Royal Bank of Scotland has announced a new partnership with the University of Edinburgh to provide a boost for Scottish startups this year.

The new partnership will build on the existing relationship between the bank and the university, with a dedicated member of RBS staff working alongside Edinburgh Uni’s AI Accelerator programme team to provide strategic coordination between entrepreneurs, academic teams, and the Royal Bank Accelerator community.

RBS said that the collaboration will bring an expanded programme of support for Scottish entrepreneurs, as well as for alumni, staff and student founders, fuelling the growth and commercial impact of innovative new businesses.

Through practical, in-person advice as well as large-scale sessions and boutique events, the Royal Bank Accelerator team will be on hand to help these businesses scale, while tapping into the university’s academic expertise and networks.

At the same time, RBS has committed £30,000 to the University of Edinburgh’s AI Accelerator, expanding access to academic expertise, PhD support, and wider university resources for the programme as it recruits for its 10th cohort.

“Building on a foundation of years of collaboration, we’re supercharging our partnership to support the innovators of the future,” said Heidi Simpson, regional accelerator director for RBS. 

“This is about making it easier for start-ups and scaling businesses across Scotland to move faster, think bigger and turn ambition into growth that in turn benefits the Scottish economy.”

RBS said that its partnership with the University of Edinburgh will span four key themes, namely Accelerator, Innovation, Research, and Student Experience and Recruitment. 

Each area is designed to strengthen the pathway from idea to impact, and allow founders across Scotland access to tailored support, as well as helping research-led innovators to connect more effectively with industry.

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The renewed partnership forms part of RBS’s commitment to supporting 5,000 Scottish startups in 2026, an initiative running alongside NatWest Group’s plans to launch accelerator hubs in ten universities around the UK over the next three years.

“This new alignment of entrepreneurship expertise and resources between the Royal Bank of Scotland and the University of Edinburgh is great news for the entrepreneurs across our cohorts,” said Douglas Graham, director of innovation clusters at Edinburgh Innovations.

“Offering our combined support to talented founders and their emerging ideas and technologies strengthens our regional and national innovation ecosystem, and helps harness data, digital and AI for the good of all.”