Funding

Earth Blox

Scottish tech firm Earth Blox will push forward with plans to expand its global reach and develop its no-code Earth observation (EO) cloud-based SaaS thanks to £1.5 million in funding.

The company’s services help users create customised insights from satellite and geospatial data. While harnessing satellite imaging data normally requires technical coding capabilities, Earth Blox’s platform simplifies this by combining access to Google Earth Engine’s petabytes of planetary scale data with a ‘drag and drop’ interface.

This helps meet the growing needs of a wide range of sectors, businesses, and users for EO insights as part of strategic planning, monitoring and reporting.

Earth Blox CEO Genevieve Patenaude said: “We are very pleased to secure this funding from Archangels and join a strong portfolio of businesses in the life sciences and tech sectors.

“Investment into innovative businesses like ours is vital to growth in all areas, from customer acquisition to building a great team.

“This investment will help us develop Earth Blox as a scalable SaaS and get the power of Earth observation insights into the hands of a range of users around the world.”

If you want to know more, our full story has more.

Cytomos

Edinburgh-based life science company Cytomos has secured £1.6m funding to develop its proprietary new approach to analysing cells

The company has created a novel cell analysis platform, Cytomos Dielectric Spectroscopy (CDS), to address what it considers to be the unmet needs of the biopharma industry.

CDS provides a low-cost, portable and scalable alternative to traditional systems, helping companies react in real time, enabling prioritisation and ‘fail fast’ to minimise sunk costs.

Furthermore, it aims to enable non-specialist users to perform quantitative and qualitative cytometry without requiring typical cell labelling reagents, delivering results faster, simplifying the logistics of testing and reducing costs.

The company’s latest fundraising round was led by existing investor Archangels, an early investor in Cytomos, with participation from Scottish Enterprise and Old College Capital.

The funding will allow the company to grow its team, deliver its next generation sensor and analytics for real time monitoring and analysis of cells and expand its customer engagement.

Executive Chairman at Cytomos Dr Alan Raymond said: “On behalf of our board and employees I would like to thank our investors for their continued support of Cytomos. We now have the growth capital required to advance the development of our novel process analytical technology platform to the next phase of prototype evaluation with our strategic partners.

“This is an important milestone in the journey to deliver our mission to enable the development and manufacture of life saving biologic therapies.”

Our full story has more.

Aveni

Scottish AI company Aveni has secured £2.75 million in funding to deliver the expansion of its Aveni Detect platform.

The investment will accelerate Aveni’s growth and see it move beyond financial services into other regulated industries such as utilities, while building a team to support rapid UK expansion.

Aveni Detect uses AI and natural language processing (NLP) technology to draw intelligence and automate processes from the customer voice and other communications channels.

The tech will improve efficiency for business quality assurance and improve client experience, sales performance, staff training, and the ability to identify vulnerable customers.

The funding round was led by The TRICAPITAL Syndicate LLP and Par Equity supported by Scottish Enterprise. Anderson Strathern advised Aveni on the legal aspects of the investment.

Commenting on the funding round, Joseph Twigg, CEO, Aveni said: “Consumer duty will fundamentally change the regulatory landscape across the financial services. The FCA is shifting from human-centric supervision to an emphasis on data-first evidentiary requirements.

“As executive teams are asked to supply increasingly large datasets to the regulator, with growing frequency, boards will be asking themselves ‘do we know exactly what’s in that data?’. The answer to that will be a resounding ‘no’.”

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loveelectric

Edinburgh-based ethical fintech loveelectric.cars, which provides low-cost electric leased company cars, has passed the £1 million mark in seed funding.

Seed capital has played a key role in loveelectric.cars’ development, raising £925,000 from Techstart Ventures, Marchmont Ventures and investors Stephen Garland, the former Chief Technology & Product Officer for review website, Trustpilot – and Bill Dobbie, the serial entrepreneur and investor, and funding from Scottish EDGE.

Steve Tigar, founder and CEO of loveelectric.cars, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have been recognised by the Scottish EDGE judges, following a highly competitive application process and assessment.

“It’s also fantastic that this prize follows on from loveelectric.cars winning the Digital Start-up of the Year at the ScotlandIS Digital Technology Awards in May.”

Kingdom Technologies

A startup that produces commercial robotic lawnmowers has secured £2m of funding from Scottish Enterprise and a range of UK and European investors.

Glasgow-based Kingdom Technologies, established in 2018 by University of Glasgow graduate Joan Kangro, develops autonomous robotic lawnmowers for commercial customers requiring large areas of grass to be mown. The company already lists golf courses and local authorities among its clients.

The company’s robots can cover areas ten times greater than traditional robot mowers due to smart navigation technologies. With its electric battery, it also produces less air pollution than conventional solutions.

The £2m funding will be used to support the growing demand for its services and to expand internationally. The business has nearly 400 pre-orders from customers across the UK, Europe and US. Expansion in the US is a particular focus for Kangro.

Investment – alongside Scottish Enterprise – is from Metaplanet, Ironwolf, Superangel and Specialist VC.

Kangro said: “The investment comes at the right time for Kingdom. Having conducted a lengthy period of development, we are now ready to expand our service across the UK, Europe and the US.

“We know from these extensive pilots that we have a reliable and robust product capable of operating in complicated environments. The next phase of our business is to manufacture more products and expand our offering to the US market.”

Find out more by reading our full story.

Zumo

Edinburgh-based crypto platform Zumo has announced the successful completion of its Zero Hero pilot project.

The project was a live trial to buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs, where 1 REC equals 1 MWh of green electricity) to compensate for the electricity usage of bitcoin bought via the Zumo app.

Over the pilot period, bitcoin to the value of £1.5 million has been covered by Zero Hero REC purchases, with a total of 850 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity compensated via the programme.

For the next stage of its work, Zumo and its partner, Zero Labs, have been awarded a grant by Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, to further fund research into the decarbonisation of crypto.

The RenewableCrypto project will kick off later this month and see Zumo working with Zero Labs to find practical ways in which wallets and platforms can scale the use of renewable energy.

Kirsteen Harrison, Environmental and Sustainability Adviser, Zumo, added: “The results of our Zero Hero pilot project are hugely encouraging, showing both what is possible and a significant appetite from customers for clean energy solutions.

“But this is just the beginning, and the story can only continue through the collaboration of all market participants – miners, platforms, and end users – within the crypto sector. We hope that our new report will help continue to shift the dial from talk towards action.”

Learn more in our full story.

Scottish Edge

A total of 40 businesses with entrepreneurial potential have benefited to the tune of over £1.5 million after being named winners at the Scottish EDGE Awards.

One of the biggest winners at the awards was Edinburgh-based Lentitek Ltd, a provider of next-generation cancer therapy treatment CAR-T. The firm, founded by Adam Inche, received a total of £100,000 in the award sponsored by the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) in Glasgow.

Scottish Enterprise agreed to extend its contribution of £75,000 in the Young EDGE category for both rounds 19 and 20, enabling a further seven winners aged 18-30 to be supported each round, taking the total to 14.

Leah Pape, Head of Entrepreneurship and Investment at Scottish Enterprise, said: “The high calibre of innovative applicants EDGE attracts is testament to its ever-growing reputation and gave the EDGE 19 judging panel a very tough job! Our congratulations to all the winners.

“Scottish EDGE has an important role to play in supporting innovative, high growth potential start-ups, and Scottish Enterprise is proud to help nurture the entrepreneurial talent that will drive Scotland’s future economic prosperity through our continue support for the Young EDGE category.”

Our full story has all the details.

Par Equity

Par Equity ended the financial year by supporting 12 high growth technology companies in the first quarter of 2022.

In that time, the Edinburgh-based investment manager made record investments of £31.4m, an 83% increase on £17.2m in the previous year.

Par Equity backs early-stage companies that have made a technological breakthrough and are generating significant revenue.

The company, which invests across the North of the UK, added nine new businesses to its portfolio last year, covering fields such as digital health, clean tech, renewable energy and industry 4.0. Four new deals were completed in the first quarter of 2022.

Andrew Noble, Partner at Par Equity, said: “We’re thrilled to find so many exciting tech companies to back across the North of the UK, many of which are a direct result of the fantastic innovation emerging from our outstanding universities.

“Rapidly growing clusters of tech talent in AI and data science, robotics, nanotechnologies, and quantum computing are helping to shape the industries of the future and have the potential to put Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North of England on the map when it comes to tech investment.”

If you want to know more, our full story has all the information.

The Pitch

UK startups competition, The Pitch, is offering Edinburgh startups the opportunity to win funding of more than £10,000.

In addition, participating companies will have the opportunity to practice their pitching skills, work with a pitching coach, and connect with investors from across the UK.

This year also features a competition specifically for people running side hustles, and both competitions offer monetary prizes worth £5k, plus a money-can’t-buy mentoring package.

Businesses that enter get access to advice and support from The Pitch partners including headline partner Sage, crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, Fiverr, Haines Watts, Agora Talent, and AVAMAE.

Chris Goodfellow, Founder and CEO of Inkwell Agency, who delivers The Pitch said: “The Pitch is the perfect platform for early-stage startups to tell their story and connect to the support they need to make their business a success.

“As well as the competition, our team works hard behind-the-scenes to make one-to-one introductions to investors – the nine 2021 finalists have already raised £1m+ through our connections.”

Learn more in our full story.

Deals and Acquisitions

crowdEngage

Edinburgh-based tech firm crowdEngage has been acquired by global live entertainment marketing platform Activity Stream.

Founded almost five years ago by Hugh Topping, who is also director of his family’s business, Topping & Company Booksellers, crowdEngage was created to help performance arts venues offer an enhanced customer experience by providing audience messaging, mobile ticketing and seamless food and drink ordering.

The transaction forms part of Activity Stream’s plan to expand its cloud-based solutions, which help support venues and entertainment businesses.

Under the new acquisition, Topping will become Vice-President Product Development at Activity Stream, which specialises in delivering planning, marketing and audience engagement, following the deal.

He said: “We built crowdEngage to be the missing link for live entertainment, picking up where ticketing systems leave off and removing friction to ensure event-goers have a great night out while allowing venues to streamline their operations.

“By joining Activity Stream we can now leverage hundreds of data points to personalise communications and drive both customer satisfaction and new revenue opportunities.”

For more, read our full story.

Codeplay

Intel has announced the acquisition of Edinburgh-based software company Codeplay, with the deal anticipated to be completed later this quarter.

The chip manufacturer said that the acquisition would bolster the commitment of both companies to open collaboration and standards – with particular onus on driving the adoption of SYCL and the oneAPI ecosystem.

Codeplay Software said in a statement that it will now be able to extend the delivery of SYCL solutions into cross-architecture and multi-vendor products, based on the open-source ecosystems upon which they are built.

Intel and Codeplay have worked together to define and extend open standard programming models that work across multiple platforms and devices.

Joe Curley, vice president and general manager of software products and ecosystem in Intel’s Software and Advanced Technology Group (SATG), stated that subject to the closing of the transaction, Codeplay will operate as a subsidiary business as part of SATG.

He said: “Through the subsidiary structure, we plan to foster Codeplay’s unique entrepreneurial spirit and open ecosystem approach for which it is known and respected in the industry.”

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IGS and CubicAcres

Edinburgh-based indoor agritech startup Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) has signed a fresh deal to supply its vertical farming technology to a US-based company.

The company has struck a new strategic partnership agreement with Long Island-based CubicAcres, which will see IGS deliver high-quality, sustainably grown crops for consumption on the East Coast of America.

IGS will deploy eight of its 30-foot-high Growth Tower structures within a qualified opportunity zone on Long Island in New York. The farm will give CubicAcres a precision-controlled indoor ecosystem that is highly flexible, scalable and requires no arable land or soil while bringing investment and new jobs to the region.

CubicAcres plans to initially use the IGS vertical farming technology to grow salad crops such as Romaine lettuce to sell to New York city food service and retail sectors. When fully operational, the eight-tower farm will be capable of producing up to 2.5 million heads of lettuce per year.

CEO at IGS David Farquhar said: “The team at CubicAcres combines a real knowledge and experience of growing in a controlled indoor environment with a passion for embracing the latest in technology to deliver real-world solutions.

This project is the perfect example of how a business can pivot their existing approach to meet consumer demand for fresh produce while keeping sustainability, efficiency and flexibility at their heart.”

There’s more in our full story.