UK-based air quality innovators Persium have won the 2025 Scaleup category at the Santander X Global Awards, beating off competition from Spain and Brazil.
The Awards are Santander’s yearly flagship international entrepreneurship competition, where the winners from local Santander X Awards go head-to-head in an international competition. At the 2025 event, companies from eight countries battled it out in three categories: University Projects, Startups, and Scaleups.
As long ago as November 2023 we reported on the company’s success in that year’s Santander X UK Awards, back when Persium showcased their digital twinning technology for tackling air pollution as a startup rather than a scaleup. In that event they triumphed over more than 1500 other entrants and in doing so were awarded £25,000 in equity-free funding and qualified for the global final.
The company’s co-founder Alex Yousefian said: ‘This award shines a global spotlight on the power of real-time environmental data intelligence. At Persium, we’re proud to be leading the charge in bringing our advanced miniaturised environmental sensors and digital twinning technology from the UK to cities around the world, helping governments and businesses make faster, smarter decisions about the air quality we all share. Clean air shouldn’t be a guessing game. It should be measurable, manageable, and equitable.’
‘This win is a powerful reminder that scalable climate tech solutions are no longer a niche, but a necessity. As urban populations grow and environmental challenges intensify, tools like ours are helping cities around the world make data-driven decisions that improve public health, reduce emissions, and build climate resilience.
‘We’re thankful to Santander X and the global entrepreneurship community for recognising the work we do, and we’re even more grateful to the people who’ve supported us along the way, our partners, clients, team members, and early believers.
‘The road ahead is long, but moments like this reaffirm that we’re moving in the right direction.’
Santander X supports companies to grow and transform throughout the different stages of their business life-cycle, from launching an entrepreneurial project, to scaling a startup/scaleup or transforming a business or SME.
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