Scottish Rugby's brand reaching for new heights, by Nick Freer

In a briefing with the media this week, Scottish Rugby’s chairman John McGuigan said the governing body that runs rugby union in Scotland needs to “step up our performance as a business”.  With the Six Nations still underway for Scotland Women (more on this later), McGuigan was also quizzed about what many consider to be an underwhelming 4th place finish for Scotland Men in their Six Nations equivalent. 

A quick caveat from my perspective is that I’m not sure I ever enjoyed a performance much more than this year’s game against England at Murrayfield, capped by Duhan van der Merwe scampering down the touchline for a try as I lifted my son above the madding crowd to share a sporting moment we will never forget.  How a man of van der Merwe’s size and strength can scamper, well that one remains a mystery…

There’s that saying in sport, that you only remember the victors.  I’ve never been totally convinced by that one.  If this Scotland Men’s team never win a championship, millions of people from New Berwick to New Zealand will remember the style and grit on display against the top teams in the world.  At the same time, it’s hard to argue that we could not have progressed further and reached higher.  

Talking of reaching heights, we (my wife, son, daughter and I) were lucky enough to have pitch side seats for the France game at the Hive Stadium last weekend, a vantage point from which you really get to appreciate how ridiculously high some of the forwards jump when the ball is hurled into the lineout. 

Fresh off a win against the Welsh in Cardiff, marking their seventh test win in a row, the Scotland team went into halftime 5-3 up in a battling performance against the world’s third-ranked team.  A late try in the second half flattered the French, who will feel lucky to have escaped Edinburgh with a win, a year on from a blowout win against Scotland in Brittany.

Much of the credit for this much improved performance must go to head coach Bryan Easson and his team, illustrating what is possible when a coach is given time and resource to develop a set of players, and build culture and trust.   As World Rugby wrote after Scotland’s triumph at the WXV 2 tournament in South Africa last year, “Scotland is on the crest of a wave under Bryan Easson”.

When Easson talks about players, it’s not always the playing attributes he notes first, instead he often talks about “excellent role models” and “inspiring youngsters” as ways to grow the sport and then strive for more global success. In business we talk about brands, and on the eve of the France game last weekend Easson talked about the growth of the Scotland Rugby brand from the perspective of the women’s game.  “It’s going up, and up, and up”, he said, “people want to watch your performances”, and “you’re building a legacy”. 

Sitting in the early springtime sunshine watching his team last weekend next to rugby legend Gavin Hastings, ultramarathon sensation Jasmin Paris, and singer Cammy Barnes, you could see and hear that brand and legacy building with every pass, every kick, every tackle, every cheer from the crowd.  C’mon Scotland! 

Scottish tech can rock, by Nick Freer

At The Scotsman’s Annual Investment Conference at The George Hotel in Edinburgh last week, Baillie Gifford director Ben James spoke about artificial intelligence and how AI means “business as usual is over”. 

Covering tectonic shifts in the computing paradigm in recent decades - through mainframes, mini-computers, PCs, cell phones, IoT devices - James went on to describe how graphic processing units (GPUs) are foundational to today’s generative AI era. 

Baillie Gifford knows its stuff on the subject, with semiconductor giants like Nvidia and ASML among its stock holdings.  Nvidia became the first chipmaker to reach $2 trillion market capitalisation last month, a valuation resulting from the group’s hardware used to power AI, via its H100 and upcoming H200 chips.  

In a Silicon Valley tech scene where CEOs and founders are compared to rock stars, only this week Mark Zuckerberg said of Nvidia chief Jensen Huang that “he’s like Taylor Swift, but for tech”.  

In his concluding remarks, Baillie Gifford’s James said AI marks a major computing paradigm shift, where OpenAI has democratised AI, and is driving changes in software development, autonomous driving, pharmaceuticals, and beyond. 

A fireside chat with investment firm Eos’s partner Mark Beaumont wrapped up proceedings at this year’s conference, with the world record-breaking endurance athlete comparing “adventure” with “venture” (capital) and sharing his view that founders often learn more from failure than success, using an analogy of a capsized boat during a row across the Atlantic. 

As an agency, we’ve worked with Mark and the Eos team, which includes Pathways report chair Ana Stewart, for a few years now.  The term impact investment gets banded around a lot these days, but from where I sit Eos can credibly be called an impact investor.  

Last week we supported a portfolio announcement where Eos led an investment into Neupulse, a university spinout that is advancing the world’s first wearable device aimed at tackling Tourettes Syndrome.  The device stimulates the median nerve in the wrist, reducing the frequency of tics, a condition that is thought to affect as much as 1 per cent of the world’s population.  Closer to home, Scottish musician Lewis Capaldi is one of the individuals to have trialed the innovative technology. 

In a similar vein, we worked with Scottish remote sensor specialist Novosound this week as the company announced it had secured the world’s first patent for its wearable ultrasound technology.  As CEO Dave Hughes commented in the press announcement, “This technology builds on the legacy of ultrasound in Scotland, where it was first demonstrated as a medical diagnostic technique at the University of Glasgow in 1954, and now as a Scottish company moves it out of the hospital into the home via a wearable device”. 

Overall, while our Scottish tech scene faces ongoing challenges, including access to investment and talent, it does feel like we’re in pretty rude health in 2024.  If we can tell our stories of innovation to the rest of the world, the hope is that the investment will then follow. 

Another signpost in the right direction came this week when Techscaler, the Scottish Government’s startup support programme run by CodeBase, revealed a strong first year of operations where it supported over 500 startups who collectively raised over £50 million of investment during the year. 

Scotland’s contribution to learning and sustainable finance in Dubai, by Jeremy Grant

For the first time visitor to Dubai, a ride on the elevated metro that runs parallel to Sheikh Zayed Road, one of the Emirate’s main road arteries, is eye-opening.

Glass and concrete office towers crowd the financial district and, as you head south, your eye is drawn to vast billboards promoting ultra-luxury residential developments sprouting on the outer rim of the 16-lane highway.

“All Dreams Lead to Atlantis The Royal” proclaims one. Another, “Iconic Tower”, has enlisted Pininfarina of Italy to add some designer chic to the architectural lines of its 60 storeys.

Nor does financial services pull any punches. On one billboard, Standard Chartered bank offers cashback in local currency of up to £4,600 for opening a “priority banking” account. MultiBank Group, a foreign exchange and securities trading firm, simply proclaims: “Life is Better With Money”.

It’s easy to conclude that Dubai is defined by a headlong dash for riches. Certainly, the Emirate and its oil-rich neighbour Abu Dhabi, not to mention awakening giant Saudi Arabia, are in the midst of a boom that’s attracting foreigners and their money as much as these Gulf states are projecting their sovereign wealth abroad. 

In the week I was there, two large investments were concluded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in UK renewable energy. One was Masdar, UAE’s renewable energy company, acquiring a 49 per cent stake in Dogger Bank South, one of the world’s largest planned offshore wind farms. Another was state energy company Adnoc buying 10 per of UK-based Storegga, which is developing a carbon capture and storage project in Scotland. 

Yet there are activities that tell another story, one of investment in human capital and sustainability. Two of them happen to have roots in Scotland.

The Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) is a Glasgow-based organisation that convenes action on sustainable finance. It held an event in Dubai when I was visiting to assess progress by UAE financial institutions in advancing the COP28 agenda since the climate summit was hosted by the UAE in November. 

In partnership with consulting firm PwC, GEFI announced the launch of a year-long series of meetings known by the Arabic word “majlis” (council, in English) for local financial institutions to discuss opportunities and challenges in sustainable finance.

Across town, about 4,000 students gather at the Dubai campus of Heriot-Watt, the Edinburgh university known for its pioneering work in engineering and business since it was founded in 1821. 

Heriot-Watt has operated a satellite in Dubai since 2005, becoming the first campus of a British university to open at the invitation of the government, providing courses in management, engineering, built environment, food science and fashion. 

The university moved three years to a striking new building near the Dubai headquarters of Google, Cisco and Huawei. Professor Dame Heather McGregor, Provost and Vice Principal of Heriot-Watt University Dubai, says the campus has “extremely strong academia-industry collaboration”, adding that it will “continue to invest in the region in line with our ethos of being one of Scotland’s most international universities, and in our quest to provide opportunities for learning at all stages of life”. To which one might add: life is better with learning. 

IWD 2024: seismic shifts in entrepreneurship, guest blog by Ana Stewart, Partner with investment firm Eos and Chair of Pathways : A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship

The seismic achievements and sheer volume of social media that surrounds International Women's Day every year serves as a poignant reminder of the huge strides made towards gender equality since the first IWD in 1911. On the one hand, these achievements evoke a sense of pride in society’s progress, on the other they highlight how far we still have to go and the danger of resting on our laurels.

I experienced two seismic activities of a different nature on a recent visit to Iceland. The first was a so-called seismic swarm, where underground tremors occur in rapid succession in a short period. The second one was above ground when, on the very same day, Iceland's economy ground to a halt. I assumed this was because of the swarm, but I was entirely wrong. 

Iceland was closed because women across the country were staging a one-day strike led by female prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir in protest of persistent gender inequality and violence against women.  With Iceland setting the global standard in gender equality for the past four years, it serves as a reality check for the rest of the world which lags behind and is a stark reminder of how much we still have to do 

It's tempting to embrace a convenient truth that gender equality is inevitable, “it is just a matter of time”, a “generational thing”, to reference language I’ve heard recently, where the patriarch will be swept aside by our inclusive-minded successors. However, the data tells us otherwise, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the field of entrepreneurship. As highlighted in the Pathways report last year, just 1 in 5 companies are female-led and only 2p in every £1 of institutional investment goes to female founders in Scotland.

But here is the nub of it, these numbers have not materially changed in twenty years. This demands our attention. 

Merely acknowledging these disparities is insufficient too; we must actively work to address them. This entails implementing policies and structural changes which tackle the issue at a more profound, system-wide level.

Why should we do this? Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the Scottish economy and we should be laser-focused on creating an environment which opens up the opportunity to all would-be founders, at all stages of their journey, regardless of gender or socio-economic background. Statistics tell us that gender diverse leadership delivers more profitable businesses. Investing in the other 52% of our population will significantly increase our entrepreneurial base, our scale-ups and increase Scotland’s economic output. In short, it makes economic sense.

By coordinating our individual efforts and taking collective ownership we will have a significantly bigger impact. The Pathways Pledge embraces this approach, where organisations collaborate and commit to measurable actions to influence behaviours, investment, and government policy. The Authority Gap, written by Mary Ann Sieghart, spells out 139 different actions we can take as individuals, as employers, as educators and as parents to narrow the gender gap within a generation. 

Scotland has an opportunity to do something meaningful here, so let’s embrace the idea of welcoming everyone on their entrepreneurial journey. Let’s move forward faster and create our own seismic shift towards a more scalable, sustainable, and inclusive economy.

China factor may emerge in Scotland's offshore wind aims, by Jeremy Grant

As Burns Night celebrations go, the annual black tie “Chinese Burns Supper” must rank as one of the most colourful cultural mash-ups on the calendar, combining the address to the haggis and a Chinese lion dance.

The organiser, the China-Britain Business Council, hands out awards to Chinese and Scottish businesses and at this year’s event a few weeks ago in Edinburgh, “Chinese Corporate of the Year” went to COES Caledonia (UK) Ltd.

COES, incorporated in 2018 and based in Dundee, is a unit of state-owned maritime giant China Ocean Engineering Solutions Group. While the business may not be a household name here, its award highlights how some of China’s largest state-owned energy players have been operating in Scotland for years.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), one of the country’s largest oil and gas companies, operates three oil fields in the North Sea including (since 2007) Buzzard, one of the UK’s highest-producing.

Now, a new chapter is unfolding with the arrival of some of the biggest Chinese players in renewables.

Red Rock Power, a European subsidiary of SDIC Power, a state-controlled energy company based in Beijing, owns 25 percent of the entity that has since 2019 operated the Beatrice wind farm off Caithness. It also co-owns, with Ireland’s ESB Energy, a second planned wind farm off Angus that could generate power for 1.6 million homes once completed.

This makes sense as China has proven global expertise in renewables, just as it has in oil and gas.

Chinese turbine manufacturers are naturally keen to sell to wind farm developers in the North Sea. Most of those are part of ScotWind, a vast, 20-consortia strong project involving companies from Japan, Italy, Germany and France. ScotWind has obvious energy security benefits for the UK.

The Scottish government and industry are working on a programme known as the Strategic Investment Model (SIM) to encourage collaboration to develop the supply chain required for ScotWind to succeed.

Last month, China’s Mingyang Smart Energy, which recently unveiled a turbine almost as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, was among companies listed as involved in SIM with a proposed wind turbine manufacturing facility.

Some in the industry are squeamish about the involvement of Chinese wind turbine makers in offshore wind. They note that ultimate control of the complex electronics that are part of the operating system for a wind turbine as well as transmission to the grid often sits with the manufacturer, not the developer.

A bigger issue may be competition. With Brussels already alarmed by the effect on European solar panel makers of a flood of cheap Chinese products, it is now turning its attention to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers for the same reason.

China’s Edinburgh consulate says renewable energy is “an important area” for “China-Scotland cooperation” and that China’s bilateral trade and business is “always carried out within the framework of the WTO regulations and abid[es] by related rules and laws”. It adds: “Protectionism, exaggerating security concern and politicising business issues will only damp normal exchange and cooperation”.

Ultimately, facts will be what matters. But the risk of Scotland’s offshore renewables ambitions getting caught in the crosswinds of geopolitics, trade and energy security can’t be overlooked.

Reflections from the Scottish diaspora, guest blog by NYC-based U.S. immigration attorney Fraser Grier

Over the past eight years of living in the United States, I have learned that to say that one is from Scotland carries a unique form of privilege. It was Billy Connolly who cautioned against becoming a “Professional Scot'': one who defines themselves by their nationality above any of their talents or abilities. Without disagreeing with this caution, I offer some insight into my own experience as someone who grew up in Scotland and has joined the diaspora. 

Through years of conversations with business owners in Scotland looking to enter or expand their presence in the United States’ vast markets, I find myself recounting some common observations. 

In many American minds Scotland is a distinct entity from Britain, at least spiritually for those more traveled, with the latter exclusively associated with England. This bifurcation leads to a certain set of values ascribed to Scottishness: humility, community-mindedness, hardworking, trustworthiness, and it becomes up to the individual to adhere to or contradict them. With the label of being Scottish comes a set of presumed attributes, highly desired in the business world, that you are invited to live up to. If carefully navigated, being Scottish in America becomes a helpful asterisk next to your name, achievements and ideas, rather than obscuring them with national stereotypes. 

Those new to the United States will soon discover that many Americans have an insatiable curiosity about their heritage. For Scottish-Americans this leads to a fascinating range of unique, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations. Some claim their heritage as something static and rooted in the past, augmenting their family history pre-coming to America, be that the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries, adding millennia to their traceable culture and identity. This manifests through the immense popularity of historical dramas and films set during these time periods. 

While some unfortunately repudiate modern Scotland, many others embrace it. Each year, large cohorts of American students will attend Scotland’s world leading universities, and on returning to cities like New York will join thousands of other professionals who share the experience of life in Scotland. They understand that Scotland is filled with highly desirable places to live, study, work, and invest. 

Scots who emigrate will often acknowledge their shared nationality with a nod, rather than collaboration. They do not have a propensity to seek each other out in the same way their Irish counterparts do. There are myriad historical reasons, far beyond the confines of this article, that could offer an explanation. Regardless of cause, this lack of propensity is tirelessly counteracted by dedicated teams of Scottish Government officials, university international officers, local alumni group volunteers, chambers of commerce, and heritage, conservation and business organizations. 

Whether through birth, heritage, working or studying in Scotland, there exists a common, immutable connection. On April 6th this year, I will be participating for my fifth time in the New York City Tartan Day Parade. Tartan Day, in essence, is a celebration of the contributions of Scottish Americans throughout the United States’ history. For visiting Scots, the exhilaration of marching past tens of thousands of New Yorkers on Six Avenue, flanked by a near mythological skyline and alongside dancers, pipers, alumni groups, local and Scottish government representatives and cultural organizations, is transformative.

It is a convergence of Scotland’s past and present, packaged in American style panache, being celebrated by people from all over the world. It is living proof of the values ascribed to Scottishness, but it is also proof of something equally important: potential.

Analog beginnings to AI frontiers, guest blog by Loral Quinn, CEO at Playbookcamp.com and Rool.ai

Back when I graduated from university in 1994 and got my first real job we didn’t have a website at the company I worked for.  By 2000, I was responsible for the website at a company when, by then, having a website was a given for most companies.

Fast forward to 2024 and AI is mainstream. If companies don’t have an AI strategy in the next 6 months they will start to be left behind. 

I’m a marketer, and class myself as non technical.  But now I can create my own websites, set up automations and launch campaigns in a couple of hours. Things that would have taken days and required expert skill sets in the past are now achievable in hours and minutes using so-called “no code” and AI tools. Mind blown emoji!

Today, I asked ChatGPT to create some content for slides and a script for a video for the subject I’m working on. I asked Dall-E and Midjourney to create some images.  I cloned my voice on Elevenlabs and created an avatar of myself on HeyGen, then uploaded the script I created earlier to make a video to play to my audience. 

In this mix I play the role of prompter, strategist and editor, with the technology doing all the hard work in the background and coming up with the design and content for me.  The technology is so good it's hard for me to tell whether I’m an avatar or not. 

I can dub the video into any language I want and edit the script and video instantly with a text prompt, with studio quality sound so I can instantly create versions in any language, and the quality of the translation is good.  I can adjust the direction of my eyes so they’re looking into the camera for maximum confidence and remove all my ems and unwanted filler words using Descript.  And I can create my own background music soundtrack to run along with it on Aiva.

With this new technology currently upgrading at lightning speed, I created Rool.ai and Playbookcamp to help companies and marketers adapt and succeed.

There are lots of ways to learn about AI.  Try Google Bard. Get a free account on ChatGPT and try asking some questions (prompts) today.  Use Dall-E to create some images for free using Bing image or creator mode.  Get involved and find out what’s going on and how it will impact your job and your life.

I would encourage people to ask what their company’s AI strategy is.  If you can get involved in helping your company succeed, and get your company to upskill you at the same time, that’s a win-win. Otherwise, you can start educating yourself. If you’re a business owner or marketer you need to learn fast, join a Rool.ai webinar or get an AI audit and roadmap. 

 AI is here, whether we like it or not.  There is a lot still being figured out as AI becomes more user friendly for consumers and businesses, and as governments play catch up on regulation. And so too are the debates on ethics and the unquestionable issue of AI’s impact on climate and sustainability.  But we can all start learning more about AI and the impact it will have on our lives today.

'Peaches and eggs', guest blog by Dave Hughes, CEO and Co-founder, Novosound

January's CES 2024 in Las Vegas was a defining moment for Novosound. Amidst the world's tech elite, we proudly showcased our groundbreaking wearable ultrasound technology, asserting our leadership in North America. However, the sparse Scottish presence at this pivotal global platform was disconcerting. It's a prime opportunity for Scottish tech to shine, and we need to grab it with both hands.

While Nooku and Neuranics from Glasgow’s STAC IoT accelerator attended, Scotland’s overall footprint was a bit on the lighter side. At the conference’s Eureka Village, several countries were hosting pavilions where their scale-ups and start-ups were promoting themselves on the global stage. To bolster Scotland’s deep-tech, hardware, and IoT sectors, a more robust, strategic, presence is essential.

Interestingly, despite the 'C' for ‘consumer' in CES, the event transcends its consumer-focused title. CES is a hotbed for B2B interactions, with hardware integrators, tech innovators, and industry leaders seeking strategic partnerships. It's a mix where businesses, even non B2C, can find immense value. We are looking to forge strategic alliances and expand our B2B network, and CES is a goldmine to engage with key players, from established giants to emerging innovators. This aspect of CES is often overshadowed by its consumer electronics façade, but for businesses keen on strategic growth through partnerships, it’s unmissable.

At Novosound, we set out to be a global business from the start, and have been successful at winning business across the States. Over the last three years, we've doubled our revenue annually, 70% coming from North America. Our client list includes big global names, and our pioneering role in wireless wearable ultrasound marks us as leaders in the next frontier of digital health. While government support could aid Scottish start-ups in initial endeavours, the true grit comes from navigating these waters independently.

A strategy I've embraced is the importance of being physically present in the US market as frequently as possible. I always have my next trip booked before I depart the current one, this makes setting and following up on meetings much smoother, keeping the momentum flowing.

It's also about understanding the 'peaches and eggs’ of USA and Scottish mentalities. It’s crucial to work with the ‘peaches’, the easy-to-penetrate but hard centre of American business culture and balance it with our 'egg'-like Scottish approach: a hard outer surface but soft, deeply rewarding relationships once established. Regular trips to the States have been instrumental in navigating these cultural intricacies, leading to substantial business ties.

The journey of Chris McGhee, co-founder of snap40 (now Current Health) is a testament to the power of this hands-on approach. His transatlantic living was key to building Current Health in the American healthcare system and instrumental to the $400 million acquisition by Best Buy.

As I sit here in the US, on my second trip of the year, the reality of business here is even more striking than anticipated. Being on the ground, engaging directly with partners and customers, I'm not just making business deals, I'm experiencing the profound impact of our 'peaches and eggs' strategy. Every interaction is a step towards cementing Novosound's place in this market. Our success story is a beacon for what Scottish innovation can achieve on the global stage with the right approach.

Wind of change needed for Scottish ports to meet offshore ambitions, by Jeremy Grant

For people in the offshore wind sector, Scotland is – to borrow from the title of Billy Connolly’s autobiography – “windswept and interesting”.

The North Sea is one of the windiest places on earth and, two years on from the award of licences to build an armada of offshore wind farms there to harness this natural resource under the vast ScotWind project, there is some evidence that the wheels of progress (if not yet the turbines) are turning.

Last week, a group was shown some of that progress, across from the Royal Yacht Britannia’s berth at Port of Leith. The facility’s owner, Forth Ports, has transformed an ancient port tracing its roots to the 14th century into a renewables hub capable of handling the demands of a net zero world.

This has involved converting quayside on a 175-acre site into zones for storage and assembly of wind turbines – blades, the steel towers they are attached to, and electronic switching gear. A revamped berth jutting into the Forth estuary will be able by August to accommodate the world’s largest offshore wind installation vessels that carry this kit out to sea for deployment.   

Ports are vital in the offshore wind ecosystem because – as Claire Mack, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables told the group – “they are the industrial hubs for everything we want to deliver in terms of Scotland’s renewable future”.

Yet the next day, at an offshore wind conference in Glasgow, came a reality check.

While shovels have been in the ground creating these industrial hubs, including in the Cromarty Firth, at Aberdeen and Dundee, delegates heard there simply isn’t enough money yet being invested in port conversation on a scale needed to meet anticipated demand from ScotWind for quayside wind turbine assembly – known as marshalling – and vessel berthing.

And the scale required is unfathomably large. Siemens-Gamesa, a wind turbine manufacturer, has designed a 108-metre blade for the Moray West offshore wind farm. That’s longer than Wembley Stadium. The project’s scope calls for 180 of them, for 60 turbines.

While Forth Ports has been an early mover with its £50 million investment in the expansion at Leith, the bottom line is that billions more will be needed if most of the ScotWind projects are to come on stream as planned from 2030.

As Clare Foster, Head of Clean Energy at law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn told the conference: “There's a compelling argument that we need bigger, faster, more direct action, to kick start investment and construction, now. This has to happen if there's any chance of Scottish ports being ready to accommodate offshore projects looking for quayside in a few years.”

A lot of this is down to confidence. And 2023 was a year of that being punctured by inflation and commodity prices, buffeting offshore wind developers. Then there was the failure of the UK government’s subsidy auction. There is already a reckoning: I am told that one ScotWind project is among three offshore wind projects that have since been put on hold.

More capital will be needed, urgently. It will require sovereign wealth fund involvement, as well as a blend of private infrastructure finance and government guarantees. But time is short. At stake is nothing less than the re-industrialisation of Scotland and its potential to be the global hub for offshore wind expertise.

Sustainable transportation of goods is now a necessity, guest blog by Callum Bastock, CEO and Founder of CCL Logistics & Technology

Historically, it has been extremely difficult to calculate emissions data associated with the logistics and transportation of goods, essentially due to the variety of modes of transport, distance travelled, and consignment weights involved. 

The sheer amount of data, and its convoluted nature, is something our team spent the last few years trying to tackle, investing heavily in our transport management system where our customers’ logistics data is held centrally.  In turn, this has enabled us to run complex calculations in the background to work out transportation and distribution emissions across the supply chain.  

Scope 3 emissions are defined as all indirect emissions that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.  To put things in context, Scope 3 emissions usually account for more than 70 per cent of a business’s carbon footprint, far greater than direct emissions from burning fuel and consuming electricity (Scope 1 and 2). 

Today, when no corporation can put its head in the sand when everyone knows the importance of sustainability in tackling climate change, we operate in an environment of heightened compliance pressure and increasingly stringent reporting requirements.  

Research last year revealed that 90 per cent of the FTSE 100 will only work with suppliers that share their environmental, social & governance (ESG) credentials, another indication of the writing on the wall.  There is now an absolute expectation from public companies that vendors and suppliers can provide their emissions record. 

While our business model has always been about supporting customers to reduce costs and grow, in recent times sustainability has moved very much to the front and centre as organisations realise how crucial it is to tackle Scope 3 emissions in order to meet climate change targets. 

Last year, we achieved a milestone for our collective efforts when we became the first UK logistics services group to be accredited by the Smart Freight Centre, the international non-profit focused on reducing the emissions impact of global freight transportation.  

Branded ‘Greener Routes’, our innovative sustainability feature means customers can now measure, manage, and minimise their CO2 emissions.  Sustainability is paramount for our larger UK and European customers, and the CO2 emissions calculator embedded in our system provides customers with a CO2 statement at the click of a button. 

Overall, we are helping to facilitate Scottish and UK export trade in a much more sustainable fashion, so we’re pleased to be playing a supporting role in terms of being a driver of economic impact.  Exporting and importing is complex, and we simply the whole process for our customer base. 

In terms of our own scorecard, we want to measure ourselves against the best in the industry, including against those on the international scene, while, closer to home, being one the most innovative technology companies to come out of Scotland.  

In 2023, CCL was one of the first cohort of companies invited onto Sir Tom Hunter’s Scale Up Scotland 2.0 programme, which in itself was an amazing experience.  The year finished on another high when The Hunter Foundation hosted a Founders Conference at Gleneagles where it was great to meet up and hear from a fantastic line-up of corporate luminaries, sharing stories and intel from out on the coalface. 

As 2024 gets underway, we wish all our peers on the business scene a successful year ahead. S

Woven networks: the human thread in the fabric of business ecosystems, guest blog by Nick Murray, co-founder at Foras

The term "ecosystem builder" might sound like the latest business buzzword, but the sentiment behind the moniker is a vital component in connecting entrepreneurs with opportunity, not only within Scotland’s borders, but on a global scale. In an age where most information on business growth, scaling, and investment best practices is readily available online, the true differentiator for successful ventures can lie in the often underestimated power of meaningful connectivity.

As humans, we crave more than just data. We yearn for reassurance, shared experiences, and relationships that go beyond the digital realm. Despite feeling this sense of collaboration amongst my peers in business support, leaders of growing businesses can often overlook the potential of supportive peer relationships due to an unblinkered focus on their internal challenges. Enter the ecosystem builder – an unsung hero weaving the connective tissue between people, ideas, and inspiration, creating a holistic space where authentic human connection aligns with business opportunity.

Foras embodies these values as an entrepreneurial community group connecting peer cohorts to each other, and to international opportunities. Bringing individuals together in new locations fosters reflection, vulnerability, deeper connection, and the opportunity for genuine conversation. The concept of a bonded group creates a safety net for individuals engaging in business opportunities on a global scale, allowing them to ‘hunt as a pack’, debrief, and energise with cohort members, fostering resilience and shared growth, benefiting their individual aspirations.

On such excursions, themes emerge once the superficial conversations have moved on, and the mask of the LinkedIn persona is removed. Challenges of scaling, customer acquisition, board governance and stories of the predatory nature of local funding options in Scotland are common tropes amongst our startup leaders once the comfort of the cohort dynamic is established.

A more positive trope is the excitement around the evolving ecosystem connectivity for economic development in Scotland. Public sector involvement has shifted from a top-down approach to supporting initiatives like Techscaler and the Ecosystem Fund, as suggested in Mark Logan’s 2020 roadmap towards a modern Enlightenment Era in Scottish business. This shift empowers those at the coalface of business support, and bolsters grassroots organisations like ours to scale operations to impact more lives and businesses.

Indeed, for Foras, the open collaboration we preach is also what we practise. Within the delivery team of a recent project, that saw a delegation of 48 startup community representatives engage in a cohort programme to Lisbon, we had representatives from ten different support organisations, including the Scottish Government, Scottish Development International, Pathways Forward, TechScaler by Codebase, Johnston Carmichael, Campfire, Bracken Grove Leadership Coaching, and Thornton's LLP.

The group's depth of insight, specialist experience, and network is indicative of Scotland's business community’s USP. Unlike the often impenetrable networks in larger ecosystems such as London, Scotland, by virtue of its population, boasts one degree of separation and a willingness to connect, directing individuals to the right resources to accelerate aspirations swiftly.

In a world where connections often seem distant or transactional, the ecosystem builders are breaking the mould. They are not just creating networks; they are nurturing a culture of stewardship, collaboration, and shared success, and a genuine impact underpinned by an often unquantifiable element of business growth – the human touch.

A New Road in 2024, by Nick Freer

“And yet, this New Road will some day be the Old Road too, with ghosts on it and memories.”  Inveraray-born author Neil Munro penned these words in what is arguably his finest historical novel, The New Road, published in 1914.  

Munro, who also rose to the editor role at the Glasgow Evening News, was a lifelong friend of my great-great-grandfather from their days growing up in Argyll, and I’ve always enjoyed his writing and quotes.  And these words from The New Road seem relevant as we near the end of 2023, and set a course for another 365 days around the Sun.  

Up on wintry Deeside for Christmas, I have definitely managed to slow down for the holiday season, peppered with a few bits of work going on in the background.  With my wife’s sister and family over from New Zealand, it’s been a happy and festive time.  It’s also been great to get out of the city for a change of scenery.

One thing I meant to do, but it slipped from the to-do list, was speak to a few clients and contacts to gauge business sentiment towards 2024, including the trends they are discussing in their respective boardrooms.  

Generative AI, which I wrote about here a few weeks’ back, sustainability, diversity and inclusivity, distributed workforces, and health and wellbeing would, I’m guessing, be among the straw poll. 

Global tech giant IBM says, “Deep tech requires deep trust, especially in the age of AI.”  No surprises here really when you consider that when choosing a brand, 9 out of 10 consumers say trust, a very human trait, is the most important deciding factor.  

In its predictions for next year, IBM believes people who use AI will replace people who don’t: “Can we help our workforce trust AI applications as they integrate like new teammates into day-today business processes?” 

As technology drives business trends today more than ever before, Accenture notes that “the harmony between people, technology, and business is showing tensions.”  “Technology feels like it’s happening to people rather than for them”, says Accenture in its latest Life Trends report, and I think we can all relate to this one as we balance the invasiveness of tech against its benefits. 

Sustainability is another subject I wrote about recently, on the back of COP28 in Dubai, so I won’t go over that ground again, save to say that the idea of many businesses putting sustainability on the backburner because of challenging economic environment is a scary one after a year in which record temperatures were reported worldwide.

On diversity and inclusivity, it feels like positive strides have been made this year, at least in relation to a good number of the organisations I have been engaging with, but I’m sure the data would tell us that we still have a long way to go.  

Around the area of distributed workforces, employee engagement platforms are a must in modern workplaces, and have come to the fore as companies realise the importance of understanding their workforces and supporting a more productive work environment as the line between life and work increasingly blurs. 

Overall, let’s hope for more clarity and less flux on the new road that will be 2024.  Slàinte Mhaith!

Zukunftsmusik, by David Scrimgeour MBE, formerly the Scottish Government’s investment representative in Germany and Austria, now working as an energy consultant in Munich

After many years of strained relations between Germany and the UK it was reassuring to see that there still exists a mutual desire for cross-border cooperation, at least on energy topics. The occasion was the signing last month in London of a partnership agreement on energy and climate by senior representatives of the two governments. The aim is “to help secure safe, affordable and clean energy for consumers in both nations for the long term and bolster energy security”. 

This agreement also incorporates an earlier statement of intent on hydrogen initiatives signed in Berlin in September which included a focus on promoting hydrogen trade. This joint aim, to put it mildly, was surprising given that the UK Government, until very recently, had been publicly opposed to the Scottish Government’s strategy on hydrogen exports. It may be that the urgent demands of energy supply and security are now taking precedence over ideological hostility to “Europe”.

The Scottish Government has been actively engaging on hydrogen topics over the last four years with the German regions, particularly for future export of hydrogen. The Government also co-funded the “Scot2Ger” study which I led and which was published in Summer last year. The analysis considered the complex of elements which would be needed to create a green hydrogen supply chain to Germany. 

Scotland’s plans for exporting hydrogen are very ambitious but, with a fair wind, the good news is that these can be realised. The main customer in Europe for hydrogen and derivatives is German industry, especially the steel, refining and chemical sectors. Companies are under enormous cost pressures owing to increased gas prices and the legal obligations to decarbonise their operations. 

To date, analysis carried out by the Net Zero Technology Centre and others have focused on the many technical issues and has not considered the demand side of the equation. The forecast for supply by pipeline to be reaching German shores is estimated at 2035 or 2040 depending on who you ask. This is “Zukunftsmusik” for customers i.e. too far off in the future to allow for meaningful discussions between sellers and buyers. And the timing is a real problem because pipelines transporting hydrogen to Germany from Spain, Denmark, Norway and even North Africa are planned to be in place by 2030.

Germany plans to convert the entire 500,000 km gas grid to hydrogen and it is therefore likely that deliveries from the UKCS will still be needed by 2040 and thereafter. However, other countries in Africa and the Middle East are lining up to supply the world’s fourth largest economy with low carbon energy. It is not certain that Scotland’s offering in fifteen years will be competitive in terms of timing and price. We must, therefore, make sure the good work to date is not wasted and that Scotland stays on Germany’s radar as a future supplier of hydrogen. 

Now that the UK and Scottish Governments are on the same side there is a new opportunity for hydrogen business with Germany. Our strengths in renewable energy and the experience, skills and assets of the North Sea oil and gas industry create an ideal basis. The ultimate prize will be a successful energy transition for UK oil and gas companies and retaining the thousands of jobs that depend on that industry.

North stars: Aberdeen's tech ecosystem is feeling festive, by Erikka Askeland

Baby, it’s cold outside. But the welcome is warm inside the ONE Tech Hub in Aberdeen which is hosting a festive social for members of the local “ecosystem”.

A technology manager up from Edinburgh remarks that the place has more buzz than the same time last year and it’s hard not to agree. 

The lofty space was once occupied by Gray’s School of Art. It reopened to host a new, state-of-the-art facility in 2019 following a £1.5 million refurbishment funded by Opportunity North East (ONE), the city region’s private/public economic development agency. 

ONE is backed by Sir Ian Wood, the pre-eminent oil and gas industry billionaire and now one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists.

At the Hub’s “Tech the Halls” shindig, there are some of the 21 businesses and partners based here.

One of them is Marcin Walaszczyk, founder of fintech firm Zipzero. His recent decision to relocate from the tech hothouse of London to Aberdeen following a lockdown staycation in Scotland seems like a sign of things to come for the Granite City. His consumer data rebate company is now seeking recruits from among the Hub’s supportive digital talent pool. He expects he’ll have 1 million subscribers next year.

Paul Clelland, also based at the ONE Tech Hub and wearing a festive jumper, is the head of North East Scotland regional engagement for CodeBase and its tech startup booster programme, Techscaler. 

His remit extends beyond the city lights of Aberdeen as he brings tidings of growth support to entrepreneurs across the region, from Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Huntly and down to Banchory and Stonehaven.

While over 500 start-ups and scale-ups are involved with Techscaler nationwide, Insch-based Herd Advance, which has developed an automated cattle monitoring system, is supported through CodeBase’s AgriTech Bridge collaboration with Barclay Eagle Labs.

Another Techscaler member company is Rooser, an innovative seafood trading platform co-founded by accountant and fisherman’s son, Joel Watt.

ONE and Scottish Enterprise estimate that the tech cluster in the north-east now comprises more than 300 companies, employing around 4,400 people and turning over more than £520 million a year.

Nevertheless, Aberdeen is still an oil and gas town, albeit one focused on turning its expertise in deep water and subsea engineering to cleaner offshore wind and hydrogen.

“Energy tech” also dominates the city’s ecosystem, with 42% of companies, 59% of employees and the same cut of sector turnover, according to the ONE analysis.

The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC), another high-tech space backed by Sir Ian, is just across town from the Hub. It was allocated a £190 million chunk of the ten-year Aberdeen City Region Deal in 2016.

It still has cash to splash – although not as much as recent years of profit taking in the oil and gas production sector might have suggested. 

Tech is now a serious focus – its recent Open Innovation funding competition distributed £9 million to nine organisations focused on developing and deploying data and digital technologies that enable the delivery of the UK’s net zero ambitions, particularly robotics and AI.

The traditional oil and gas sector is notorious for keeping its technology developments in silos of commercial secrecy. But like its neighbours at the Hub, NZTC is helping the sector warm up to the opportunities of the ecosystem.

Can Scotland produce world-beating companies in climate tech, by Nick Freer

Globally, green financing has gone from around $200 billion to approximately $600 billion over the last decade, with associated climate unicorns, companies who are valued over $1 billion, now numbering over 100 worldwide.  

Two years on from COP26 in Glasgow, and with COP28 now underway in Dubai, it will be interesting to see if Scotland can produce world-beating companies in the climate tech sector.  While ENOUGH, the Glasgow-headquartered sustainable protein producer formerly known as 3F BIO, is viewed as a good bet in the space, another much fancied Scottish company hit the headlines this week having inked a deal at COP.  

Vertical farming technology specialist Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), the agtech scaleup founded by David Farquhar, was a signatory to an agreement whereby IGS will build the infrastructure for a circular, closed-loop “GigaFarm” that will boost Dubai’s food security and support the push to decarbonise the food industry in the UAE. 

IGS’s towers are forecast to grow more than 250 varieties of plants, seedlings, and saplings, with at least 20 different plants already grown in only a few weeks since a demonstration farm was constructed for COP28.  An IGS farm uses just 1 litre of water for every 250 litres needed on a field, or every 25 litres required in a greenhouse. 

Having seen David Farquhar pitch at investor events like EIE over the years, it’s incredible to see how his company has grown from a fledgling acorn into a fully fledged oak tree on the Scottish startup scene.  

As COP28 rolls on, we are advising a Scottish startup that has just signed a green technology-related memorandum of understanding with a leading financial institution in the Gulf region, more to follow on this next week. 

Notably, Heriot-Watt, which was the first British university to open a campus in Dubai, in 2005, has come up aces at COP with news around its Climate Hub awash across the press and social media.  And it has been good to see companies we have advised, including Krucial and SICCAR, flying the flag for Scotland plc.  

Also in headlines this week was news around the 80 students affected by the closure of digital skills academy CodeClan graduating at a ceremony in Edinburgh.  Joined by instructors, support staff, family, and friends on the day, my spies tell me it was an emotional occasion.  

Kudos goes not only to CodeBase, who have been focused on supporting the affected students and instructors, coordinating spaces, teaching, and guidance so that impacted courses could be brought to completion, and the Scottish Government, who provided financial support, but to many individuals and organisations across the tech ecosystem.

If there is a call for action, it is for as many companies as possible to consider employing these talented and resilient individuals.  A graduate directory has been set up by CodeBase so that prospective employers seeking tech talent can access bios and information of qualified software developers and data analysts. 

With a nod to climate tech, a few of the graduating students built an app during their course that gives you reminders on dates for curb-side recycling.  Who knows, perhaps we’ll see these talented young techies at COP29!

Deus ex machina, by Nick Freer

Computer scientist, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil has said of technology: “Technological change is exponential… We won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century - it will be more like 20,000 years of progress.” 

It would be fair to say that Kurzweil is bullish on artificial intelligence (AI), remarking that: “By 2029, computers will have emotional intelligence and be as convincing as people”.  If you like the movies, it’s a theme carefully and beautifully curated, albeit with terrifying consequences, in 2014 sci-fi thriller Ex Machina. 

In recent weeks, AI has hit the global headlines like never before as the OpenAI boardroom debacle took a series of very public twists and turns in the press and via social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter). 

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman’s vision to create artificial general intelligence (AGI), computer software as intelligent as humans, had run into a wall in the form of a non-profit board, since disbanded, tasked with ensuring that OpenAI pursued AI research that was “safe and benefits all of humanity”.

The speed of OpenAI’s progress with its lead chatbot product ChatGPT has been nothing short of remarkable, but public concern exists around the pitfalls that could emerge with the advancement of AI.  This sentiment doesn’t seem misplaced when you consider that the technology is forecast to be more transformational than the smartphone, or even the internet itself.

Armed with a PHD in artificial intelligence, University of Edinburgh alumnus Geoffrey Hinton’s storied career progressed to the extent that during his time at Google he became known as the Godfather of AI, pioneering the way for systems like present day ChatGPT.

However, reverberations abounded in Silicon Valley earlier this year when Hinton quit Google citing the “existential risk of what happens when these things get more intelligent than us”.  Only this week, in a The New Yorker interview, Hinton opined that “it’s far too late” to stop artificial intelligence. 

In April, it was reported that Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, had fallen out with Google co-founder Larry Page because Page “was not taking AI safety seriously enough”. 

Unsurprisingly, AI was a principal topic of discussion at two tech conferences that took place in Edinburgh last week.  FutureScot’s DigitalScotland 2023 event and DIGIT’s DIGITExpo both welcomed thousands of delegates from Scotland and beyond to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) to exchange latest thinking on all things tech.  

Unfortunately, due to being under the weather, I was unable to attend, although I closely followed the content coming out from each gathering.  In addition to running small to large scale tech events, I think it’s notable that DIGIT and FutureScot have become invaluable portals for technology news in Scotland. 

Rewind a few years, and neither of these tech news sources existed.  Arguably, their impact has been considerable.  Without them, and in the absence of dedicated technology sector correspondents in the mainstream Scottish media, the stories of our tech companies, from startups to scaleups, would only be partially and occasionally told. 

As in the business world, the media is a key component of the global tech scene, and it’s important for Scotland to have these players. 

So, did I use ChatGPT to pull together any of this piece?  My chatbot and I would prefer not to say.

Collaboration needed to make hydrogen a reality for Scotland, by Jeremy Grant

Walking into the St James Quarter shopping centre in Edinburgh the other day I noticed a series of adverts scrolling on an electronic billboard near the entrance, each headlined “Levelling Up is Here”.

The campaign, paid for by the UK government, is designed to promote the £937 million in projects across Scotland that are being funded by Westminster, including the creation of “green freeports” at the Firth of Forth and Inverness and Cromarty Firth. When these locations were revealed in January, the UK government announcement made a point of saying it had worked in collaboration with the Scottish government to select them for freeport status, which comes with tax and customs breaks to attract companies to invest in renewable energy infrastructure. 

Of course, the settled narrative about the relationship between Holyrood and Westminster is rather different. Sometimes it is dysfunctional, especially when the issue turns on whether a matter is reserved or devolved. 

Yet in the area of renewables, which is so important to Scotland and the UK’s shared future in an era of geopolitical fracture and energy security, it is vital that the two governments collaborate far more than they have been doing hitherto. Especially when it comes to offshore wind and hydrogen and the associated infrastructure needed to make it all happen — electricity grid and port upgrades, supply chains and so forth. 

On hydrogen, the UK and Scottish governments are pursuing what the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee described in a March report as a “twin track” approach, based on different net zero target dates of 2050 and 2045 respectively. And there are different production targets for hydrogen: 10 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 in the case of the UK, and 5GW in the case of the Scottish government. 

The committee’s report noted that the two governments “arrived at their respective low carbon hydrogen production targets independently of each other, and we are unclear how the two targets align and whether either is achievable”.

It then asked the two governments to provide “a proposed timeline setting out key milestones on the road towards the respective targets to assist us and our successor committees in judging progress and evaluating the achievability of Scotland’s hydrogen production targets”. 

Meanwhile, the Scottish government has been assiduously courting Germany, knowing that Europe’s largest economy needs hydrogen to replace Russian gas and as Berlin shuts down nuclear. Under a hydrogen “action plan” drawn up by Holyrood a year ago, Scotland is to become “a leading producer and exporter of renewable hydrogen” generated from vast offshore wind farms in the North Sea. 

Scottish government rhetoric around hydrogen sometimes comes across as if it’s being viewed as a “national asset” that will eventually replace oil and gas in strategic importance. The bottom line is that hydrogen policy is complex, cutting across reserved and devolved competencies.

And at a Scottish Affairs Committee hearing in June, there were pointed questions for UK ministers about the extent to which they were liaising with Scottish counterparts on hydrogen. 

Earlier this month, the UK and German governments signed a high-level energy partnership that includes hydrogen. It’s unclear where collaboration between the UK and Scottish governments fits in. But it will be needed if any of this is to attract the private capital needed to make hydrogen a reality.

Putting Scotland's IoT sector on the global map, guest blog by Paul Wilson, CEO and Co-founder of the Smart Things Accelerator Centre (STAC)

It is well recognised that China, with its low-cost manufacturing solutions, gave rise to what we now term globalisation and consumerism.

Then came Trump and his tariffs targeted at China to stop the nation in its tracks as a technology superpower and its related ambitions to compete and win in technologies such as smartphone OEMs, semiconductors, and AI.

Automation is quickly neutralising low-cost labour with manual processes in manufacturing replaced by robots. Additionally, procurement has become more focused on carbon footprints. The net result of trade tension, Covid, and ESG is a swing back to nearshoring of supply chains. This is boosted by very significant investments by the US and EU into semi-conductor capacity in the region.

So, as we enter the technology cycle of drones, robots, EVs, sustainability tech, health tech, IoT, and AI, how is Scotland positioned?  In 2020, our STAC team assessed that we were not positioned to compete.

STAC founders recognised that Scotland had the right talent emerging from its education system and high-quality entrepreneurs addressing real-world problems. However, it was clear that there was room for improvement before we could compete and win repeatedly.  Compared to winning tech hubs like Waterloo in Canada, Scotland lacked a coordinated approach involving academia, and public and private sectors. This absence of a cohesive and highly qualified ecosystem held back the growth of tech startups in this sector.

To bridge this gap, STAC was created. It added a company-building accelerator program to leverage the talent pipeline from universities, becoming a focal point for entrepreneurship. This initiative aimed to become a lobbyist, voice, and facilitator of development support, to nurture internationally competitive tech start-ups.  With an advisory board including industry luminaries like Jim Rowan, CEO and President of Volvo Cars, and backed by corporates like Intel, we set out to move the dial.

Fast forward to October 2023, and STAC has seen notable success. With three cohorts and 35 startups, Scotland is witnessing the emergence of a formidable IoT, or “smart things” cluster. Pre-STAC, IoT brands such as Utopi, Beringar, Kingdom, Current Health, Krucial, Novosound, and Integrated Graphene were scaling impressively, building teams, launching products, establishing markets, generating revenue, and attracting investments. Our so-called ‘STACers’ are following suit, launching products, securing customers, and attracting investment, further driving the positive momentum.

STAC's plans include expanding co-working spaces, equipping them with specialised labs and event spaces that will house over 30 companies with 250 desk capacity to create one of Europe’s largest IoT spaces, while our STAC Invest and STAC Jobs initiatives will facilitate investment and talent acquisition respectively for startups. The goal is for all STAC companies to develop products, build teams, and make sales during the 18-month support program. The aim is to grow the portfolio to over 70 companies in 2024 while providing expert mentorship guiding firms towards international competitiveness.

The strategy for the future involves celebrating achievements, raising awareness, and positioning Scotland as world-class in this area. This will involve emphasising the designed in Scotland brand and establishing an international launch pad strategy for North American and Asian market launches.  With some big announcements in the pipeline, we plan to put Scotland increasingly on the global map.

Innovating faster with startups, guest blog by Steven Drost, Chief Strategy Officer, CodeBase

When we talk about the future of healthcare, many of us will reflect on how seismic an impact Covid-19 had on our lives, a narrative played out across the globe that continues to this day.

On one hand, the significant challenges we face around healthcare, which were exacerbated during the pandemic, are daunting; on the other we see how innovation can help us address these challenges. Indeed, we showed during Covid that we could innovate to solve one of the greatest societal challenges the world had ever faced.

Across the UK, the National Health Service, established 75 years ago with a founding principle that everyone should have access to healthcare based on an individual’s health needs, not their ability to pay, remains under extreme pressure. We’ve all seen the headlines around waiting lists, strikes, general disillusionment from frontline staff, and the rest.

In Scotland, in spite of the pessimistic headlines, we have an action plan in place which I believe gives us room for optimism. The twinning of Techscaler with NHS Innovation Hubs around the country is the foundation, a base from which we are bringing the NHS and tech startups together, with a view to innovation dramatically improving efficiencies and outputs.

It is what Mark Logan, chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish Government, describes as “industrialising innovation in the NHS”.  At the end of September in Edinburgh, Mark was joined by Dame Anna Dominiczak, Chief Scientist (Health) for the Scottish Government and Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Glasgow, to discuss how this partnership has the potential to bring about lasting and effective change.

With a panel and audience comprised of clinicians and healthcare professionals, academics, and startups founders, including from our own Techscaler membership, the energy in the room was palpable, and valuable conversations and exchanges took place on stage and during the related networking sessions.

Anna has written for FutureScot in recent times around the need for the NHS to adopt more of a startup mindset, and to be more entrepreneurial in its approach. It’s a classic win-win: the NHS wins by innovating faster, and startups have greater success, with all the associated societal and economic benefits that flow from working much closer together.

As Anna says, if we are to genuinely affect change, we must involve the people who are directly involved in the delivery of healthcare. Change is never easy, there will be barriers to break down, but the prize is too important not to do everything we can to shift the dial.

At CodeBase, and through the Techscaler programme, we see the considerable healthtech talent in Scotland, startups who are raising funding and going onto commercial success, domestically and on the international scene. We need this flywheel to keep spinning, and greater collaboration across the ecosystem is absolutely integral.

Clinicians and medical professionals have the truest perspective of life out on the healthcare coalface, and know which changes are most needed. It makes sense to connect them with tech founders and teams who can help them translate their knowledge and experience into building and iterating  software and hardware solutions.

Our university sector holds incredible human capital and innovation talent, the more we can harness this strength, and grow the associated pipeline of spinouts and partnerships, the better.

The investor community plays a central role too, backing high potential companies on their journeys to product-market-fit and commercialisation.

Successful founders can help the next generation of healthtech companies make the grade, we must use their experience and know-how, and feed it back into the system.

As an institution, the NHS knows it must innovate, some within the NHS will move quicker than others, while some will fall behind the curve, but there is a feeling that the momentum for change is very real. That should be encouraging for all of us.

Big lenders signal new funding environment for Scotland plc, by Jeremy Grant

Last week’s revelation by the UK government that company insolvencies hit their highest level since 2009 made for dispiriting reading.

It’s clear that the hangover is finally kicking in from a cocktail made up of the end of pandemic-era government support, accumulation of debt, and the impact of higher interest rates. Scotland was not spared: 296 companies went out of business in the third quarter, a figure seven percent higher than in the same quarter of 2022. 

Yet behind the grim statistical headlines there is a more uplifting structural story to be told about the funding environment for Scottish business — one that may signal a new foundation for how the economy can be grown.

Last week the British Business Bank (BBB), a UK government-owned lender set up in 2014, started a series of roadshows to explain the nuts and bolts of a new £150 million “Investment Fund for Scotland”.

It’s part of a package of UK-wide funding for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) designed to increase the supply and diversity of early-stage finance to regions where high street bank funding may be harder to access.

In a windowless room at the EICC conference venue in Edinburgh, I listened to pitches to about 40 small business owners by three fund managers appointed to manage tranches of the fund: DSL Business Finance, which will provide loans of £25,000-£100,000; The FSE Group, which will handle loans of £100,00 to £2million; and Maven Capital Partners, which will offer equity investments of up to £5m for a business.   

Last month, Edinburgh-based private equity firm Par Equity announced a £100m venture fund aimed at promising scale-up companies in health, climate and industrial technologies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England. Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB), the Scottish government-owned development bank, British Business Investments (part of BBB) and Strathclyde University’s pension fund are co-investors.

Finally, SNIB since its inception in 2020 has invested £221m in 27 businesses in Scotland, ranging from Verlume, an Aberdeen company that develops subsea batteries for the offshore wind industry, to Forrit, an Edinburgh cloud technology scale-up.

Taken together, this trifecta of financing flows amounts to the emergence of a new funding environment that simply didn’t exist until fairly recently (at least, not on this scale).

It also points to the establishment of significant “patient capital” — debt or equity funding that prioritises sustainable growth as well as returns — that could help fire up new drivers for the Scottish economy, including the technologies needed for net zero. It’s no coincidence that the companies Par Equity fund has in its sights are in robotics, photonics, advanced materials and artificial intelligence. 

Jason Higgs, Deals partner at PwC Scotland, says it’s “encouraging to see this increase in funds available through new avenues to supplement the existing funding ecosystem”.

Two other things stand out. One is the fact that lenders in this trifecta appear to have more appetite for “projection-based lending”, which focuses on assessing an SME’s future prospects, rather than relying for lending decisions on a backward-looking analysis of financial performance.

The other is the geographical reach of the BBB’s fund managers, who have relationships with “business gateways” across Scotland. This will doubtless help in the bank’s mission — as chief executive Louis Taylor told me — “to make sure this money really gets to underserved parts of Scotland”.