Who pays wins – specialist firm to create 37 data science jobs at new base

A London-based start up is looking to Glasgow for a major expansion, writes Chris Mccall

Astart-up specialising in business-to-business payments is to open a development centre in Glasgow, creating 37 data science jobs in the process.

London-based firm Previse secured a £800,000 research and development grant from Scottish Enterprise to help fund the project.

It will use the new office to roll out its first instant-payments programme with a number of blue chip multinational buyers.

Founded in 2016, Previse aims to tackle the problem of late payment for the supply chain, which has been identified as a growing challenge for small businesses across the UK. With a reported 60 per cent experiencing the problem, figures show that late payments force 50,000 UK businesses to close every year.

“Scotland is a world renowned centre for expertise in data science and digital technologies and I am delighted to welcome Previse to our thriving financial technology community,” said business minister Paul Wheelhouse. “The Scottish Government are supporting business innovation by providing an additional £15 million a year for research and development, which will aim to help lever in further business expenditure on research and development that will stimulate further economic and employment growth, and develop leading edge expertise.”

Previse said it was committed to engaging with Scotland’s academic community to support the growing technology sector and create high-quality jobs in data science and AI.

David Brown, Previse’s co-founder and chief product officer, said: “Late invoice payments is a global problem. Failing to pay on time for the goods and services is not only morally wrong, it makes no commercial sense. It drives up the cost of business for SME suppliers which, in the end, will feed through into purchasing costs for buyers. After all, there is no such thing as free money.

“Glasgow has become a thriving centre of UK financial technology, making it an ideal place for us. We are looking forward to further strengthening our ties to the business community as well as academia through our work with The Data Lab to take full advantage of the power of AI to tackle late payments once and for all.”

0 Centre will create 37 data jobs