For anyone who’s ever worked a farm, audits are a necessary, time-consuming, confusing, and often drowning in paperwork. For Tom Porter, who grew up on his family’s farm in Carnoustie, Angus, that frustration became the seed to an aspiration.
Just last month, that aspiration was now recognised on a regional stage when AgriAudit was named Scotland’s StartUp of the Year. For Tom, the award was not only a milestone moment, but more importantly, it was proof that rural innovation matters.
After managing multiple audits for different assurance schemes, Tom realised that farmers were spending far too much time trying to stay compliant and far too little time doing what they do best, farming. That insight, paired with his experience on the MDS graduate programme, became the foundation for AgriAudit: a platform built to take the hassle out of farm audits.
Launched in early 2025, AgriAudit is already making waves. It began as a solution to a personal pain point and is now a full-fledged app and web platform designed to centralise every audit in one place.
Instead of uploading the same documents over and over for different schemes, users can upload them once, and the system takes care of the rest; automatically assigning files, tracking progress, and helping farmers stay ahead of ever-changing standards. It’s deceptively simple on the surface, but under the hood, it’s solving a deeply rooted problem in the industry. And in an age where farmers are being asked to do more with less, tools like this can make all the difference.
In a recent interview, Tom shared, “Exposure to different areas of a business, from operations to communication and marketing, has been invaluable. These experiences have helped me apply a structured approach to setting up AgriAudit, whether it’s chatting to farmers, planning with developers, or seeking funding opportunities.”
AgriAudit’s recognition at the Scotland StartUp Awards followed a steady wave of support from across the startup ecosystem. In the months prior, Tom and his team had already gained attention from other innovation and enterprise programmes, securing early funding that helped them push development forward. That backing gave them the headroom to accelerate new features. It’s the kind of refinement that reflects how closely they’re listening to the people using it.
Whether it’s simplifying data control, helping manage version updates, or giving farmers a real-time dashboard of their audit status, they are helping to restore time, trust, and autonomy in an often-overlooked corner of the sector.
It’s startups like this that challenge assumptions about where innovation happens.
Too often, tech is imagined as a city-centred thing, something that lives in glass offices and grows on pitch decks. But AgriAudit was born in a barn office, and refined through conversations with farmers. That’s what makes it special. It proves that some of the most important ideas don’t come from reinventing the wheel. They come from people who know how the wheel actually works, and how to make it run smoother.
Looking ahead, Tom is focused on expansion, refinement, and impact. With the foundation in place and momentum building, the next steps are about scaling the product, deepening user engagement, and staying close to the community that inspired it in the first place.
The team isn’t focused on chasing headlines or vanity numbers because they’re driven by a commitment to building practical solutions that genuinely make a difference. It’s the kind of approach that truly resonates.
AgriAudit’s story reminds us why we do what we do at the UK StartUp Awards. It’s about more than trophies or headlines, it’s about giving visibility to the ideas that matter, and the people brave enough to bring them to life.
We can’t wait to meet all of our regional winners at the national final this September, taking place live at Ideas Fest. It’s going to be an amazing celebration of founders reshaping the future of business.
Grab your tickets now and be part of it.
Click here: https://ideasfest.uk/ideas-fest-2025-tickets/