Scotland’s new tech strategy presented to European investors at EIE25

European investors gathered in Edinburgh on 14-15 May to hear Scotland’s new advanced manufacturing strategy, alongside pitches from top-rated deep tech scaleups.

Investors and experts from the European Growth Deeptech Tech Tour joined key players from the Scottish tech ecosystem at the University of Edinburgh-led technology showcase EIE25.

Business champion Mark Logan presented Scotland’s Deep Tech Supercluster initiative, which aims to provide currently lacking scale-up pathways for innovative hardware companies rooted in advanced science and engineering.

The Supercluster, led by Scottish Enterprise in partnership with the National Robotarium and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, alongside Scottish universities including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt, will build a new large-scale advanced manufacturing facility in Renfrewshire and add new high-value posts to existing facilities and services from September.

Mr Logan said: “The Deep Tech Supercluster creates additional pathways to scale for Scotland’s deep tech startups and spinouts. Complementary to the Techscaler initiative, it will provide facilities and services so that companies that require advanced manufacturing capabilities, in fields such as robotics and semiconductors, can grow.”

Elsewhere at the joint EIE/Tech Tour event, 47 companies from across the world pitched for startup and scaleup investment, including eight Scottish businesses which were top rated out of 130 by the Tech Tour panel for their growth potential. Pitching companies raised a total of €1.3billion following the European Growth Deeptech Tech Tour event last year.

Since 2008, EIE has supported over 550 enterprises, many at seed stage, which have gone on to secure more than £1.2 billion in finance.

The eight Scottish businesses pitching to Tech Tour and EIE investors were Bright Ascension (aerospace), Ceres Holographics (enhanced reality), IOtech Systems (industrial operating technologies), Novosound (ultrasound technology), pureLiFi (wireless communications), Skyrora (space rockets), Sofant Technologies (satellite communications) and Sunamp (thermal energy storage).

Spinout Sofant Technologies, co-founded by Professor Tughral Aslan, Dr Ahmed El-Rayis and Dr Nakul Haridas from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering in 2011, secured £6.2 million from the UK and European space agencies in 2022 to develop its innovative low-cost, low-power satellite communications platform. It is now seeking additional investment to launch its first commercial product.

David Wither, CEO of Sofant, said: “Sofant received early backing from Old College Capital, Kelvin Capital, and Scottish Enterprise. Leveraging the robust Scottish ecosystem, particularly the ongoing support from Scottish Enterprise, has been instrumental in our growth and global expansion.

“We are looking at expanding our manufacturing footprint in the future, for one of our subassemblies, so increased capability in Scotland would be of interest to us, as it would for other advanced hardware companies across a range of fields.”

EIE and Tech Tour investors also heard from two panels focussed on opportunities in Scottish space and quantum – not just for rockets and computing, but in artificial intelligence, climate tech, cybersecurity, telecoms and data analytics. Panel members included Simon Andrews of the Fraunhofer Institute, based at the University of Strathclyde; investor NAME of GP Bullhound, which recently led a $113 million Series B funding round for quantum firm Q-CTRL, and space investor Rob Desborough of Seraphim. Australian company Quantum Brilliance also pitched to investors.

Keynote speakers included tech leader Kim Perdikou and cryptography expert and multi-spinout founder Professor Bill Buchanan of Edinburgh Napier University.

Dr Catherine Martin, Vice Principal of Corporate Services, including investment, at the University of Edinburgh, opened the showcase. She said: “EIE25 is a fantastic opportunity for global investors to discover the novel technologies emerging from Scottish universities and beyond, rooted in advanced science and engineering research, which have the potential to transform the world in areas from future health and care to climate and environment, as well as data and AI for good.”