Why ecosystems matter in the drive for digital growth, guest blog by Jon Hope, SVP of Ecosystems, CodeBase

At an event I attended last year, a panel discussion explored the dynamic between competition and cooperation among market makers. The key takeaway? In emerging or fragile markets, a winner-takes-all mentality is rarely productive. Instead, collaboration—even among competitors—can help establish and grow a sustainable market. The logic is simple: a significant share of a thriving market is far more valuable than complete control over something that doesn’t exist.  

This perspective is central to why CodeBase played a key role in launching Ecosystem Exchange.  

Held last November at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI), Ecosystem Exchange was co-founded and co-produced by CodeBase, Barclays, and the University of Edinburgh. The event brought together around 150 attendees from across the UK — including universities, government agencies, incubators, investors, and banks — who share a common mission: driving economic growth. We call them ‘ecosystem builders’ — organisations that connect, support, and foster collaboration among key stakeholders to create a thriving innovation landscape.  

Some of the UK-level examples of ecosystem builders include the likes of CodeBase itself as well as Plexal, based in London, Belfast’s Ormeau Baths and Cardiff’s TramShed.

One common characteristic among these organisations is their reliance on state funding to support their initiatives. As a result, the event functioned as a quasi-industry conference, focused on the future of UK ecosystems, and specifically how we could share perspectives, learning, and find ways to do things better.

Despite being over a decade old, CodeBase has had to continuously evolve to earn the credibility needed to run high-impact programs like Techscaler (a £42 million Scottish Government programme), LawTech UK (for the Ministry of Justice), and AI Discovery (with the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh). When we first started, funding for initiatives like these simply didn’t exist — it has only materialised over time as governments grew confident of the value of tech ecosystems and of a strong return on investment.  

However, ecosystem building in the UK is still in its early stages. With state funding under increasing pressure, there is a real risk that the momentum built over the past decade could stall—or worse, be lost. Without government confidence in the impact of these initiatives, economic growth through innovation could slow significantly.  

That’s why Ecosystem Exchange was created: to strengthen collaboration among the UK’s leading ecosystem builders. Because only by improving the quality and connectivity of these ecosystems can we:  

• Increase the number of high-quality businesses;  

• Drive innovation in technology and intellectual property;  

• Attract global investment;  

• Generate economic growth through high-calibre job creation, taxable revenues, and asset creation. 

The UK needs this growth more than ever, and a thriving tech ecosystem is key to achieving it. 

The event highlighted several challenges and opportunities within the UK’s innovation ecosystem, with key themes including:  

• The need for a structured yet flexible approach to ecosystem development  

• The importance of competitor collaboration  

• The role of gender diversity in driving innovation 

• The underutilisation of university-driven entrepreneurship 

There was strong enthusiasm for continuing these discussions, with many calling for events beyond London. Edinburgh emerged as a preferred venue, reinforcing Scotland’s role as a key hub for innovation.  

In ecosystem building, connectivity is the primary currency—and it’s one of CodeBase’s strongest capabilities. As we plan the next Ecosystem Exchange in late 2025, we aim to expand its reach by welcoming international attendees.  

Economic development is not a zero-sum game. By improving connectivity, we can help ecosystem builders unlock capital, expertise, and new customers. Taking this conversation to an international level will broaden our perspectives, partnerships, and opportunities.  

Ecosystem Exchange is just beginning and at CodeBase we’re excited for what this can mean for UK Tech.

Investors plot Scotland’s place in global financial landscape, by Nick Freer

At The Scotsman’s annual investment conference at the Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel in Edinburgh on Wednesday, attendees got to hear from top executives in the financial services industry on the global investment landscape and how Scotland fits into the equation.

Leading off, Scottish Financial Enterprise’s chief executive Sandy Begbie, comparing Scotland and the UK’s investor attractiveness to a school report card, said we “could do better”.  While there are a number of barriers to investment in investors’ minds, said Begbie, Scotland’s “soft power” is regarded highly by many of the world’s largest economies including North America and China.

What can we do better?  A good start, according to Begbie, would be to “do things at greater pace, get things done quicker”.  We will have a gilt-edged opportunity to improve our report card when an international investment summit in Edinburgh this October, supported by both the Scottish and UK governments, will see over 100 global investors jet into the capital.

So, what did some of the investors at Wednesday’s conference think?  In the first panel of the day, RBC Brewin Dolphin senior investment manager John Moore discussed how stock markets are traditionally “very narrative driven”, but that these narratives can change.

So, remarked Moore, think about the so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, and Meta), which after two years of leading stocks’ rallies worldwide, are currently tracking for their worst performance since 2022.

Another narrative is around the perceived “uninvestable” nature of Chinese stocks, a perception that has been turned on its head in 2025 to the tune of an over $400 billion upturn in Chinese tech “mega caps” which has left their once dominant US counterparts trailing.

Coutts’ chief investment officer Fahad Kamal concurred to the narrative shifting in global markets, saying “our job [as investors] is to take a step back and put perspective on things”, but that even in the face of a faltering US stock market, “the US still seems pretty exceptional to me”.

When asked about where the UK sits, and Scotland within that, Kamal said that with so much political noise around the world, the UK is a relative “island of calm,  a government with a big mandate, and serenely mature, which contrasts with other global equivalents.  That’s quite a sea change, and that helps”.

Zehrid Osmani, head of global equities at Martin Currie, told the conference that we are now in the most disruptive decade ever when it comes to innovation, with “revolutions” taking place in AI, energy transition, and healthcare infrastructure.   

Chloé Darling-Stewart, an investment manager with Baillie Gifford, asked the conference, “what if I said that some of the world’s most innovative companies are not in Silicon Valley, but here in the UK”?  Somewhat against the grain, Baillie Gifford sees the UK equity market as a great hunting ground for growth investors.

So, Benjamin Franklin was right when he said that, “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest”, and it was good to wind down with a glass of sauvignon blanc with renowned financial journalist Mark McSherry at a local watering hole when the conference came to a close.

Can Scotland keep up in the AI race? By Nick Freer

In the recently published Techscaler annual report, charting the second year of the Scottish Government’s support programme for Scottish startups, it doesn’t take long to get to a section titled “AI, AI, AI”.  Chiming with what I wrote here at the end of last year, the only tech trend that really matters in 2025 is artificial intelligence and the “machine-assisted writing is clearly on the wall”.

CodeBase, which runs Techscaler, notes that “the real opportunity for Scotland lies in fostering startups powered by AI”, and is now working with an increasing number of AI-first companies, with other ventures pivoting to AI-focused strategies.

I think there’s also a third way, which might be described as layering AI into your product, so that could be a software tool like the one being developed by my youngest brother, Dr Matthew Freer, whose health technology startup Infix has developed software to improve operating theatre efficiencies,helping to ease hospital waiting lists across Scotland’s NHS health boards.

As Matthew, the brother at the front of the queue when the brains got handed out, put it in a recent press announcement: “With the vast quantities of data and use cases we’ve gathered over the last few years, we have been able to target the precise areas where AI can add even more value”

Infix was one of the fast-growth SMEs to take part in tech group ClearSky Logic’s AI survey, the findings of which were released earlier this week.  The survey, which our agency co-developed with ClearSky, revealed that 57 per cent of companies have already invested in AI, while approximately 90 per cent are planning to do so.

Ed Vickers, co-founder of Edinburgh-headquartered marketing firm LOOP Agencies and one of the business leaders to take part in the survey, said: “The fear that AI will replace jobs is changing to ‘AI won’t take my job, but someone who knows how to will’.

Aakanksha Sadekar, CEO and Founder of Aberdeen-headquartered digital health technology startup Tracker.Health, another survey participant, said: “AI is being rapidly adopted into digital health solutions worldwide, we have been spending time out in Asia and are now working with commercial partners in Singapore, China, and Japan, so we’re seeing firsthand how Scotland must keep pace with the fast-moving evolution of AI.”

Of course, we need to be cognizant of the challenges we face as a nation around AI, as expertly articulated by Ross McNairn, the CEO of legal tech startup Wordsmith, when he wrote for this column a fortnight ago.

“AI is a talent game”, wrote McNairn, “and its most critical asset is people. The best AI engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs are highly mobile, well paid, and in global demand. Countries that understand this are creating the most favourable conditions possible to attract talent. Scotland must do the same, or it will be left behind.”

AI is a race, the starting gun has been fired and the runners are off. The collective hope is that our runner is in good enough shape to keep up with the competition.

The AI 'bucket list', guest blog by Steven Drost, chief strategy officer at CodeBase and professor at the University of Edinburgh

AI is the latest technology paradigm to impact society at a large scale, and there is a lot of conversation around what AI is, what it is not, what it can do, can’t do, what it means for society, jobs, productivity, and more.  At the same time, the conversation around AI can be confusing.  

I often talk about AI as being in one of three “buckets” - bucket one being “the unknown”, bucket two “the familiar”, and bucket three “the commodity”. 

Bucket one (“the unknown”) is AI that is going to create brand new life realities, create new unfathomable paradigms that we cannot really articulate. This kind of AI conversation will often invoke sci-fi descriptions, both on the dystopian side, think AI doomsayers’ visions of Skynet-powered robot overlords primed to kill us in the movie Terminator.  

Or, we invoke utopian thoughts of robots doing all the work, helping humans to live their best lives, unencumbered by the need for labour. This level of AI innovation is not just about the current breakthroughs such as large language models, but anticipates deep, sweeping, disruptive phenomena that would see AI building AI - artificial general Intelligence (AGI) - and completely change life as we know it. 

Bucket two (“the familiar”) is AI that’s already here.   It presents itself to you in the shape of new features in your productivity tools you have been using on your computer or smartphone. To give an example,  you can now record a Microsoft Teams call, have an AI feature transcribe the conversation into text, have that text translated and then push the translation out as a podcast with an AI-enabled voice.

This AI is not really disruptive, but rather it sustains existing work and life flows by supercharging them. It’s the basis of the promise that efficiency gains can be made, that we can make our economy more productive. In this version of AI, AI will act as an agent, a co-pilot for existing jobs. Yes, some low level jobs will disappear, but others will be retained, and new ones will appear.  So, hospital waiting lists will go down through better bed allocation.

Bucket three (“the commodity”) contains developments around AI that are moving so fast that they are almost invisible. To illustrate, consider the iPhone: the changes between iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 were huge: and were obvious to even the most casual user. But the change delta from iPhone 15 to iPhone 16 is much harder to see and experience. 

AI is going through that process much faster. This means that AI will become a commodity very quickly, inserted into many human endeavours, in the way that electricity is omnipresent. We will be able to buy ‘intelligence’ cheaply via new vehicles and methods, and this will have a huge impact on how we work, live, and interact with the world around us.

The first bucket will be created by the brightest people at the best universities. The second bucket already belongs to big tech companies, and the third bucket belongs to new ventures, including startups that can be built by non-technical people.

At CodeBase, we are at the intersection of this paradigm as an AI enabler in the Scottish technology ecosystem.  

Scotland's AI future depends on talent that builds (not talks), guest blog by Ross McNairn, CEO and co-founder of Wordsmith AI

AI is a talent game, and its most critical asset is people. The best AI engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs are highly mobile, well paid, and in global demand. Countries that understand this are creating the most favourable conditions possible to attract talent. 

Scotland must do the same, or it will be left behind. As a place to live, Scotland offers incredible advantages but we must dramatically increase our attractiveness relative to the aggressive efforts of other nations. Scotland must become an obvious choice, not a hard sell. 

Once the ecosystem is built and gains momentum, more options will open up. For now, we must actively court this talent, making it easy to bring back those who have left and encouraging high-end professionals to relocate here.

Currently, Scotland isn’t a natural destination for top-tier software executives or AI talent. Moving an AI engineer earning hundreds of thousands in San Francisco or London to Scotland is difficult under current conditions. The tax regime is punishing at the top end, relocation is complex, and our equity and options system is far less attractive than competitors like the U.S. or Singapore. 

If Scotland is serious about AI, we need a far more compelling proposition. That means streamlining immigration for high-value workers, ensuring it’s easy and advantageous for them to be paid here, and overhauling tax treatment of stock options to encourage AI startups to headquarter and scale in Scotland.

Beyond attracting talent, we must build a pipeline of AI expertise. The best way to do that is to bring in world-class professionals who can train and upskill our workforce. There’s no point investing in education if we lack educators with real industry experience who can share cutting-edge AI knowledge across Scotland’s universities, businesses, and public institutions. 

Spain’s Beckham Law, which provides favourable tax treatment to high-earning foreign executives, has been crucial in attracting global talent. Scotland needs a similarly bold approach to AI talent acquisition. We should explore more radical examples, such as industrial zones with favourable income tax treatment for businesses that relocate a high percentage of their talent workforce to Scotland.

Once we attract top talent, we’ll need a highly skilled domestic workforce capable of absorbing and applying their knowledge. That means doubling down on STEM education, particularly maths and science, from primary school through university. We should also bias education subsidies towards these disciplines to align our workforce with the technical demands of the AI era. This isn’t just an economic opportunity – it’s a necessity. The countries that dominate AI will shape the future, and Scotland has the potential to lead. 

Scotland boasts world-class universities, a growing startup ecosystem, and an ambitious tech sector. However, without a deliberate and aggressive push to make Scotland a magnet for AI talent, we’ll remain on the sidelines, watching as others seize the opportunity.

Scotland must act now. We need to create an environment that attracts and retains the world’s best AI minds, cementing our position as a leader in the most transformative industry of our time. It’s time to move away from being a nation of talkers and back to being a nation of builders.

Paris summit brings AI focus back to Europe, by Nick Freer

American computer scientist John McCarthy and colleagues from Dartmouth College are credited with coining the term “artificial intelligence” at a small conference in 1956.  Fast forward seventy years and AI is ubiquitous in the news.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced over 100 billion Euros of investments into artificial intelligence at the AI Action Summit in Paris, bringing some of the media focus back to Europe at a time when the US and China dominate the headlines.

In tandem with the United Arab Emirates who are helping to fund the deal via Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund, investments will be made into both French and Emirati AI - via the acquisition of cutting-edge chips, data centres, talent development, the establishment of “virtual data embassies”, and cloud infrastructure in both territories.

Everywhere you look, the UAE is all over AI, and no great surprise when you consider they have had an artificial intelligence minister in place since 2017.  Oh, and pockets that are deeper than an Arabian oil well.

In situ in the French capital was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who will be spearheading the world’s largest AI infrastructure project, dubbed “Stargate” and totalling around $500 billion including involvement from MGX, in the US alongside Oracle and Japan’s SoftBank.

With such big ticket projects and eye watering valuations, it can be difficult to see where the opportunities lie for Scottish tech.  However, we only have to look a few hundred miles south to see that UK startups can have a seat at AI’s top table.

Fluidstack, a startup founded at the University of Oxford in 2017, is to build the 1 gigawatt AI supercomputer in France that is integral to Macron’s AI plan, a decarbonised energy-powered data centre that will leverage the nation’s predominantly nuclear energy.

As we know, innovation and the universities go hand in hand, and in 2024 the UK ranked fourth globally for research and innovation around AI, with high-performing universities and innovative businesses attracting significant investment, with the UK also home to approximately a third of Europe’s AI startups.

The latest figures from analytics firm Dealroom reveal the appetite of venture capitalists for artificial intelligence, with AI startups raising $110 billion worldwide in 2024, up by over 60 per cent against 2023, while the year-on-year overall funding for technology startups and scale-ups actually went down by over 10 per cent.

At the Edinburgh Futures Institute last week, Techscaler, the Scottish Government’s tech startup support initiative run by CodeBase, reported on its second year of operation, recording an increasing number of “AI-first” Techscaler companies, with many others pivoting to “AI-focused strategies”.

There is growing sentiment that we can harness the value of AI in new business creation here, in large part by connecting cutting-edge research with our startup ecosystem.

And if we can align with global platforms and tap into international investors whose hunger for AI talent is unlikely to abate, perhaps Scotland can genuinely position itself towards the fore of AI-driven innovation.

Where is housing market headed in 2025? Guest blog by John Boyle, director of research at Rettie

As we move into 2025, many housing market commentators make forecasts (or, more accurately, intelligent guesses) of what lies ahead.

Housing is pro-cyclical, so will tend to match changes in the wider economy.

Bank of England forecasts suggest that the economy will remain subdued this year as a period of relatively high interest rates has weighed down on growth. However, the anticipated modest cuts in interest rates this year have started to happen, with the current market consensus suggesting a drop of 0.75 percentage points over the course of the year to bring the base rate down to 4% for the first time since early 2023.

This has already been at least partly reflected in reduced mortgage rates, but these will remain above historic levels for a time, which will mean that the market will still face a headwind as many households will have to remortgage at higher rates. This is likely to exert continued downward pressure on the overall average price across Scotland.

On the positive side, the UK Government is talking about loosening mortgage regulation, which may make it easier for more people, particularly younger people, to get on the housing ladder. However, this will require action by the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, which will have to keep a careful eye on limiting risky lending given the impact that lax lending policies had on the housing market when it crashed in 2008/09.

In our current central forecast, we expect the average house price in Scotland to rise this year by around 3%. In subsequent years, we think that growth will move back closer to the long-term trend (of around 4%) – if the economy recovers as anticipated. Sales activity is stabilising and starting to recover, albeit slowly. 

Transactions were around 93,000 in 2023 and climbed to just over 98,000 in 2024. We think there may be some very modest improvement in 2025 and perhaps we will again hit the 10-year average of c.100,000 sales per year. However, this will vary across geographies and property types. To give some context, Scotland achieved 154,000 sales in 2007 at the market peak, a level that we are unlikely to return to anytime soon.

In the rental market, we think that some of the pressures on the private rented sector (PRS) will continue to ease as demand dampens a little. This is already being seen in the main cities, although sharper reductions in supply may increase pressures again, especially if the problems presented by the new Housing Bill are not addressed. 

Much of this Bill, e.g. on keeping pets and being able to more easily end joint tenancies, is welcomed by the housing sector, but provisions for rent control (especially between tenancies) is causing consternation, despite a link to inflation now being included, which the sector lobbied for. 

When the legislation is settled, landlords will be doing their sums and it seems likely that there will be some exodus from those who believe that they can no longer make an acceptable return. Caps on rents may also create caps on supply.

Making hybrid work work, guest blog by Lisa Thomson, Chief People Officer at ClearSky Logic, Board member at Entrepreneurial Scotland, and an Ambassador at Women’s Enterprise Scotland

As I write this, a red weather warning is in place across the central belt due to Storm Eowyn - schools are closed, and there is widespread disruption. Our offices are closed to prioritise the safety of our valued team - and as a hybrid and flexible technology business we are all enabled to work seamlessly from anywhere.

And having just watched the BBC Panorama documentary, “Should we still be working from home”, it feels very timely to share my own views on flexible and hybrid working.

In the technology sector, working from home and flexible working was not a new concept by the time the COVID pandemic hit. It had tended to be a perk offered, an option for team members to accommodate ad hoc personal needs.

Thankfully, the days of lockdown and isolation are now long behind us, but the world of work has been significantly changed by its impact.  Almost five years on from the start of the pandemic, the Office for National Statistics says hybrid working - part travelling to work, and part at home - is “here to stay”.

Hybrid working enables employers to attract a wider pool of talent, and employees to cut travel time and cost.  Recent findings from a study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) suggest that hybrid working can lead to higher employee engagement and motivation, enhancing productivity, job satisfaction, and work-life balance.

In the survey, 71 per cent of employers noted that adopting hybrid working models boosted or maintained productivity levels. Additionally, 66 per cent reported improvements in employee job satisfaction. The same report notes that 75 per cent of employees experienced a better work-life balance due to hybrid working, contributing to increased motivation and engagement.

Hybrid and flexible working arrangements enable a wider range of people to access work balanced with their needs and commitments, such as caring responsibilities, disabilities or health conditions, and neurodivergent characteristics. We should see this as an opportunity for forward thinking and progressive businesses to engage with a more diverse workforce, leading to a more inclusive culture.

Just this week, research by the Global Payroll Association (GPA) revealed that 74 per cent of UK office workers either work entirely remotely, or split their time between working from home and the office, with only 26 per cent working from the office full-time.

However, we have seen a widely reported backlash against home working and flexibility recently, with some companies increasing the expected ‘in office’ ratio days and others, like Amazon and JP Morgan, moving away entirely from a hybrid strategy.

We increasingly hear from high profile business leaders, tech mogul Jeff Bezos among them, that working from home can lead to decreasing productivity, although the GPA survey found that less than 10 per cent of workers believe that working from home makes them less productive.

While it is clear that the debate will go on across boardrooms and ways of working will continue to shift, it is integral that employers put in place best practice policies that demonstrate a duty of care to their team wherever they happen to be based.

Lesson from Asian ecosystem builders, guest blog by Sally Dale, Programme Manager, CodeBase

At the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) at the end of October, I had the chance to speak with technology ecosystem builders from Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Taiwan, gaining a better understanding of their strategies and comparing them to what we know here in Scotland and the UK.

While there are plenty of similarities between countries, the differences offer valuable lessons for how we might refine and expand our approaches at home.

Across the board, ecosystem builders in Asia prioritise community and mentorship, echoing many of the initiatives we’ve championed here at CodeBase.  In Singapore, this focus is particularly pronounced, with founders actively encouraged to give back through structured mentorship programmes.

Similarly, Malaysia focuses on cultivating partnerships, supporting product testing, and helping startups achieve ‘product market fit’ (PMF) - crucial for any startup aiming at commercialisation.   

The challenges faced by Taiwan’s early stage ventures also struck a chord.  Founders there often grapple with pitching skills and next-step navigation, problems we frequently encounter in early stage startups in Scotland.

An interesting parallel is how ecosystems in both Singapore and the UK treat failure as an opportunity to learn. Gabrielle Tan from Singapore Management University described how their entrepreneurial training involves students evaluating hundreds of pitch decks in their first year, analysing what works and what doesn’t. This aligns with our efforts to normalise failure as part of growth, a lesson reinforced through programmes we run like Techscaler, where founders learn by dissecting real-world successes and failures.

Alongside these similarities and common ground, we also encountered differences that highlight the unique strengths and approaches of Asian ecosystems.

Singapore’s tech ecosystem, for example, is extremely outward-looking, a necessity given the country's small domestic market. Local startups are encouraged to engage in immersion programmes, spending time in international startups to gain global perspectives and build networks.  This “global-first mindset” is a striking contrast to the UK, where many startups initially focus on scaling nationally before eyeing international opportunities.

Breaking into Japan, according to people we met, presents unique challenges, particularly around language and cultural nuances. Having a local partner is not just a recommendation but a necessity for startups to navigate this market effectively.

Overall, our key takeaways for the UK ecosystem were around adopting a global mindset, strengthening cultural fluency, learning from failure at scale, fostering more immersive partnerships, and expanding entrepreneurial training.

We think the UK startup ecosystem has much to gain from the insights of Asian ecosystem builders, helping us to refine our own ecosystem and ensure our startups are prepared for both local and international growth and success.

As these conversations at SWITCH revealed, ecosystems are only as strong as the communities they nurture. Whether in Scotland or Singapore, the emphasis on collaboration, mentorship, and learning from failure remains universal - and continues to drive innovation and economic growth forward.

Scotland's offshore wind plans grind on amid Trump headwinds, by Jeremy Grant

For offshore wind in Scotland last week was as tempestuous as it gets. And I don’t just mean the battering from Storm Eowyn. 

Donald Trump banned any further offshore wind projects in the US, declaring: “We’re not going to do the wind thing”. The ripple effect was felt in Europe as shares in two of the region’s largest wind businesses, Orsted and Vestas, tumbled. 

Undeterred, industry body Scottish Renewables hosted an offshore wind conference in Glasgow on how to deliver the vast North Sea wind farms that are to help the UK start delivering clean power by 2030.  

Trump’s distaste for offshore wind has been known in Scotland since he launched a series of legal challenges a decade ago against a wind farm planned off the Aberdeenshire coast, complaining it would spoil the view from his golf course at the Menie Estate. 

“So far, so unsurprising”, Kate Forbes, deputy first minister, said of his latest salvo. She also told the conference the picture for Scottish offshore wind was “more complex and muddier than it’s ever been”.

That’s down to years of inflation-related cost pressures and, in the UK, glacial progress on grid connections and transmission upgrades. Industry also has been puzzling over supply chains, especially for the floating wind farms that are the next frontier in technology and make up 60 per cent of planned capacity under the ScotWind seabed leases awarded three years ago.

Yet Forbes and others also struck an optimistic tone, citing a “once in a lifetime economic opportunity for Scotland”. This is not hyperbole. The build-out of offshore wind represents nothing less than the re-industrialisation of Scotland, as Scottish Renewables chief executive Claire Mack noted. 

And it is starting to happen, even though little is yet visible off the Aberdeenshire coast. Digging and dredging are underway at Ardesier Port near Inverness to develop a quayside capable of accommodating offshore wind component assembly at a site the size of 22 football fields. Last week, developer Cerulean Winds picked Ardesier for development of one of its wind farms that should be operational by 2029. 

Up the road at Nigg, 5,000 tonnes of steel are being sourced for a 10-acre factory underway by Japan’s Sumitomo Electric to make subsea cables. Scottish National Investment Bank this month pledged to invest £20 million in XLCC, another subsea cable company that will use Chinese technology to make cables at an expanded Hunterston marine yard. 

Offshore wind’s problem is partly one of expectations and optics. A wind farm won’t be real to the public until Eiffel Tower-sized turbines are dotting the horizon. Progress on the unglamorous behind-the scenes building blocks tends to be invisible.  

Chris Stark, the UK government’s head of “mission control” at the department for energy security and net zero, explained that work is underway on 80 UK transmission projects. Westminster intends the next renewable energy subsidy auction to be record-breaking. The goal is engineering a switch in the energy mix to renewables from gas. 

“Why are we doing this? It’s very good for the climate, but more important is the huge energy security and economic return we get, particularly in Scotland,” Stark said. “The next 12 months are absolutely critical.”

AI is eating the world - can Scotland lead? Guest blog by Richard Lennox, a scaleup adviser who previously held leadership roles at Skyscanner and Current Health

In 2011, Marc Andreessen suggested that “Software Is Eating the World”. And mostly, it has – with software affecting every aspect of our lives. As we begin 2025, we are at the start of a new epoch, with Artificial Intelligence reaching critical mass. The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, et al. are pushing AI into being a fundamental part of how we all work and innovate.

Contrary to some, I do not think we will see Artificial General Intelligence in 2025. What we will see is increasingly mature and sophisticated AI models capable of tackling significantly more complex tasks, faster. Every significant breakthrough going forward — in medicine, climate solutions, and realistically every other field — will leverage AI to a greater or lesser extent.

Scotland is well-placed to be on the front foot in this new epoch. AI has been a focus in our universities for decades, and with many emerging AI startups, like Malted.AI and Wordsmith AI, there is already momentum.

However, a fundamental opportunity is going under-addressed amidst the hype. AI progress will continue to depend on two critical factors: data and computational power.

AI is energy-intensive; data centres require enormous power supplies to fulfil its computational demands. Globally, data centre innovators are exploring nuclear power to provide the clean energy necessary. The national experience and regulatory landscape mean that this is unlikely to gain traction in the UK quickly enough to be significant. This is where Scotland has a distinct advantage. With the growing renewable energy sector, we can position ourselves as a leader in sustainable AI infrastructure. We already have increasing renewable energy capacity, often with surplus power the National Grid cannot handle, and the necessary capability to create sustainable data centres.

Data is one of our most valuable resources, beyond the AI need for it. Control and ownership will be essential over the next few years. We cannot rely on external nations or organisations to manage this critical resource. By building locally operated data centres, we can secure our data, safeguarding individual and national interests.

The idea is not new. In 2021, the Scottish Government highlighted the potential for green data centres. Yet, while 20 potential strategic data centre sites have been identified, none have progressed to the point of operation and overall progress is glacial. By contrast, since 2021, several new data centres in south west England are becoming operational.

As we start the new year, I suggest a bold yet achievable vision: Scotland should build at least five new AI data centres by the end of 2026 and a further twenty over the next 5 years. These data centres should be powered with renewable energy, directly partnering with power producers for a sustainable energy supply. I am not suggesting that this would be easy. It would require significant public-private commitments to overcome challenges. Yet I see nothing intractable.

AI is already reshaping the world. Investing in AI computational capacity alongside renewable energy infrastructure is an economic necessity. Such infrastructure has the potential to position Scotland as the UK leader in AI development, data management, and green technology, with much broader economic benefits. We have the resources, expertise, and opportunity. However, leadership in this area requires the will to act.

Building stronger startup communities with AI, guest blog by Barry McDonald, VP of Community, CodeBase

Remember the early days of startup communities? They were all about coffee meetups, business card exchanges, and hoping you'd bump into the right mentor, peer, or investor. While that human touch remains irreplaceable, artificial intelligence is revolutionising how startup communities connect, learn, and grow together.

Perhaps we should start to think of AI as your community's silent partner, working behind the scenes to make magic happen. Here’s how I think these smart tools are transforming startup ecosystems and making entrepreneurship more accessible than ever.

Almost gone are the days of random networking, although I still fly the flag for serendipitous encounters. AI-powered platforms like LinkedIn's advanced algorithms and Wellfound are now like skilled matchmakers, analysing profiles and interests to connect founders with exactly the right mentors, investors, or partners.  Imagine walking into a startup event where an AI has already identified the three people you absolutely need to meet – that's the future we're living in.

Every founder's journey is unique, and AI understands that. Platforms like Feedly AI and Udacity's personalised learning paths can curate content specific to each startup's needs. Tools like Maven and Coursera's AI-powered recommendation systems serve up relevant articles, courses, and webinars tailored to specific challenges, whether that's a fundraising strategy or product development.

Remember when market research meant endless hours of Google searches? AI tools like CB Insights and Crunchbase now act like your personal research assistant, analysing market trends, tracking competitors, and identifying opportunities in real-time. For customer insights, tools like Google Analytics with AI insights and Mixpanel can help predict which features your customers will love next.

Running a startup community is like juggling while riding a unicycle – there's always too much to do. AI helps by taking care of the routine stuff: Zapier's AI automations handle workflows, while Notion AI streamlines documentation and planning. Community management platforms like Commsor use AI to track engagement and identify members who might need extra attention.

Some of the most exciting AI applications are in collaborative innovation. Platforms like IdeaScale use AI to enhance brainstorming and problem-solving sessions. For product development, tools like ProductBoard's AI features help teams make data-driven decisions about feature prioritisation.

Understanding community sentiment is crucial. Tools like MonkeyLearn and Brandwatch help monitor what people are saying about your startup or community across social media and forums. For gathering direct feedback, platforms like Typeform's AI analysis features can help make sense of survey responses and identify trends.

When it's time to scale, AI tools like HubSpot's AI features and GrowthBot can optimise marketing campaigns and identify new growth opportunities. For financial planning, platforms like QuickBooks AI and Xero's analytics help startups make smarter decisions about their resources.

Here's the beautiful thing about AI in startup communities: it's not about replacing human connections – it's about enhancing them.

The key is finding the right balance – using AI to handle the mechanical aspects of community building while preserving the warmth and authenticity that make startup communities special. When we get this balance right, we create spaces where innovation thrives and entrepreneurs can focus on what they do best: building amazing things.

Edinburgh hotel boom collides with rural gloom, by Jeremy Grant

Last week, Edinburgh Airport notched up another milestone when Emirates operated the inaugural flight of the airline’s new Airbus A350 aircraft to the Scottish capital from Dubai.

Economy class passengers dined on Scottish smoked salmon, cheddar with Nairn's oatcakes and Walker’s shortbread, while business class was offered the more upscale delights of Lanark blue cheese soup, Angus beef fillet and cranachan cheesecake with raspberry coulis. 

 If airline menus offer an allegory for economic bifurcation, the hotels business provides another. 

 Last week Knight Frank, the property agents, revealed that investment in Scotland’s commercial property sector last year was up 30 per cent by deal value on the previous year. 

Hotels dominated, with investment more than doubling on 2023’s level to £488 million. Notably, Edinburgh accounted for more than half of hotel deals by value at £247m. That was more than was ploughed into hotels in the whole of Scotland in 2023.

The reason is clear: booming tourism, especially from abroad. Emirates’ Dubai-Edinburgh flight is one of 18 long-haul routes handled at Edinburgh Airport, which had only two such routes as recently as 2012. 

Almost one third of the 16m visitors to Scotland in 2023 came to Edinburgh, according to Visit Scotland. Of that third, the proportion from abroad was 29 per cent higher than in 2022. Domestic tourist arrivals fell by two per cent. 

Small wonder that foreign investors are following the money and snapping up hotels. Dubai-based Dutco Group last month bought Bruntsfield Hotel in Edinburgh, its second acquisition since buying the five-star Mar Hall hotel and golf resort near Glasgow a year earlier. Recent restrictions on Airbnb lets have further boosted the sector, which may well shrug off the imposition in 2026 of a five per cent visitor levy, confirmed last week. 

Yet the flip side was on display last week too. In the latest edition of the popular Holyrood Sources podcast, First Minister John Swinney and his deputy, Kate Forbes, were quizzed about the impact of business rates and associated relief on hotels and hospitality businesses located away from big cities – in places like Dumfries and Galloway. 

Geoff Aberdein, one of the podcast hosts and a former chief of staff to the late Alex Salmond, wanted to know if the Scottish government was prepared to revisit, post-budget, how business rates are assessed after highlighting the plight of Duncan McConchie, a farmer and hotelier near Gatehouse of Fleet. He had just taken to social media to explain that business rates and other factors had forced the imminent closure to the public of Gather, his restaurant, and its conversion to a wedding venue. 

Forbes pointed out that England assesses business rates relief in a way that results in bigger businesses effectively funding tax breaks for their smaller counterparts – unlike in Scotland. “We have said we are open to changing the methodology. The key is getting something that everyone can get behind,” she said. 

Whether anything comes of this will be too late for businesses like McConchie’s, which must also deal with increased employer national insurance, seasonality and rurality. “Lurking in the background is also the lack of housing. Our youngsters are leaving in droves,” McConchie tells me. “It’s a perfect storm.”

Listen to Honest Abe and tend to the tree not the shadow, by Nick Freer

After another year orbiting the Sun while advising some of Scotland’s most exciting companies around all things corporate PR, I guess the aim is to do more of the same in 2025.  As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I’ve never subscribed to the notion that PR is an overly difficult discipline, although maybe that comes from having now worked in the industry for over three decades. If anything, common sense is the guiding force.  When PR is done well, the press get what they want from a story, and the client is satisfied with the result.  In this sense, the formula is pretty simple.

Of course, like most things in life and work, there are nuances.  Appreciating the nuances - around language, positioning, messaging, timing etc - can make the difference between mediocre and higher quality PR.

As a business leader, there has to be a realisation that PR as a transaction will require give and take. The resulting news story may not be exactly how you wanted it to turn out, but if you can land the majority of your messaging then that is usually a great result.  You can lead the horse to water, but editors will also determine how the water is drunk, and it shouldn’t be any other way.

Sophisticated companies realise that PR is a business fundamental - reputation and brand are just too important for it to be anything else.  And while it’s important when your corporate garden is smelling of roses, it’s arguably more so when the chips are down and CEOs are under pressure.

I’ve heard PR described as a ‘dark art’, conjuring up some kind of J.K. Rowling inspired craft.  Certainly, the rule of thumb is to be as straightforward as possible with the Fourth Estate, as engaging in smoke and mirrors doesn’t usually come off to anyone’s advantage.

Abraham Lincoln said, “character is the tree, reputation is the shadow”, and good PR should translate to tending to the tree, not trying to manipulate the shadow.  If PR is treated as an afterthought, don’t be surprised when you achieve poor press  coverage that doesn’t stack up with the corporate reality.

If you invest in PR, it should pay dividends, effectively communicating your business strategy outside the boardroom and keeping a range of key stakeholders informed.

As a small but highly rated agency, we buy into the maxim that leadership is not about size, it’s about knowledge and wisdom.  We work with small leadership teams, usually comprising CEOs, CFOs and CMOs from client companies, on big stories.  Experience and wisdom comes from advising corporate brands like Deloitte, the BBC, Westfield, J Sainsbury, Trustpilot, Deliveroo, and Skyscanner through the years.

As the press continues its inexorable march towards digital, the goalposts continue to shift around what makes the grade for a business story.  Across the board, business coverage itself is evolving, and so too is the related editorial standard.  So, a standard that used to be more about the big business stories of the day, can today be more about how many eyeballs individual stories achieve, if they convert to subscriptions and so on.

Accordingly, PR must also keep up with the brave new world that is the ever-changing media landscape.

AI - the machine assisted writing is on the wall, by Nick Freer

I was going to write a piece on tech trends for 2025, but to an extent two words would suffice, namely “artificial intelligence”.  As I wrote for this column in September, “AI boom is driving ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’”, when quizzed about AI by Bloomberg in June, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said he thinks we’re seeing “a fundamental advance as any in the history of digital technology”.

And the machine assisted writing is clearly on the wall when you consider that tech giants like Microsoft are investing billions of dollars into AI, in a year in which we saw AI chipmaker Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company.

Writing for the business section in February, startup founder Loral Quinn put her finger on it: “Fast forward to 2024 and AI is mainstream.  If companies don’t have an AI strategy in the next six months they will start to be left behind”.

Penning a piece for this column in October, “AI is becoming the great enabler for rapid business growth”, Darren Auld, the CEO of software delivery specialist ClearSky Logic, wrote that, “AI is no longer optional, it’s essential for any business looking to thrive in the coming decade.  The question therefore is, are you ready to make AI work for you?”.   Look out for an AI survey of Scottish SMEs by ClearSky early next year.

Another tech founder we advise, Legado CEO Josif Grace, guested on the column in November, a piece headlined “Scottish legal firms must take risks to maximise opportunities offered by AI”.  Legado has developed a technology platform to streamline communications that is used by global financial services brands like FNZ, and increasingly by the legal industry.

As Josif put it: “By prioritising AI and innovation and by embracing a Silicon Valley-inspired appetite for risk, Scotland’s legal community can set new standards in efficiency and client service, building a global reputation as a leader in digital transformation.”  Grace highlighted organisations like Amiqus, CodeBase, Burness Paull, Thorntons, and the Law Society of Scotland as being to the fore.

I would also add Edinburgh-based Wordsmith, a startup developing AI tools for law firms, to the mix here and we supported the company’s investment round in June led by VC heavyweights from London and California.  Founded by Ross McNairn, a guy who has helped build and scale two technology unicorns, Wordsmith is definitely “one to watch” on the Scottish startup scene.

Reflecting on his time in San Francisco at Techscaler’s Silicon Valley hub, education technology startup founder Matt Jenner shared his views in The Scotsman around how “AI is on the streets and in our future”, writing: “In San Francisco, companies test AI in real-world environments with real people, moving from pilot projects to strategic infrastructure.  Scotland can adopt this same mindset in our own businesses and this willingness to experiment lends itself to our historic culture of curiosity and innovation.”

While we are right to get excited about plugging in to AI, it is also natural that we harbour collective concerns about its unchecked progress and environmental impact.  Accordingly, responsible AI, governance, and regulation will continue to be key buzzwords around AI strategy in boardrooms in 2025.

The podcast showcasing Scottish tech to the world, guest blog by Amy Kelly, a B2B marketing consultant to fast-growing companies and the co-creator and host of The Braw Tech Podcast

Earlier this year on a rainy day in Edinburgh, I sat in a coffee shop with Louise Mather, the Glasgow-based filmmaker, and shared my feeling that while there is so much great stuff happening on the Scottish tech scene, not enough people know about it, particularly beyond our own borders. “Let’s make films about it then,” replied Louise and, after brainstorming our favourite Scottish words, The Braw Tech Podcast was born.

Our mission is to build a channel for Scotland’s tech sector that shows the rest of the world what’s happening here. And of course, with it being a podcast it’s not just about the tech, arguably it’s as much, if not more so, about the people.

Janani Prabhkaran of Unbaggaged, Gigged.ai’s Rich Wilson, Beena Sharma of CCU International, Forumm’s Dan Marrable, Euan Cameron from Willo and Jamie Anderson, Silicon Valley C-suite executive at UserTesting, were among our first interviewees, and we’ve got to hear so many amazing stories along the way – and with more in the pipeline!

From going up against Dragons, scaling up their operations, internationalising, going global, raising investment, building teams, culture and values, there are always so many bases to cover. And from my own experience as a marketer working for Meta, Google, and UserTesting, we want our podcast to have global appeal.

Since launching, it’s encouraging that we’re building audience and engagement worldwide – including North America and Asia. People tell us they love to hear our “Made in Scotland” stories – we need to do more of this to promote our tech sector to the rest of the world. As a nation that is so well documented for all our historic innovation and inventions, why shouldn’t we be known as much for our present day tech?

So, what have we learnt so far? We go on too much about being “small and mighty”, we need to have higher levels of ambition. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to build more tech companies at the scale of Skyscanner or FanDuel.

We know we have tech founders in Scotland who are shifting paradigms and could be set to revolutionise traditional industry sectors – Willo illustrates that the recruitment sector can move away from CVs and focus on people, while CCU is developing carbon capture technology that could help the corporate world achieve net zero.

In terms of building a successful podcast, the main thing we’re learning is that honest storytelling mixed with creative execution really cuts through and that’s what’s driving engagement on a global level.

And don't forget to have a brilliant audio engineer, we've got one in Jamie Stewart.

From a marketing perspective, when the world is turning to artificial intelligence, the one channel that still speaks directly to an audience in an authentic and human way is a podcast. And through leveraging platforms like Apple, Spotify and YouTube, it’s never been easier for your brand to be heard in all corners of the world.

The T-word: tacking Trump's tariffs, guest blog by Novosound CEO and co-founder Dave Hughes

As a Scot, I can’t help but admire our nation’s knack for calling it like we see it. The late Janey Godley’s famous sign about Donald Trump comes to mind - it’s succinct, blunt, and unmistakably Scottish - but the challenges a Trump presidency presents to UK plc is no joke.

With tariffs potentially reaching 25 per cent on goods imported from the UK into the U.S., the cost of doing business in one of our most important markets is set to rise. While U.S. importers technically pay the tariff, the ripple effect impacts exporters like Novosound, as buyers look to offset increased costs. For a company earning 70 per cent of its revenue in North America, this presents a challenge - but it’s also an opportunity to innovate, strengthen partnerships, and adapt our strategies to continue thriving.

A fortnight ago, I had the privilege of speaking at the Scottish North American Business Council’s 'Doing Business in the USA Masterclass' in Edinburgh. This event provided insights into the U.S. market  - Scotland's largest international trading partner - and sparked discussions with senior trade officials and advisers on the implications of tariffs for businesses like ours.

At Novosound, we have built our success on innovation and adaptability. Our thin-film ultrasound sensors are flexible, scalable, and more affordable than existing technology. This gives us a technological and commercial competitive edge, even with tariffs pushing up costs. More importantly, it allows us to adapt quickly to changing markets. When the rules shift, we don’t complain, we innovate.

One of our key strategies is fostering strong partnerships with U.S. organisations. For example, collaborating with key players at the Texas Medical Centre, medical device companies such as Nasdaq-listed PAVmed, and major industrial players means our technology is becoming a core component integrated into products worldwide. This does not just help us mitigate the risks of increased tariffs, it makes us indispensable to the supply chain. With the Buy America Act favouring U.S. goods, these partnerships are more critical than ever to our growth.

But let’s be clear: we’re not just reacting to challenges, we’re building on opportunities. The U.S. market remains an incredible space for us. Whether it’s enabling high-resolution medical imaging or wide-area industrial monitoring, our technology solves critical problems for sectors from healthcare to energy. That demand doesn’t disappear because of tariffs; if anything, it grows.

What keeps me optimistic is the blend of Scottish resilience and pragmatism that’s at the core of the company we spun out of the University of the West of Scotland in 2018.  From day one, we’ve been committed to being a global company. That means navigating tough trade environments, building trust with partners, and staying laser-focused on delivering value.

Trump’s tariffs are a challenge, sure, but they’re also a chance to prove what we’re made of. By doubling down on innovation, strengthening our U.S. relationships, and staying adaptable, we’re not just surviving this storm - we’re coming out stronger. Scottish ingenuity got us here, and it’ll see us through.

AI in the legal sector: Scotland's opportunity to lead transformation, guest blog by Legado CEO and founder Josif Grace

The legal profession is experiencing a profound transformation as artificial intelligence (AI) adoption accelerates worldwide. AI is reshaping back-office functions like document processing, research automation, and data management, allowing firms to streamline routine tasks and enhance accuracy. According to McKinsey’s latest findings, nearly 72% of global organisations have adopted AI in some capacity, with professional services firms seeing significant efficiency gains as AI becomes essential for maintaining competitiveness.

Leading firms such as Allen & Overy and Wilson Sonsini are setting the pace, using AI not just to drive efficiency but to rethink their entire operational models. Although much of AI’s impact remains in back-office functions, its potential for transforming client interactions is increasingly clear. As clients demand faster, seamless digital services, law firms are realising that AI isn’t merely a cost-saving measure - it’s a strategic tool to improve service quality, responsiveness, and the overall client experience.

Scotland is well-positioned to lead this AI-driven change within the legal sector. Initiatives like the Law Society of Scotland’s LawscotTech platform are actively fostering partnerships between law firms and tech innovators to develop solutions that are both smart and compliant. Scotland’s legal tech ecosystem is further bolstered by communities like CodeBase and FinTech Scotland, which encourage collaboration, and programs like Addleshaw Goddard’s AG Elevate accelerator, which equips ambitious tech firms with the legal support and mentorship they need to scale effectively.

However, for Scotland to fully capitalise on these strengths, it must adopt a more ambitious approach to AI and technology adoption. During my time in Silicon Valley, I saw first-hand how a high appetite for risk and experimentation can fuel rapid growth and innovation. This willingness to take calculated risks, though not always easy, allowed companies to test, refine, and deploy solutions at a speed that led to substantial gains. For Scotland’s legal sector to achieve similar results, firms need to foster a similar mindset. Embracing a proactive approach to experimentation and collaboration with tech companies is crucial for staying competitive and realising the full potential of technologies.

Scotland’s tech ecosystem is already home to companies pushing the legal sector forward. Amiqus, for example, works with firms like Thorntons and Burness Paull to simplify regulatory compliance and streamline identity verification, and know-your-customer processes. Legado, meanwhile, partners with Co-op Legal Services - the largest provider of probate and estate administration in England and Wales - enabling firms to manage sensitive client information more effectively and enhance the overall client experience.

The potential for Scotland’s legal sector to lead in AI-driven professional services is substantial. The tools, talent, and foundational infrastructure are in place, but achieving true transformation requires a shift in perspective. By prioritising AI and innovation and by embracing a Silicon Valley-inspired appetite for risk, Scotland’s legal community can set new standards in efficiency and client service, building a global reputation as a leader in digital transformation.

The future of legal services belongs to those willing to innovate and push boundaries. Scotland’s law firms and tech partners are in a unique position to lead this charge - but they must be prepared to take bold steps if they are to fully realise this opportunity.

Scottish exporters circumspect on Trump tariffs, by Nick Freer

There is that saying that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.  These words came back to me this week as I had to miss a US presidential election results briefing run by the Scottish North American Business Council (SNABC) due to being under the weather.  

Hosted by Burness Paull, supported by Delta Airlines and international tax specialists USTAXFS, I was keen to hear about takeaways from the event as I sat at home in front of the box watching CNN with a Lemsip, so was pleased to hear from SNABC’s executive director Allan Hogarth later in the day. 

Hogarth says that while SNABC looks forward to working with the incoming president, in so small part because of Trump's not insignificant investments in the country,”there is also a collective hope that the campaign threat of an imposition of tariffs on Scottish imports will not come to pass, as this will damage the prospects of exports to our biggest export market, while adding costs to our valued US customers".

Scottish Government statistics indicate the value of exports to the US totalled around £4 billion in 2023, representing approximately 11 per cent of Scotland’s total exports and up by 6.8 per cent on the previous year.

Catching up with William Dobbie, Managing Director of R&B Distillers, owners of Isle of Raasay Distillery, William remarked: “The risk of any tariff being imposed on the industry is huge for a small distiller like ourselves.  In Trump’s previous term, the 25 per cent tariff was enacted at a time when the Scotch whisky market was more buoyant than it is today, so a new tariff from the largest value single malt market would be a massive challenge for growth.” 

Another popularised phrase comes to mind this week, “It’s the economy stupid”, coined by Bill Clinton adviser James Carville in 1992 as Clinton made a successful run for the White House.  Commentators agree that the perceived failings of the US economy by the electorate was the biggest knockout blow to the Harris ticket, particularly across the blue collar demographic in key swing states.  

In spite of his personality failings, a large proportion of US business leaders believe Trump to be the more pro business candidate, with a plan to cut taxes, remove red tape, translating to increased corporate earnings.  For Big Tech and Wall Street, there is an expectation that regulation will be significantly eased.  Many of the so-called ‘tech and finance bros’ will be raising a glass to the Chief MAGA Officer in upmarket bars this weekend.

Helpfully for Trump, he actually inherits a relatively strong economy - on Wednesday the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annualised rate of 2.8 per cent.

In the immediate term, the US dollar and stocks are viewed as winners, while market commentators are more circumspect about how a Republican presidency will impact bonds, emerging markets, trade policy, clean energy, and sustainable investing.  Snakes and ladders, anyone?

Having grown up in a university campus town in the US Midwest, I still feel a close affinity to the States and, as an agency, we’ve advised corporations from New York to Silicon Valley.  Irrespective of our connections to Uncle Sam, undoubtedly the United States of America will continue to have an outsized impact on all of our lives.

Founders' journey: From Bollywood to Silicon Valley, by Nick Freer

While out to get an airing earlier this week, I made it along to a Shepherd + Wedderburn ‘fireside chat’ themed as “Transatlantic M&A: Sold in the USA!”, supported by RBC Brewin Dolphin and Turing Fest.  Led by the legal firm’s Stephen Trombola, a highly rated corporate partner on the Scottish tech scene, the line-up of founders was impressive.

Calum Smeaton’s TVSquared was acquired by advertising platform Innovid for approximately $160 million in 2022, Chris Wright’s DeltaDNA was bought by San Francisco-based gaming giant Unity for an undisclosed sum in 2019, and Varun Nair’s Two Big Ears was snapped up by a certain Facebook back in 2016.

The founding stories of each company were fascinating, not least Varun’s Bollywood to Silicon Valley journey, starting his career in post-production in Mumbai, relocating to Scotland where he completed a masters at Edinburgh College of Art, before developing immersive audio technology that became coveted by tech giants like Google and the company’s eventual acquirer.

If there were commonalities around each founder’s thoughts on the night, then product development and pivots, investment and investors, the makeup of the co-founding team, US and international strategy, and that most important factor, a good helping of luck and good fortune, were to the fore.

For Two Big Ears, Icelandic songstress Björk utilised the startup’s tech for an immersive virtual reality video in 2015, using a headset that turned a smartphone into a virtual reality device.  The publicity around this helped get Varun and his co-founder Abesh Thakur globally recognised, and it wasn’t long after that US tech giants started circling.  Drop me a DM if you’ve got a founder’s story any better than this one!

At FutureScot’s “DigitalGlasgow” conference at University of Strathclyde’s Technology and Innovation Centre on Thursday, talks, panel sessions, and chats around the drink stations centred on subjects ranging from startups to scaleups, and healthcare to space tech, with many of Scotland’s main players in these areas in situ.

Loud clapping accompanied Mark Logan to the stage during his final stretch as chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish Government, proving that while some quarters of the media took potshots at his role, Logan has near unanimous support from the individuals out on the coalface that is Scotland’s technology ecosystem.

At the heart of Logan’s approach to Scotland’s technology ecosystem is what he describes as the “widening of the funnel”, equating to the creation of more tech startups and scaleups, some who will go on to achieve unicorn status like one of his former employers, Skyscanner.

So it was fitting that one such Scottish scaleup, a University of Strathclyde spinout no less, joined Logan for a Q&A panel session.  Producing vast quantities of healthy and sustainable protein is one of the world’s most urgent priorities, and ENOUGH’s CFO Elaine Ferguson shared the company’s bold vision is to help address this.

In the face of a climate emergency, the world needs 100 million tonnes of sustainable, non-animal protein, and ENOUGH has built a plant in the Netherlands to help achieve this target.  Ferguson’s advice for ambitious startups in the room?  Be bold, culture is key, live by your values, and establish and follow processes as you grow.