Funding and Investment

Cyan Forensics

A consortium led by Cyan Forensics has been awarded £85,000 by the UK Government to demonstrate innovative technologies to tackle one of society’s most pressing issues – keeping children safe online in end-to-end encrypted messaging environments.

In the UK alone, it is estimated there are 850,000 people who present a sexual threat to children, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Current approaches to online safety do not work in end-to-end encrypted messaging environments, while these environments form an increasingly important part of the online world. It means new safety tech measures need to be developed with urgency.

The Safety Tech Challenge Fund was launched in September by Home Secretary Priti Patel, and is led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) and the Home Office. Businesses from around the world were challenged to prototype and evaluate ways in Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) can be detected and reported within end-to-end encrypted environments, whilst balancing user privacy and security considerations.

Cyan’s project will demonstrate a new evolution of its Cyan Protect product for online safety, built on the Contraband Filter technology already used in law enforcement. Cyan’s new Privacy Assured Matching system will be tested in an end-to-end encrypted messaging environment.

Ian Stevenson, Cyan CEO, said: “Cyan’s technology, combined with the skillsets and experience of our partners Crisp, the IWF and the University of Edinburgh, means we have the right mix of talent and expertise to tackle one of society’s most pressing issues and deliver a solution that will make a real difference to the lives of children around the world.

“We’re delighted to have won support for this project through the Safety Tech Challenge Fund and look forward to contributing to this vital work and extending the range of solutions available with new and much-needed capabilities.”

Intelligent Growth Solutions

Scottish agritech startup Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) has raised £42.2 million as part of an oversubscribed Series B funding round.

The latest funding round brings the total investment in IGS to more than £52m, and was supported by Swiss, US and Scotland-based investors.

For Swiss investment firm COFRA, which led the round, this marks the first investment into sustainable food systems and agritech as part of a strategy to contribute to the food system transition.

IGS Chief Executive David Farquhar commented: “The conclusion of a hugely over-subscribed Series B round represents another exciting step for IGS and our investors.

“We have been supported with this investment by well-established, globally recognised and highly ethical investors in COFRA, Cleveland Avenue and DC Thomson, who understand the transformational potential of our technology for controlled environment agriculture.”

Our full piece has more.

Dyneval

Dyneval, a Roslin-based biotechnology startup, has raised £1.29 million in Series A equity investment as part of a collaborative funding round.

A host of investors pledged support through the Series A, including Northern Irish entrepreneur Jim Dobson, Kelvin Capital, Par Equity, Gabriel Investments, and Scottish Enterprise.

Dyneval revealed the funding will be used to recruit seven more personnel over the coming months and support the roll-out of its first product, Dynescan.

Set to launch in 2022, Dynescan aims to improve cattle conception rates, which have fallen by 20% over the past four decades and cost the average UK dairy farmer around £37,000 per year.

Commenting on the investment, Dyneval CEO Tiffany Wood said: “The Series A funding will be critical to launching our product and growing our team – it is an incredibly exciting time for our business.”

Find out more in our full article.

Carbon Based Lifeforms

Carbon Based Lifeforms, led by Scottish author, futurist and tech evangelist Theo Priestley, has secured $1.7 million in pre-seed funding to begin work on its ambitious first title, dubbed ‘Project Gateway’.

Project Gateway is a space-themed massively multiplayer online (MMO) game which Priestley says will combine elements from traditional MMOs with original IP and storytelling.

The immersive title draws inspiration from other popular MMO titles over the years, such as EvE Online and World of Warcraft, but plans to go one step further and reward players for their time, effort and engagement in-game.

To do this, Gateway will feature a player-driven, NFT asset-based economy underpinned by Bitcoin. Led by two economists at the studio, the game’s market economy means players can derive real-world value from their unique creations, Priestley says.

“The in-game economy we’re designing is a fully open economy that is largely player-driven and player owned. In a way, it mirrors real world markets,” he explains.

The benefit of this is that players can craft new in-game assets and give them real-world value as an NFT, then sell them to other players to use in-game using Bitcoin.

Priestley adds: “For example, a player may trade base resources and materials in the game, or mine and gather them from asteroids, then by using the crafting system create an entirely new asset (like a ship module, weapon, shielding etc) which they can either use themselves, sell directly to another player, or create a type of blueprint for mass production by a player corporation.”

Our full article has more.

BetDEX

Three former FanDuel execs have raised $21m in funding to launch a new venture aimed at transforming the consumer sports betting industry.

BetDEX, founded by Nigel Eccles, Varun Sudhakar and Stuart Tonner, combines blockchain technology with sports betting, and hopes to position itself as the world’s first decentralised betting platform.

The funding round, led by San Francisco-based crypto investment firm Paradigm and FTX, marks the largest-ever seed investment secured by a UK startup.

Set to launch in early 2022, the funding will enable BetDEX to scale the business from a base in Scotland and hire for positions across a range of functions.

Commenting on the investment, Eccles said: “It’s exciting to be founding the business with Varun and Stuart, and to be building it in Scotland. We are energised to have the backing and wealth of expertise that comes with having Paradigm and FTX as cornerstone investors.”

If you want to know more, read our article.

Kick ICT

Kick ICT has secured £8.7m in funding from BGF to support the firm’s UK-wide growth plans.

Headquartered in Strathclyde Business Park, Kick ICT has enjoyed significant expansion in recent years, completing seven acquisitions to date and growing revenue to £18m with a portfolio of over 900 customers.

Alongside the BGF investment, Geoff Neville has been appointed as Chairman. Neville boasts extensive experience as a senior executive, with a track record of driving market-leading growth across IT and business services organisations, including Admiral plc, Sx3 and Fujitsu Services.

He is currently Chairman of several technology businesses, including InvenioLSI, a global provider of SAP enterprise solutions and consultancy for the public and media sectors.

Commenting on the investment, Kick ICT Chief Executive Tom O’Hara said: “This year has been a particularly positive and eventful one for the business. In addition to growth through acquisitions, we have experienced increased demand for services such as ERP, cyber security and network environment support as businesses embrace and plan for the future world of working.

“Our focus is to continue to build on Kick ICT’s track record and integral to this was ensuring we have the right type of investment and input to underpin the next chapter of our growth journey.

“As a firm that shares our values for developing client trust and relationships, BGF is the perfect partner to support us with our ambitious vision for Kick ICT.”

Read our article for more.

Brainnwave and Hatch

Scottish augmented business intelligence firm Brainnwave has completed a Series A investment round worth £5.9 million with Hatch, a leading engineering, project management, and professional services firms.

Following the investment, the two organisations announced the formation of a co-venture. The partnership will combine Brainnwave’s machine learning analytics platform with Hatch’s knowledge of the metals and mining, energy, and infrastructure sectors.

Crucially, the new co-venture will provide Brainnwave with access to a global client roster and enable the Edinburgh-headquartered firm to expand its headcount by 100 people across a range of highly-skilled roles.

Brainnwave also revealed it intends to upscale the company’s Edinburgh and London locations.

Brainnwave CEO and co-founder, Steve Coates, commented: “This partnership made sense because both organisations are like-minded in their entrepreneurial approach, willingness to do things differently and challenge the status quo, and propensity to develop game-changing solutions.

“This co-venture was the ideal opportunity to combine Brainnwave’s unique tech stack and expertise with the deep industry relationships and sector expertise of Hatch to build things together, tackling some of today’s most important issues.”

Learn more by reading our full article.

Pawprint

Edinburgh ecotech pioneer Pawprint exceeded a recently launched crowdfunding campaign in November, surpassing a target of £700k.

The startup has secured funding from over 230 investors, enabling it to continue ramping up development of its employee engagement platform and “accelerate climate action at scale”.

In addition to the crowdfunding success, Pawprint also confirmed it has secured certification as a B Corporation (or B Corp), recognising its commitment to sustainability, ethics and accountability.

Achieving B Corp status means Pawprint met rigorous social and environmental standards which represent its commitment to goals outside of shareholder profit.

Christian Arno, Founder and CEO of Pawprint, commented: “To me, B Corps are setting the standard for how business can change the world for the better.

“It was incredibly emotional for me to find out we’d achieved B Corps status, because the way B Corps are run cuts to the very core of what I believe in and the basis on which Pawprint was founded.”

For more, read the full article.

Frog Systems

The latest funding round from wellbeing technology company Frog Systems has raised a total of £846,000.

With the round open to employees along with existing shareholders, £500k came from majority shareholder Aldridge Capital, while 85% of staff subscribed for shares for the first time. Shares were priced at a 10% premium over a previous round of £476K at the start of the year.

Chairman of Frog Systems Nick Kuenssberg said: “We have spent the past year building a very strong and experienced management team, recruiting some exceptional talent, and successfully taking our wellbeing software Ashia to market where we now work with a wide range of blue-chip organisations across multiple sectors.

“The board is confident that we are now blazing a unique trail in the WellTech market. The fact that staff have been so supportive of this capital subscription demonstrates the personal faith they have in the company and its future.”

The capital raise allows for an increase in Frog Systems’ share options pool which will ensure that every current and future member of staff has a vested interest in the company’s future. The funds will help the business increase staff recruitment and move to the next stage of product development.

Frog Systems’ digital approach, combining lived experience video with hyper-local support and resources on a single page to generate anonymised data that tracks wellbeing issues, is being used by a growing number of companies and communities across the UK.

With a pipeline of commercial opportunities, the company plans to go to the market to raise funds to further accelerate growth early next summer.

Find out more here.

Sofant Technologies

Edinburgh-based radio technology company Sofant Technologies has received financial backing from the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The funding amounts to €7.3 million (£6.2 million) and will support the commercialisation of its low-cost low-power satellite communications platform and has been secured under an Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) contract.

News comes as Sofant Technologies prepares for its first Series A funding round to scale up its base in Edinburgh and triple its headcount, creating new highly-skilled jobs within Scotland’s engineering sector.

Funding will see the company complete their satellite communication terminal and allow users to connect to the cloud through a new generation of low-latency, super-fast satellite networks.

Commenting on the ARTES contract, David Wither, CEO of Sofant Technologies, said: “We are honoured that the UKSA and the ESA have agreed to support the commercialisation of Sofant’s technology. They have a clear understanding of the technical challenges faced by the satellite communications industry.

“They share our belief that a scalable technology platform which solves power consumption and heat problems in phased array antennas is critical for the future of wireless communications. We look forward to working with the team at the ESA throughout this project.”

To read more, check out the full piece.

DASA

66 Scottish innovators have had their ideas funded through DASA’s Themed Competitions and Open Calls, with the underlying theme being technologies that will help solve the big challenges facing UK security.

Key technology areas that received funding in Scotland include space technology, photonics, LIDAR, AI, robotics and materials science.

DASA works locally, to support and advise innovators, providing a critical link to pull through innovation to aid the Ministry of Defence, Home Office, Department for Transport and other Government departments.

Speaking about the funding, Debra Carr, DASA Scotland Innovation Partner, said: “I’m thrilled that DASA has reached £10m in funding for projects based in Scotland.

“It is a testament to the incredible work that has come through our competitions and a great showcase of Scottish contributions to vital areas of defence and security such as space, robotics, artificial intelligence and photonics. We greatly look forward to working with more Scottish innovators in the future.”

Learn more in our article.

Heriot-Watt University

Ground-breaking research from Heriot-Watt University and the University of Texas Medical Branch is set to be commercialised following a funding award from Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Spinout Programme.

The funding is the first step towards establishing a specialist Scottish biotechnology company to develop treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases and fibrosis.

Victoria Carmichael, Director of Strategic Investments at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Our High Growth Spinout Programme was established specifically to help commercialise ground-breaking research conducted by Scotland’s universities.

“The development of EPAC1 has the potential to alleviate the suffering caused to millions of people around the world and highlights the important innovation-led approach the country’s academic institutions continue to apply to the management of chronic diseases.”

Funding will be used for further development of the treatments and has also allowed the team to recruit commercial expertise from industry veteran Chris Wardhaugh who will act as a CEO-Designate for the project.

The team, which includes Dr Graeme Barker, are working closely with the University’s Global Research Innovation and Discovery (GRID) facility.

Learn more in our full article.

Deals and Acquisitions

Bearer and Trace

Data security risk platform Bearer has partnered with Trace, a boutique privacy, data security and data governance expert solutions company, to help firms leverage the best of services and software and build a connected compliance programme.

Together the teams bring the best blend of human and tech capabilities to help progressive organisations to “connect the dots” for joined up data security, privacy and risk programmes.

Bearer CEO, Guillaume Montard, said: “We have been working with Sorcha for a number of months now and from the outset, what struck us was her deep expertise in the field while at the same time a fresh perspective that immediately connected with what we do at Bearer.

“By working together we believe we can offer the industry a very different outlook and bring together a new direction for data security in general.”

Pawprint and Tesco Bank

Pawprint has signed up Tesco Bank to its carbon monitoring platform, helping the bank’s 4,000 colleagues reduce their carbon footprint.

The Scottish eco-tech company’s Pawprint for Business platform helps businesses unite, engage and support their colleagues in tackling climate change.

Pawprint’s services help people monitor their carbon footprints and provide advice on how to reduce them. It also encourages participation through eco-Sprints and teams and leaderboards.

Businesses meanwhile gain unique insights into their Scope 3 emissions, including commuting, business travel and home working.

Commenting on the sign-up, Christian Arno, founder and Pawprint CEO, said: “We are seeing real momentum in the drive to tackle climate change and having businesses such as Tesco Bank taking a proactive approach in supporting their employees’ efforts can be game changing.

“Pawprint for Business was designed to drive change and to drive it fast by uniting employees in their efforts.”

For more, read the full piece.