News EDGE10

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.

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.

Today, after two weeks of EDGE of your seat vote campaigning by three very worthy contenders, we are delighted to announce the winner of the Round 10 Wild Card EDGE public vote.

Meet the Scottish EDGE Round Ten Young EDGE Winners

Aiming to continue the trend of high-quality pitching seen in Scottish EDGE Round Ten’s Wild Card EDGE Finals and Scottish EDGE Semi-finals, it was the turn of twenty-one young entrepreneurs to impress a panel of expert judges in the Round Ten Young EDGE Final – and they did not disappoint. The panel, consisting of Glenn Exton (Scottish Enterprise), Martin McFadyen (Virgin Media Business), Ross Marshgall (KPMG), Nicola Dames (Vanilla Blush) and Amanda Taylor (Taylor Nisbit), had the exciting but difficult task of awarding the £100,000 allocated prize pot for the category across twelve of the finalists.

In what a collective panel of 15 expert judges deemed a highly competitive Scottish EDGE round 10 semi-final – spread over three days and featuring fifty-seven great Scottish start-ups – eighteen businesses have been selected to pitch in front of a panel of industry-leading professionals, for up to £100,000 of Scottish EDGE funding and support.

Three’s the magic number for one lucky Wild Card EDGE winner as the Wild Card EDGE Public Vote returns for its 3rd outing. Following the success of last round’s vote, which saw winners, Nu Blvck, go on to pitch live at the Scottish EDGE Round Nine Final, we’re hugely excited to announce the three Scottish businesses competing for your vote in Round Ten of the competition. BUBL Bags, Drink Baotic by Hippo and Hedgehog and Sonik Pocket now have until Wed, 24th May, 2017 to convince the public that their product or service has that winning EDGE – deserving of additional funding and support. The business with the highest number of unique votes will be given the opportunity to pitch for up to £100,000 in grant and loan funding at the Scottish EDGE final on June 22nd, 2017 (Get your free ticket here).

Earlier this week, 21 Scottish start-up businesses took a walk on the Wild (Card EDGE) Side, in what an expert panel of judges deemed to be an exceptionally high standard final. So high in fact, that 12, rather than 10, successfully pitched their way to a winning position – securing grant funding of up to £10,000 from the allocated £100,000 Wild Card EDGE prize pot. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we can today reveal the businesses who will be collecting their award at the Scottish EDGE Round 10 Final on 22 June 2017 at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Gogarburn campus (grab a ticket here). The actual amount won by each business will not be disclosed until the award ceremony.

Our Scottish EDGE Round Ten 1st stage assessments are complete and the results are out! If you’re going to be pitching in our Young EDGE Final, Wild Card EDGE Final or Scottish EDGE Semi-final, then be sure to come along to one of our workshops – kindly hosted by Entrepreneurial Spark and STEP Scotland (in collaboration with Mel Sherwood) in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling.

Nominate your Business Valentine!

To celebrate the launch of Scottish EDGE Round Ten, we’re switching valentines cards for business cards. Scottish EDGE has had a lot of love sent its way over the years. We wouldn’t be celebrating our tenth round if wasn’t for the help and support of our friends in the business community. So, in the spirit of paying-it-forward, we’re giving away personalised boxes of yummy Belgian chocolates to ten of the Scottish Business World’s kindest, most supportive, warm and selfless individuals – and we want you to tell us who they are.

Are you an innovative, high growth potential, Scottish-headquartered business?  Then apply now for Scottish EDGE Round 10 which launches today.  Applications will be accepted through the competition website until 8th March, 2017 at 2pm, requiring an application form and a short video pitch. All entries will be assessed by a number of independent, expert panels before being shortlisted to participate in a Scottish EDGE semi-final or the final of our subsidiary competition categories, namely Higgs EDGE, Young EDGE or Wild Card EDGE. Prizes of up to £150,000 will be awarded at a full day pitching final and an awards ceremony on 22nd June 2017.