Startups and scaleups across the Glasgow City Region are continuing to attract venture capital investment growth at a pace that, according to a new report, is outperforming many of Europe’s leading and emerging ecosystems.

According to the new Glasgow City Region Ecosystem Report, the enterprise value of the region’s tech ecosystem currently stands at £3.4 billion – having risen by 89% since 2018.

In the vanguard of this emerging ecosystem are regional cluster strengths in healthtech, precision medicine, net zero/climate technologies, space, fintech, advanced manufacturing, and the digital and creative economy.

The Glasgow Tech Ecosystem has entered a virtuous cycle. Catalysts such as the Innovation Districts, Tech Scaler, and an increased focus from our universities on entrepreneurship are combining to create more, and stronger startups,” Mark Logan, chief entrepreneurial advisor at the Scottish Government, stated in the report.

“These, in turn, create more belief, and strengthen the ecosystemʼs experience base, leading to further start-up creation. Itʼs the most exciting entrepreneurial environment weʼve seen in Glasgow in living memory.”

According to the report, the Glasgow City Region’s startup ecosystem is benefiting from Scottish Government support, such as in IT and smart devices. Organisations such as STAC and CENSIS have enabled advances in carbon emission reductions and productivity.

Further, the city’s collaborations with local universities, innovation hubs and accelerators have placed it well positioned in competitive sectors such as tech and manufacturing.

Glasgow’s three distinct university-anchored Innovation Districts underline the region’s unrivalled appeal as an attractive high-quality, low-cost living environment for entrepreneurs and start-ups, supported by the city’s high graduate retention rate.

This landscape is encouraged by the increasing commercialisation of research associated with cutting-edge technologies like IoT, quantum tech and nano fabrication, photonics & optronics and 5G to 6G.

Councillor Susan Aitken, leader of Glasgow City Council said: “Glasgow’s reputation for innovation, invention and ambition continues to define the city and this report by Dealroom shows that across the region we are attracting new businesses and new entrepreneurs. This confidence in our city as a place to do businesses is creating hundreds of specialised, high-value jobs across the city.”

Dealroom.co, the global data platform that tracks the performance of regional tech businesses, announced their collaboration with Glasgow City Council six months ago at the State of the City Conference, where they unveiled the Glasgow City Region Tech Ecosystem Platform.

It’s the UK’s first standalone regional Dealroom platform, designed to support local government, academia, and other public-private agencies.

The platform will provide entrepreneurs and potential investors, as well as start-ups and scaleups with a valuable and free, open-source business platform and profile.

Meanwhile, their data contributes to and helps inform the overall picture of growth across Glasgow’s tech ecosystem.

For instance, startups in the Glasgow metropolitan area have seen an 8% investment growth over the past 12 months, reflecting the ability to attract increasingly levels of investment.

Of these, start ups in health, energy, real estate, fintech, and semiconductors industries have raised nearly two thirds of the total investment rounds over the past 5 years in Glasgow.

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And the growth and carried on into this year: the first quarter of 2023 has been Glasgow City Region’s third highest on record for venture capital investment with notable investments since the start of the year in companies like Phlo Technologies, Causeway Therapeutics, DxCover, and IbisVision.

Anne McLister, head of Digital Economy said: “As Scotland’s biggest city, Glasgow has huge business appeal offering an abundance of talent and collaborative networks across our flourishing tech and creative communities.

“Our emerging tech ecosystem benefits from the resources that our renowned higher and further education institutions offer including a highly educated pool of talented people who possess strong research and innovation capabilities.”

Glasgow’s three distinct university-anchored Innovation Districts underline the region’s unrivalled appeal as an attractive high-quality, low-cost living environment for entrepreneurs and start-ups, supported by the city’s high graduate retention rate.