Opportunities in Edinburgh?

The UK in general is a great place to raise investment – Edinburgh’s proximity to London is useful and we have great engineering talent across the city. What Edinburgh has lacked, in recent years, is a globally recognised tech edge (or USP), which is why I’m pleased to see a united effort to double down on the goal of building out Edinburgh as the data capital of Europe.

Challenges?

Christian Jantzen, of futuristic.vc, recently tweeted something that resonated with me. To paraphrase him, most European capitals are wrestling with two parallel tech ecosystems. The ‘Old World’ (politics/public sector, corporates, angels from traditional business backgrounds) is trying to engage with entrepreneurs, whereas the ‘New World’ actually gets “it”. Edinburgh is no different and, in my opinion, is over-indexed towards the Old World approach to entrepreneurship. This is changing but it will be a process, not a single event.

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Opportunities in Glasgow?

Glasgow is becoming a home for financial services and is seeing huge levels of investment from our leading universities. Strathclyde and Glasgow are building innovation zones that will touch all aspects of tech – from fintech and medtech to smart cities and beyond. That will be a huge draw for researchers, academics, funding and talent.

Challenges?

I think local government has struggled with fostering a technology ecosystem in the city. Other cities in Scotland – Edinburgh, Dundee and Stirling – have worked to foster an ecosystem with investment in infrastructure and support that it needs. In Glasgow there hasn’t been that level of engagement with the grassroots startup community; rather, the focus has been to attract names such as Barclays, and JP Morgan, etc. As a city, the risk is that we focus on large corporates and ignore the plethora of homegrown talent and opportunity on our doorstep.

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Opportunities in Dundee?

It’s a really exciting time for Dundee, with the reshaping of the waterfront and the opening of the V&A (a design museum) late last year. There is a real focus on design within the universities, local businesses and support organisations to embrace the benefits of a design-led ethos. The attention and inbound interest in the city is providing the local market with international exposure.

Challenges?

While it is a newly energised environment, Dundee is still finding its feet in terms of investment activity. Alongside this, access to talent remains a challenge. Skills shortages in the tech sector, and Brexit, are adding more strain to being able to attract and access the skill level business often need to be able to grow.  That said, the positives in the city far outweigh the challenges and we are seeing Dundee further grow as a hotspot for games, life sciences and biotech.

MyWay Digital Health (MWDH) is a University of Dundee spin-out company that aims to provide technology solutions to support people with diabetes and transform healthcare.

Why Dundee?

Dundee is a city that keeps reinventing itself and is fast becoming a mecca for design, life sciences, and innovation. Friendly and easy to navigate, it’s a great place to set up a business. We have received a lot of support from the Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Dundee and benefited from the wider ecosystem. The University is one of the best in the UK for student feedback, and a great breeding ground for future innovators.

National and international focus

We now have a strong UK presence with contracts/product in around one quarter of all UK NHS areas. We are now building a pipeline in the Middle East (where 1 in 4 people have diabetes) and the USA, as our next step markets.

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GoRoadie modernises the ‘Learn to drive’ industry through a platform that allows learners to book vetted instructors while helping instructors manage day-to-day admin.

Why Dundee?

Dundee has a history of innovation: the first radio broadcast in the world was sent from there, and Grand Theft Auto (and Lemmings) were born here. More recently the multi-award winning V&A design museum opened its doors and has welcomed over 1 million visitors. Today, there is a real buzz in this city which is now known as the heart of video games, medical research, and technology innovation.

National and international focus

GoRoadie is rolling out across the UK having launched in Dundee, Aberdeen, and Glasgow. The company is actively expanding across England this summer and has almost 40,000 instructors in the UK, a market it is currently focusing on with a view to international expansion in the future.

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My1Login is the UK’s most secure and most widely-compatible enterprise Identity & Access Management solution, one that enables organisations to mitigate password-related cyber-security risks, control user identities and meet critical compliance obligations such as GDPR.

Why Glasgow?

We are headquartered in London but our centre of gravity is Glasgow. The city has access to a well-educated and highly-skilled workforce, with two of the world’s top-100 ranked universities less than one hour away. Glasgow is well-connected to most cities making it straight-forward to do business across the UK.

National and international focus

My1Login already have a number of international customers; however, our current focus is on continuing to build our UK enterprise customer base. It already spans the financial services, public sector, police forces and hospitality sectors. We will be expanding into other international territories over the next 18 months.

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Swipii is on a mission to give local businesses the tools and technology they need to compete on a level playing field with global brands.

Why Glasgow?

Louis (my cofounder) and I did our masters degree and found early angel investors while scaling the busines. We realised Glasgow is very economic and supportive of early-stage companies – and getting support from the likes of Scottish Enterprise, while finding the right mentor early on, made us stick to the city.

National and international focus

The focus this year is national – it’s very likely that in late 2020 we will expand to our first international country.

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LendingCrowd is a fintech business that operates a marketplace for SME lending. The platform’s sole focus is the UK SME market, with a strong sense of purpose to help alleviate market failure in the provision of funding to SMEs.

Why Edinburgh?

Being based in Edinburgh continues to have several advantages. We have access to a large vibrant pool of financial services employees, including credit specialists. Additionally, we have access to technology expertise due to financial institutions, universities, and the developing ecosystem of digital and fintech companies, supported by initiatives such as FinTech Scotland.

Additionally, there are considerably lower set-up and operating costs than achievable in London, not to mention favourable local public body support, such as Scottish Enterprise, which has supported the company. Finally, it’s a beautiful city and area, making it easier to attract and retain staff, and it’s a place that we are truly proud to call home.

National and international focus?

LendingCrowd is UK-focused, with a split of 80% of borrowers and retail investors being based in England and Wales, with the remainder in Scotland.

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We help brands with no logos. Social media creators (aka influencers) with huge followings are the new brands of our time, but they often need help with the commercial side of their work.

Why Edinburgh?

Edinburgh and more broadly, Scotland have historically been places of innovation. Edinburgh is small enough to create a sense of community but large enough to be able to make things happen. We are based out of the RBS Accelerator at their global headquarters – an incredible place to work.

National and international focus?

We are thematically focused as opposed to geographically. We primarily work in the food & drink space; we help people consume food in a new way. In particular, we work within the plant-based world. Plant-based living is hugely on the rise and we currently work with influencers in the UK, Europe and Australia.

• Scotland – CAN DO

• Scotland – Scottish Coworking

• Aberdeen – CodeBase

• Dundee – SCN Dundee
• Dundee – Block 5

• Edinburgh – CodeBase Edinburgh
• Edinburgh – Techcube
• Edinburgh – The Melting Pot
• Edinburgh – Tribe Porty
• Edinburgh – SCN Edinburgh

• Fife – SCN Dunfermline

• Glasgow – Rookie Oven
• Glasgow – The Whisky Bond
• Glasgow – Collabor8te

• Stirling – Codebase Stirling

• Inverness – SCN Inverness

• Ayrshire – SCN Troon

• Edinburgh – CodeBase supported by Eagle Lab
• Edinburgh – CodeClan
• Edinburgh – CivTech
• Edinburgh – Seed Haus

• Aberdeen – Elevator

• Glasgow – CodeClan

• Scotland – Techstart Ventures

• Edinburgh – Archangels
• Edinburgh – Scottish Equity Partners
• Edinburgh – Par Equity
• Edinburgh – Pentech Ventures
• Edinburgh – Seed Haus

• Glasgow – ADV
• Glasgow – LINC Scotland