SCOTLAND's entrepreneurial prowess will be highlighted at a dinner at the Glasgow Hilton on November 27 when the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are presented in front of around 500 guests.

Staged this year by Entrepreneurial Scotland in association with professional services firm Deloitte and media partner The Herald, the awards are Scotland's longest-standing annual awards for growth-oriented entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurial Scotland is an organisation for ambitious entrepreneurs, with 400 members, representing over £17 billion of turnover and some 150,000 employees.

The awards fall into two categories: Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, and Entrepreneur of the Year. Among the judges this year is Nigel Chadwick, founder of Glasgow-based Stream Communications, who won the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award last year.

Our preview of the short-listed candidates in each category begins with the three nominees for Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year.

Name: Nigel Eccles

Company: Fanduel

Location: Edinburgh and New York

Started: 2009

Employees: 120

With a background in consultancy, Nigel Eccles launched the Fanduel online fantasy sports league company with four other young Scotland-based entrepreneurs to target the US market after they tried their hands with a UK political news venture. The company runs leagues for fans of popular sports such as American Football, basketball, ice hockey and baseball. It hit the big time after pioneering the daily format which allows players to win rewards for their player selection skills faster than some other types of game. To date, the company has paid out $310 million (£200m) in winnings, and now pays out over $20m in prize money every week. Nearly all of the company's revenue is generated in the US, where Fanduel has developed a big sales and marketing operation. The company has headquarters in New York and Mr Eccles spends around half of his time there. However, the technology is still developed in Edinburgh, where the company employs 60 people. After raising $70m private equity funding this year, the company has very big growth ambitions.

Mike McGregor, Deloitte Partner who led the team that interviewed nominees, praised Mr Eccles and his team for developing a highly distinctive business. Noting that Mr Eccles made the very bold move to re-focus the original business in a new geography, Mr McGregor said: "His decision has since been vindicated through subsequent (and significant) institutional investment aligned with the very rapid growth of the business"

Name: Joe Frankel

Company: Vegware

Location: Edinburgh

Started: 2006

Employees: 50

Maths ace Joe Frankel was introduced to the material that helped make his business fortune while on secondment in the US when his wife brought a spoon made from corn home from a farmer's market in San Francisco. Mr Frankel was quick to spot the commercial potential of the bioplastic and formed Vegware in 2006 to market the material to help offer solutions to the growing environmental problems posed by conventional packaging. He drew on his expertise in developing large-scale computer systems to create a modern and efficient business model for Vegware, which used the web to develop a global sales presence in double quick time.

The company progressed quickly enough to persuade the Bradenham Partners investment business to provide expansion funding in 2009. Vegware has gone on to develop operations spanning five continents through licensing deals, and a list of clients ranging from multi-nationals to artisan independents. It has grown turnover and profit each year, while investing heavily in product development and in acquiring expertise in recycling that Mr Frankel believes sets it apart. Vegware aims to continue its rapid expansion at home and overseas and to become a global name brand.

Mr McGregor said Vegware has become an established brand and compelling proposition in the international disposable cutlery sector under Mr Frankel's leadership.

He added: "Joe has demonstrated the classic entrepreneurial quality of taking risks, but in a managed way."

Name: Mike Welch

Company: Blackcircles

Location: Peebles

Started: 2001

Employees: 50

Mike Welch was selling tyres from his parents' house in Liverpool when Kwik Fit's Sir Tom Farmer persuaded the then teenager to become his first head of e-commerce. He moved to Detroit after Ford bought Kwik Fit in 1999 but decided fairly quickly to return to his entrepreneurial roots in the UK.

Mr Welch founded Blackcircles in 2001 with the aim of developing a new kind of tyre supplier. Rather than operate its own workshops, the company lets customers buy tyres online and arrange to have them fitted at a network of affiliated garages. Blackcircles reckons that without the overheads associated with owning garages, combined with negotiating discounted prices with manufacturers and suppliers, it has been able to sell tyres at up to 40 per cent less than the competition.

The firm has recorded a compound annual growth rate of over 30 per cent since 2008. Mr Welch has built the business to date without external financing and it remains debt free.

Mr McGregor said Mr Welch had built Blackcircles in a very considered and deliberate way, such that the busness is optimised for significant revenue growth. He noted: "Since leaving school at 16, Mike, a true entrepreneur, has demonstrated resourcefulness in the way in which he responded to the many changes in his early employment, career and over time, personal insight of the UK tyre industry."