Scotland’s state-backed investment bank helped channel more than £210 million into the country’s innovation economy last year, as private capital continues to flock to publicly-backed projects.

According to its 2025 Impact Report, the Scottish National Investment Bank directly committed £67 million across high-growth firms and strategic projects in 2024, sparking an additional £143 million in third-party investment.

Since launching in 2020, the Bank has now mobilised over half a billion pounds across sixteen investments in support of Scotland’s innovation-led transition, however the state bank has an even grander vision for the next five years.

The Bank has set its sights on a major scale-up, aiming to triple its investment output and dramatically boost job creation by the end of the decade.

By 2030, the Scottish National Investment Bank plans to invest between £400–£500 million in Scottish firms – an ambitious leap from the £162.6 million invested over the last five years – while also targeting the creation or safeguarding of up to 7,700 jobs, a bold step up from the 1,642 roles supported to date.

Ambitious as the Bank’s targets may be, its investment record shows it’s already a serious force in Scotland’s tech economy.

To date, it has channelled over £75 million into scalable tech, backed £32 million in robotics, quantum and photonics, and invested more than £28 million into the fast-growing Scottish space sector, supporting an average 57 jobs for every innovation investment it makes.

However, that investment boom isn’t being felt evenly across Scotland.

A striking 81% of the Scottish National Investment Bank’s innovation funding in 2024 went to projects in the Central Belt, totalling £127 million in capital, with Edinburgh alone accounting for more than half of those deals.

The capital landed seven investments, compared to just four in Glasgow, while Aberdeen and Stirling trailed behind with only two each.

Despite claiming its investments reflect the spread of scale-ups across Scotland, the Bank’s funding remains heavily concentrated. While the Bank maintains its capital aligns with ‘regional density’, Beauhurst data shows Edinburgh made up just 12% of Scotland’s high-growth firms last year, with 114 companies compared to Glasgow’s 135.

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The picture isn’t much better when it comes to gender. Just £29.5 million of the Bank’s portfolio went to female-led businesses – just 4.2% of the total, dropping from 5% in 2023. Meanwhile, the number of female-led firms in the portfolio also fell, down to 13.6% from more than 17% the year before. 

Still, the Scottish National Investment Bank has seen more progress in other core mission areas, having supported the delivery of 742 new homes, helped avoid or remove 135,531 tonnes of CO2e, and seen an estimated 207,042 people positively impacted by its investments.  

“Our missions to address global challenges have never been more relevant, and today’s report demonstrates our progress,” said the Bank’s CEO, Al Denholm. 

“Accurately measuring and reporting on our impact progress is an essential element in evidencing the benefit of our investment approach. 

“I’m incredibly proud of how the companies and projects in our portfolio are driving environmental impact, innovation and place-based equality across Scotland, and can’t wait to see all they will deliver in the year ahead.”