Scottish start-ups secure £1m-plus in funding for growth
● Winners in 14th EDGE contest named ● Biggest winner is crop production firm
By Scottish businesses including a firm that has developed a method of using fungi to boost crop-production for farmers have shared more than £1 million to fast-track their growth in the latest round of the UK’S largest business funding competition.
The 14th Scottish Edge awards also saw a sustainable designer wooden bag manufacturer secure backing along with an 18-year-old who founded his marketing agency whilst undergoing chemotherapy treatment.
The latest winners were shortlisted from 289 applicants, with finalists pitching their business idea at events at Glasgow’s Technology and Innovation Centre and Edinburgh’s RBS Conference Centre last month to panels chaired by Margaret Gibson of the EY Foundation and Simon Hannah of Filshill.
The competition, backed by Royal Bank of Scotland, The Hunter Foundation and the Scottish Government, has to date boosted some of Scotland’s most innovative entrepreneurs. Past winners include Tvsquared, Appointedd, Care Sourcer and Brewgooder.
Since it was launched in 2013, Scottish Edge has now provided more than £14m with funding under the latest awards made up of a 40 per cent grant and a 60 per cent loan, with a maximum award of £150,000.
The Higgs Edge special award of £125,000 was won Peter Orrell, who set up Dundee-based Myconourish, which harnesses microbes to enhance crop production.
Two former senior managers at Clyde Space, Kevin Quillien and Allan Cannon, were awarded £100,000 to progress their R3-IOT business that is focused on industrial Internet of Things connectivity.
A newly introduced award for a circular economy business was won by Hamish Menzies of Glasgow-based Rocio, a designer fashion brand that manufactures and sells wooden handbags.
Other winners included student Suhit Amin, who founded influencer marketing agency Saulderson Media whilst undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
A further seven awards were given in a ‘wild card’ category for businesses who have yet to begin trading. Student Robbie Macisaac of Maclsaac, a business that helps to prevent ‘piper’s lung’ via a new moisture control technology for bagpipes, took the top £15,000 prize.
Scottish Edge’s chief executive Evelyn Mcdonald said the businesses that had won funding were a highly encouraging “snapshot of the current state of entrepreneurship” in Scotland.
“The vast array of exciting businesses that our panels have chosen to support, from celebrity-endorsed sustainable handbags and groundbreaking cancer treatments to teenager-founded marketing agencies and bagpiper illness preventers, Scotland really does offer the kind of outside-the-box entrepreneurial thinking needed to achieve recognition in a global market,” she said.