Scotland: the land of sprawling green hills, kilt-wearing bagpipers, castles and burgeoning technology companies.
Scottish tech firms are making headlines. In fact, our UK tech investment tracker shows that Scotland-based startups raised approximately £15m in 2016 and £7.2m so far this year.
While this is no-where near the levels of funding raised by technology companies elsewhere (such as London), we still thought it was worth highlighting which Scottish tech companies are attracting support from venture capital investors.
1. EeGeo
Based: Dundee
Tech vertical: 3D mapping and visualisation
Funding raised: $5m (Venture)
Date announced: 16/03/16
Select investors: Netsol Technologies and a group of undisclosed investors.
EeGeo‘s SaaS platform has its origins in the gaming industry and the team behind the startup have used that expertise to create geo-spatially accurate renditions of cities, countries and continents using 3D mapping technology.
2. Sofant Technologies
Based: Edinburgh
Tech vertical: Smart batteries
Funding raised: £1.54m (Venture)
Date announced: 27/04//16
Select investors: Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme
The Edinburgh University spin out has patented a technology which seeks to double the battery life of mobile devices. Sofant Technologies hopes to roll out its product to mobile manufacturers by 2018.
3. pureLiFi
Based: Edinburgh
Tech vertical: Visible light communication
Funding raised: $10m (Series B)
Date announced: 17/07/16
Select investors: Temasek
Another University of Edinburgh spin out, pureLiFi uses visible light spectrum (instead of radio frequencies) to deliver high-speed data communications and internet access. The firm has raised $25.89m in five rounds to date.
4. TVSquared
Based: Edinburgh
Tech vertical: AdTech/MarTech
Funding raised: $3m (Seed) and $6.5m (Series C)
Date announced: 09/08/16 and 20/02/17
Select investors: West Coast Capital and Scottish Investment Bank
The ad analytics firm, which has offices in London, San Francisco and New York, delivers analytics to enable its customers to improve the performance of their TV advertising campaigns.
5. Sensewhere
Based: Edinburgh
Tech vertical: AdTech/MarTech
Funding raised: £1.4m (Venture)
Date announced: 29/08/16
Select investors: Scottish Enterprise
Sensewhere, a provider of indoor location software, has developed software which uses a database of electromagnetic sources, such as Wi-Fi and bluetooth signals to triangulate a user’s location.
6. Swipii
Based: Glasgow
Tech vertical: AdTech/MarTech
Funding raised: $2.5m (Seed)
Date announced: 05/10/16
Select investors: LocalGlobe, Kima Ventures, Global Founders Capital
Swipii, which provides a loyalty, marketing and customer relationship management suite for small businesses bought London-based DripApp, which enabled consumers to purchase coffee from independent stores at a lower price, last year.
7. Snap40
Based: Edinburgh
Tech vertical: HealthTech
Funding raised: £2m (Seed)
Date announced: 12/10/16
Select investors: Par Equity
Snap40 produces a wearable device which monitors patients’ respiratory and heart rate. The startup has also produced what it says is a secure software platform which plugs in date from the wearable device, calculates vital signs and then assesses risk using an early warning score based on established thresholds.
8. Dukosi
Based: Edinburgh
Tech vertical: Smart batteries
Funding raised: £2m (Series A)
Date announced: 03/03/17
Select investors: Scottish Investment Bank, IP Group Plc and Par Equity
Dukosi, a firm that specialises in battery management systems, uses wireless technology to increase the efficiency of batteries used in electric vehicles.