Funding and Investment

Filament STAC

Filament STAC has announced the backing of a series of major tech giants from the US to create an IoT cluster in Scotland.

US firms Twilio, Plexus Corp., Intel Corporation, Keysight, and Arrow Electronics are among the global tech brands supporting STAC to create the Scottish cluster.

The latest backing supports the 18-month accelerator’s target to produce Scottish IoT companies capable of scaling and competing on a global level, with a three-year target to create more than 25 IoT companies supporting around 750 jobs.

Projected revenue in Scotland could be around £750 million, with cohort companies raising investment of more than £100 million, Filament said.

Commenting on the announcement, Paul Wilson, CEO of Filament STAC, said: “It is a testament not only to our own ambitions for STAC, but more importantly for tech groups of the stature of Twilio, Plexus Corp, Intel, Keysight and Arrow to believe in our mission and get behind the plan to build globally competitive IoT companies from a base in Scotland.

“Companies whose products are engineered and made in Scotland, with access to industry leaders’ support from individuals and companies alike. Essentially, we are creating a IoT tech cluster here in Scotland.”

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Lupovis

University of Strathclyde cybersecurity spin-out Lupovis has secured pre-seed investment of more than £615,000.

The funding was gained through a syndicate co-led by Techstart Ventures and Nauta Capital, together with an investment by the University of Strathclyde.

Money from the university was made available through the Strathclyde Inspire Entrepreneurs Fund which help firms with early-stage funding. The investment comes through a 50:50 split between the university and alumni donations.

Lupovis said it would also use the money to expand its team and enhance further functionalities within the platform. It will also utilise the funding to further develop its proactive cyber-defence solution, led by the team at the university’s Centre for Intelligent and Dynamic Communications, which makes the ‘hunter become the hunted’.

Commenting on the investment news, Dr Xavier Bellekens, the CEO of Lupovis, said: “We are thrilled with the opportunities this investment creates to develop Lupovis’ dynamic deception capabilities.

“Our system uses artificial intelligence to create scenarios which mirror the existing infrastructure of an organisation and engages the attacker into believing they are progressing towards assets of value, turning networks from a flock of sheep to a pack of wolves.

“We are in a unique position where we have unrivalled data on attacker techniques, methods and behaviour. We will feed this data into our platform, so our customers will always remain one step ahead of attackers, predicting their next move, long before they actually make it.”

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Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics

The Strathclyde-based Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP) is to receive £6.5m over the next five years from the Scottish Government.

Announced by Ivan McKee MSP, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, the core funding to CAP will enable the purchase of cutting-edge equipment and doctorate level student training.

The latter is considered a crucial part of the Fraunhofer model and both are essential components in delivering ‘next generation products and processes’.

“The funding will support the third phase of the centre’s world-class research and innovation activities and is another step towards the Scottish Government’s target of growing business enterprise R&D in Scotland to £1.8 billion by 2025,” said the MSP.

He added: “In the longer term, we want to boost Scotland’s innovation performance to match the levels of the best performing countries worldwide.”

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Broker Insights

Broker Insights, a high-growth company that offers a digital platform for the insurance market, has raised more than £6m in a Series A funding round led by Mercia Asset Management.

Chroma Ventures, which first backed Broker Insights with seed funding in 2018, made a follow-on investment in this round, alongside a group of private UK and US investors.

The funding will enable further development on Broker Insights’ platform and accelerate its UK growth and launch in the US, in line with its plans to become a global leader in its field. The company, which currently employs 35 staff at its headquarters in Dundee, expects to double its headcount in 2022, with the majority of new jobs in Scotland.

Chief executive of Broker Insights Fraser Edmond said: “This investment is an endorsement of our success in building our platform, technology and team. Launched three years ago, we are now serving 12% of the UK commercial insurance market; we have established that our platform delivers results for our customers and is attracting significant and growing demand from brokers and insurers alike.

“We have the opportunity to become a mainstream digital marketplace for insurers and brokers. We are removing significant friction and cost in connecting brokers and insurers, and the potential market for this is here in the UK and next in the US.

“We have traction, proven demand, and this funding allows us to accelerate our growth.”

Scottish Enterprise

Economic development agency Scottish Enterprise announced that £10.7m has been approved for 43 projects involving capital investment of £61.6m.

More than 750 green jobs are expected to be created and by the projects.

The awards are being made via the agency’s Green Jobs Call, part of the Scottish Government’s £100m Green Jobs Fund. Grants ranging from £50,000 to £500,000 were made available through the call.

Businesses applying for funding had to demonstrate they will create or safeguard jobs that relate directly to the transition to net zero or minimise environmental impacts by developing sustainable low-carbon products or services.

CEO of Scottish Enterprise Adrian Gillespie said: “This round of funding shows our commitment to supporting Scotland’s transition to a greener and fairer economy, and to creating good green jobs.

“The wide range of projects highlights the increasingly innovative approaches businesses are taking to answering the net zero call, whether that’s creating new products and services, or developing and adapting existing approaches to mitigate their environmental impact.”

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Pawprint

Edinburgh-based tech startup Pawprint closed its latest crowdfund in December as the carbon reducing employee engagement platform wraps up a year of growth.

2021 has seen the business attract over 18,000 users, sign up 31 businesses, achieve B Corp status and more than double its headcount from 12 to 30 full time employees with plans to do likewise next year.

Pawprint, one of a growing breed of businesses harnessing technology to tackle the world’s biggest issues, was recently highlighted by the UK Government as a key Climate Leader.

In the year that Scotland became the epicentre of the climate change battle by hosting COP26, this Scottish based carbon reducing startup has seen demand soar.

Christian Arno, founder and CEO of Pawprint, said: “2021 will undoubtedly go down in history as the year of the pandemic but I believe it will also be remembered as the year that climate action went mainstream.

“COP26 really highlighted the need for urgent action and I’m delighted that Pawprint has been able to support so many on their carbon reduction journey and continues to scale to meet the growing demand.”

Deals and Acquisitions

hubb

Challenger insurance broker hubb has acquired award-winning insurance technology provider Digital Fineprint (DFP) for an undisclosed sum to significantly enhance its customer-centric approach.

Established in 2019, hubb is a usage-based insurance broker that prides itself on its transparent approach to business insurance, underpinned by a unique technology ecosystem that provides all clients with a 360-view of their insurance policies 24/7.

In acquiring DFP, hubb will benefit from its focus on data and business intelligence and will be able to expediate the quotation process and provide a more bespoke service for its customers through advanced tech capability. In addition, the broker will also be able to provide valuable risk insight to quoting insurers.

As a result, the DFP team will now merge with hubb personnel and CTO, Ulrich Zink, will expand his role across the whole business.

Mark Costello, co-founder and CEO of hubb, confirmed: “This acquisition puts hubb in a unique position in the insurance market and allows us to offer more true value to our commercial and business owning clients.

“Moreover, it enables us to significantly expedite our plans to be the world’s most transparent, technologically-advanced and customer-centric insurance business.”

The Scotland 5G Centre

A UK consortium that includes The Scotland 5G Centre (S5GC) was among the winners of the UK Government’s Future Radio Access Network Competition.

The centre, along with the rest of the 5G DU-Volution consortium, will receive over £4.6 million in funding to support the UK Government’s “Future Radio Access Network: Diversifying the 5G Supply Chain” (FRANC) programme.

5G DU-Volution will address the key aims of the FRANC programme by promoting the integration of Radio Access Network (RAN) suppliers’ products at all levels of the architecture, (both software and hardware), into one of the most challenging RAN components – the distribution unit (DU).

The Scotland 5G Centre’s role in the partnership is to provide the overall project management and promote dissemination, ensuring the smooth running and delivery of the programme. The centre will work together with the consortium to deliver the innovative new DU and support the O-RAN opportunity, which will enable the entry of new players into the market.

Commenting on the news, Scotland 5G Centre CEO Paul Coffey said: “This is a great opportunity for collaboration – we are delighted to have been awarded this funding, alongside our partners in the 5G DU-Volution consortium.

“Through this project, the collaborators will accelerate the understanding of interworking between components, enabling innovation through the selection of component vendors to meet specific market requirements.”

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Novosound

Scottish remote sensor specialist Novosound has entered the global digital health and medical imaging market with a major commercial contract.

The seven-figure R&D and subsequent licensing deal is with a venture capital-backed Israeli company dSound and will see Novosound deliver 3D ultrasound technology to the dental imaging market, enabling dentists to look safely and painlessly at the tooth and bone under the gumline.

Novosound CEO and co-founder Dave Hughes said: “Dentistry is currently undergoing digitisation with the emergence of new advanced imaging techniques, and we see scope for our high-resolution ultrasonic technology to make a big impression, first in dental but then across other segments of the global 3D medical imaging market.”

Founded in 2018, Novosound’s patented thin-film manufacturing process, which eliminates conventional limitations in ultrasound sensors including the high cost of high-resolution imaging, also underpins the company’s pioneering non-destructive testing (NDT) products – the Kelpie, Belenus, and Nebula.

Lingo24

AI-powered language operations firm, Unbabel, has announced the acquisition of Lingo24 as part of its strategy to bring consistent and reliable translation to businesses around the world.

The addition of Lingo24 means Unbabel can provide ‘more consistent, high-quality multilingual customer experiences across marketing and customer service—accelerating international growth while improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.’

Founded by Christian Arno, Lingo24 is a tech-enabled Language Service Provider (LSP), experienced in delivering multilingual content at scale for global enterprises.

The hope is that the acquisition will advance Unbabel’s vision of enabling businesses to execute on their unified language strategy through Language Operations.

“This acquisition enables us to become a world-class multilingual content partner to global brands seeking to optimize their localization and multilingual content strategy,” said Andrew Campbell, CEO of Lingo24.

He adds: “Joining forces with Unbabel means we can now grow beyond localized content and offer multilingual customer support to our customers looking to expand into new regions.”

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