The Europas was a huge night for the European startup scene. Here are just some of the winners' stories:

ZeptoLab were the big winners of the night at this year's Europas. The Russian gaming company, famous for Cut The Rope, took three awards – Best Russian Startup, Best Gaming or Social Games Startup and the Grand Prix. It was a deserved haul for a team which achieved more than 100 million downloads without taking a single penny of outside investment.

Irish networking automation startup Datahug were double award winners, taking both the Best Irish Startup award in the Regional section and the prize for Best Business, Recruitment or Enterprise Startup. The service, which TechCrunch called "the VC's secret weapon", secured $3.25 million in Series A funding in October 2012. Happily, Datahug were the inaugural winners of the Spark of Genius award at the first Dublin Web Summit in 2010.

Also harnessing data for business, SocialBakers, the Czech social media analytics outfit, was chosen as Best Advertising or Marketing Startup. Founded in 2008, the company secured $6m in funding from Index Ventures in November 2012 following $2 million from Earlybird Venture Capital in September 2011. 2012 was a big year for SocialBakers, which also acquired Croatian social media advertising company, Socialbrando, opening its 10th international office in the process.

UK-based Wonga was named Best Heavyweight Startup after a year that saw the online short-term loans company's profits surge by 270%. It launched WongaForBusiness, its small business product, in May 2012 and became the lead sponsor of Newcastle United in October. International expansion from the firm is continuing apace with a move into South Africa.

Individual winners on the night included Accel Partners' Max Niederhofer who picked up Best Startup Advisor/Mentor of The Year, Neil Rimer from Index Ventures who took the prize for Best VC of the Year and the Wall Street Journal Europe's Ben Rooney who was named Best Tech Journalist.

The Europas winners and highly-commended recipients in full:

Best MENA Startup
Winner: Markafoni
HC: Cinemoz

Best CEE Startup
Winner: NextStories
HC: Infogr.am

Best Russian Startup
Winner: AlterGeo
HC: Zeptolab

Best Nordic Startup
Winner: Instabridge
HC: PowerKiss

Best French Startup
Winner: Qunb
HC: WriteThat.name

Best German Startup
Winner: MyTaxi
HC: EyeEm

Best UK Startup
Winner: GoCardless
HC: Skimlinks

Best Irish Startup
Winner: DataHug
HC: CurrencyFair

Hall of Fame
Niklas Zennstrom

Best Recruitment and Jobs Startup
Winner: InternAvenue
HC: Adzuna

Best Advertising or Marketing Tech Startup
Winner: Socialbakers
HC: Conversocial

Best Transport, Travel or Environmental Startup
Winner: Shutl
HC: BlaBlaCar

Best Education Startup
Winner: Scolibri
HC: Memrise

Best Service Provider to Startups
Winner: 33Seconds
HC: Ballou PR

Best European Startup Accelerator/Incubator
Winner: Seedcamp
HC: Springboard

Best Entertainment, Audio or Video Startup
Winner: Intellitix
HC: Crane.tv

Best Business, Recruitment or Enterprise Startup
Winner: DataHug
HC: Duedil

Best Startup From Outside Europe
Winner: Paymentwall
HC: WalkMe

Best Lightweight Startup
Winner: Sketchfab
HC: Infogr.am & Memoto

People's Choice Award
Winner: Wooga

Best Middleweight Startup
Winner: Transferwise
HC: SwiftKey

Best Commerce, Finance or Payments Startup
Winner: Toshl
HC: Dashlane

Best Culture (Fashion, Art, Music, Media) Startup
Winner: Lyst
HC: Soundrop

Best Gaming or Social Games Startup
Winner: Zeptolab
HC: Playmob

Best Product Startup
Winner: EyeEm
HC: Infogr.am

Best Social, Mobile or Apps Startup
Winner: Zeebox
HC: Everplaces

Best Startup Advisor/Mentor of the Year
Winner: Max Niederhofer (Accel Partners)
HC: Philipp Moehring

Tech Journalist of the Year
Ben Rooney (Wall Street Journal)

Best Angel or Seed Investor of the Year
Christophe Maire

Best Heavyweight Startup
Winner: Wonga
HC: Supercell

Best Startup Founder/ Co-founders
Winner: Mendeley - Jan Reichelt, Paul Foeckler & Victor Henning
HC: SoundCloud - Eric Wahlforss & Alexander Ljung

Best Exit of 2012
Winner: Face.com
HC: Qype

Best VC of the Year (Company)
Winner: Atomico
HC: Index Ventures
HC: Passion Capital

Best VC of the Year (Individual)
Winner: Neil Rimer (Index Ventures)

Grand Prix
Zeptolab

Press coverage of The Europas
Techcrunch
Wall Street Journal
Venture Village
Morgen Post
Webrazzi
Rude Baguette
Daily Maven
Silicon Allee
Apps4All
RB.Ru
Goal Europe
Silicon Republic
Digit.ru
East-West Digital News
Tyinterney.cz