TWO Derry companies have won major business awards at a ceremony held in the city.
The winners at the iFactory Celebration Conference included local companies Uproar Comics and Troll.
The £1.65m iFactory project was funded by the European Union to provide support to small and medium-sized businesses.
It was led by North West Regional College and managed by the Derry-based Northern Ireland Business and Innovation Centre (NORIBIC).
The awards event last Wednesday night in the City Hotel, attended by many of the 150 participant companies which have taken part in the iFactory programme over the last four years, featured keynote speakers fragrance entrepreneur Jo Malone and coffee entrepreneur Martyn Dawes who gave the businesses expert advice based on their own experiences.
They picked up awards for innovation in categories including growth, exporting, new service development and new product development.
Uproar Comics won an award for Innovation in New Service Development.
The company, which describes itself as a multimedia production, publishing and services business, was set up In June 2011 after a group of comic fans set up their own publication ‘Zombies Hi’.
Troll won an award for Innovation Continuum.
The company runs a video game creation studio. It develops and sells through distributors such as the Apple App Store, Google’s Play Store, Windows Store and Nintendo Wii U.  Troll’s first released product Jellyflug went on sale in 2012 and since release it has been downloaded 60,000 times.
Dr Bernard Toal, Chief Executive of NORIBIC, said the companies who took part in the iFactory project had received  more than 13,000 hours of direct mentoring support.
“Some of the figures so far are very impressive,” he said.
“The top three performers alone have increased their turnover by over £1m and two technology companies have secured over £200,000 in innovation investment from external sources.
“Our clients have opened up markets in 14 export countries, have sustained over 200 jobs and created over 40 new posts.
“We’re delighted that their efforts have been recognised in this celebration conference and awards ceremony and we know that many of them will continue on their innovation journey and go on to be extremely successful.”

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