Falmouth’s Ungraded named best retail start-up in the South West

A Falmouth business that takes physical custody of trading cards and photographs them in forensic detail has been judged the best of its kind across the region. The company did it while its founders were still running things part-time.

What the award recognises

Ungraded has been named Retail & E-Commerce Start-Up of the Year in the South West Start-Up Awards 2026. The win sends the Falmouth collectibles marketplace through to the national final at Ideas Fest, described as the UK’s biggest festival for entrepreneurs, in September 2026.

Founded in 2023 by John Brame and Josh Williams, Ungraded is a specialist marketplace built for serious trading card collectors. The pair started the business to solve a problem familiar to anyone who has tried to buy or sell cards online. Valuing a card accurately is difficult when the imagery is poor and the descriptions are inconsistent.

How it works

Ungraded takes physical custody of every card and photographs it in forensic detail. That level of transparency lets buyers judge the condition of a card with confidence. It also helps sellers realise the fair market value for what they are putting on the market.

The approach appears to be working. Ungraded has reached £760,000 in sales and sold 33,000 cards to date, with a dedicated team of eight. The founders hit those figures while running the business part-time and without any external funding.

The founder’s view

“Winning Retail & E-Commerce Start-Up of the Year at the UK Start-Up Awards is another amazing milestone for us at Ungraded,” said co-founder Josh Williams. “In a relatively short period of time, we’ve been overwhelmed with how much our platform has struck a chord with our customers.”

Josh added that the recognition moves the business closer to its goal of giving trading card fanatics a more transparent and reliable way to buy and sell collectibles. He said the team was looking forward to representing the South West at the national final in September.

A growing field

The UK Start-Up Awards was launched to recognise the startup scene across the UK, which has grown significantly in recent years. Around 832,000 new businesses were registered in the UK in 2025. More than 900 businesses have been shortlisted for this year’s awards across ten nations and regions, all of them started in the last three years. Between them they have created nearly 5,000 new jobs and generate annual sales of over £150 million.

Professor Dylan Jones-Evans OBE, co-founder of the UK Start-Up Awards, said new businesses were the driving force behind any thriving economy. He described this year’s finalists as representing the very best of British entrepreneurial talent, and said the standard of entries in 2026 had been exceptional.

The awards were founded by Frankie James and Professor Dylan Jones-Evans as part of Ideas Community, and bill themselves as the UK’s largest independent startup awards programme. Now in their fifth year, they received over 2,000 entries in 2026. Regional winners were announced at an event in Bristol on Thursday 11 June, with the national final to follow at Ideas Fest in September 2026.

This year’s regional finalists are listed at startupawards.uk