are selected among 814 competitors. Autobutler won in the category “Best Danish Start-up 2014”. The motivation from the jury was:
“Autobutler has a unique digital business within a conservative industry. With its strong management they belong to entrepreneurs who has torn down the walls and created success in a competitive market. As ‘born global’ Autobutler now stands in front of its international break-through doing partnerships with some of the world’s largest online-companies in Sweden, Germany and the UK. We need strong entrepreneurs to create our future innovation. There were plenty of relevant companies this year but the most outstanding example were Autobutler”.
The award committee looks at several factors:
- Entrepreneurial spirit: sets very high standards for self and business and demonstrates strong leadership skills and an unflinching desire and determination to be successful.
- Financial performance: this is reflected in the strength of the organization’s financial performance
- Strategic direction: creates and turns business visions into business realities. Builds and rebuilds the teams’ commitment to the common goals. Demonstrates the ability to produce new products, innovate product use and differentiate themselves from their competitors.
- Global (or community) impact: the entrepreneur’s global impact can be measured with either revenue, operational, or influential presence in international markets.
- Innovation: entrepreneur pioneers a new approach in product, culture or processes.
- Personal integrity/influence: living their values has earned great respect from staff, competitors, customers, advisers, family and the wider community.
“The award shows our potential and we believe strongly that this will be yet another step towards our plans of becoming the largest European digital marketplace for car repairs” says Peter Zigler, co-founder at Autobutler.
Autobutler has received numerous awards, among others the “Best B2C Company”, “Best Start-Up Company” in 2012 and “the Best B2B Company”. The EY award is so far the most prestigious award.
“Garage business has long conservative traditions – attracting customers very much the same way as 20 years ago. We have proved that it is possible to attract customers via digital media – and we expect to revolutionize the workshop experience for car-owners everywhere. We see it as an honour to be called the best company 2014 in the start-up category” says Peter.
Check out online sites regarding garage-related concerns, Get More Information here!
Autobutler has a business modell that simplifies the process of finding quality garages. More than 140 000 customers have used the service to get offers on car repairs. The startup, started in 2010 by Christian Legêne and Peter Zigler, last year received an initial funding of € 4 M from Creandum and earlier this year raised € 5.8 M in a round led by Index Ventures. Today the company runs market places from offices in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and UK.
Sitecore and MovieStarPlanet winners as well
It was not just Autobutler that won awards at the show. Other startups that got important recognition was Sitecore, that won the globalization award. And MovieStarPlanet got the award for innovation. You can read more about these two over at the official site – Sitecore, MovieStarPlanet.