CounterPress nominated for 'Startup of the Year' at SPARKies Awards 2026

CounterPress’s accelerated growth over the past 12 months has been rewarded with a shortlisting at one of the most prestigious tech awards in the UK.

The company is up against six others in the “Startup Of The Year” category at the SPARKies, which recognises excellence in the tech industry across the south west.

The awards are regarded as the largest awards of their kind outside of London, and received hundreds of nominations in 2025.

CounterPress is based in the south west, with three of the four co-founders working from Swindon, Bath and Exeter respectively.

The nomination is a welcome nod to the stack put together by Chief Technical Officer Jay Collett, co-founder Mike Bland and their team, and the media industry buy-in the business has achieved across the last year.

CounterPress has 41 signed-up outlets, each providing distinctive, independent coverage of specific sports clubs and niches across the UK.

As part of the CounterPress service, outlets have use of a modern, intuitive CMS; bespoke analytics; direct-to-consumer email functionality; and integrated Stripe monetisation management and data analytics.

Jay said: “Building a multi-site platform from scratch, where security, billing, and content delivery all have to work in lockstep across more than 40 sites has been one of the most technically demanding challenges I've faced in my career.

“Getting the paywall right was particularly critical. We needed absolute certainty that our journalists' content was protected at the server level, with no room for error.

“The networkification of our platform is something we're really excited about; with over 40 outlets on the same infrastructure, we're uniquely placed to bring cross-platform discovery and content connections that standalone sites simply can't offer, and that extends into native app territory too.

“To have so many journalists and creators using what we've built is genuinely rewarding.”

Outlets covering football clubs in the Premier League, EFL and National League have all joined the network, while 17 of the 18 professional county cricket clubs have dedicated outlets powered by CounterPress.

The business will be moving into new areas in the coming weeks, with sites launching covering rugby union and futsal.

Chief Executive Sam Morshead said: “Jay and the team have made considerable strides as a small team in a hugely competitive environment over 2025/26.

“The CounterPress platform has developed into a dynamic, easy-to-use system for journalists who don’t necessarily have all the technical skills and understanding needed to build a digital media startup from scratch.

“We’ve created a secure and reliable environment for individuals to create the chance to earn doing what they love. And that sort of project demands celebration.

“Thank you for SPARKies for the shortlisting, and we can’t wait to see you in July.”