Blogs June 2017

Following an extensive, country-wide search to find Scotland’s next great start-up businesses, twenty promising entrepreneurs pitched their businesses plans to an expert panel of judges in order to win a slice of a £1.3 million prize pot. The panel of judges, which was chaired by Brian McBride, Chairman of ASOS, chose twelve of the businesses as winners on the day. Also announced were winners of Higgs EDGE, which seeks to identify innovative science and technology businesses with global commercialisation potential, Young EDGE, for entrepreneurs under the age of 30, and Wild Card EDGE for businesses who have yet to commence trading.

Start-ups are being offered the opportunity to become ‘investors’ themselves in the next generation of entrepreneurs.

They can sign up to an initiative which will mean donating part of their revenue or funds they receive from selling their businesses into a pot to fund other start-ups.

Scottish Edge, which funds early stage firms,  is inviting award winners to sign the “Edge Pledge”, contributing a minimum 1% from exit proceeds or future revenue streams.

Earlier this week, in our penultimate Scottish EDGE Round Ten Final before the live Final on 22^nd June (get your ticket here), two innovative Scottish start-up businesses won the competition’s award for science, technology and engineering-focused businesses – Higgs EDGE. From a shortlist of four extraordinary Scottish EDGE semi-finalists chosen to pitch in front of Higgs EDGE’s industry expert judging panel, CuanTec and Oxy-Gen Combustion emerged as winners. One of the victors will receive Scottish EDGE’s top prize of £150,000, and the other £100,000. The exact amount each has won however will not be revealed until their awards are presented at the live final.