Twenty-nine Irish companies have been selected as national champions in the first round of the European Business Awards competition 2015-16. They will join almost 650 other firms from 33 countries across Europe in the next stage of the competition.

Among the companies selected are Climote, GloHealth, CarTrawler, Aerogen and Dawn Meats.

A panel of independent judges, including business leaders and senior academics, selected the national champions after the European Business Awards engaged with over 32,000 companies this year, a 33% increase for the competition, which is now in its ninth year.

The next round requires the winning companies to make a presentation video, telling their story and explaining their business success. The judges will view all of the national champions’ videos and award the best of this group the ‘Ruban d’Honneur’ status. Ruban d’Honneur recipients will then go on to be part of the grand final in 2016.

Separately, the national champion videos will be made public on the European Business Awards website as part of a two-stage public vote, which will decide the ‘National Public Champions’ for each country.

In Association with

Last year over 170,000 votes were cast as companies from across Europe were publicly supported by their clients, staff and peers, as well as the general public.

Among the Irish companies selected this year is Agile Networks, the third year in a row that the IT firm was chosen as a national champion.

Agile Networks is headquartered in Blanchardstown and has shown strong growth since emerging from a management buy-out in 2011.

Company MD Darragh Richardson (pictured above) is also a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 competition.

“The European Business Awards offer us a chance to benchmark ourselves against the best in Europe, so to make this stage for three years running demonstrates our ongoing commitment to customer focus, technical excellence and our unique operational model,” said Richardson.