Welcome to the June 2025 edition of the DIGIT Deal Roundup.

Cleantech took centre stage last month, with funding flowing to the UK’s only female-led wave energy firm in Aberdeen, fresh backing for a Livingston-based outfit tackling the scourge of plastic waste, and millions committed to power Scottish hydrogen projects, as well as the launch of a major new initiative to finance Scotland’s net zero future.

Meanwhile, June also saw a £200 million pledge to help Scottish scaleups grow, as well as a nine-figure deal for energy behemoth ScottishPower.

Read on to find out what’s been happening!

Funding

Scots Startup Wordsmith AI Raises $25M Series A

Edinburgh-based startup Wordsmith AI has secured a $25 million (£18.5m~) Series A, led by venture capital firm Index Ventures.

The Series A funding, which also comes from the likes of Scottish Enterprise, will be used to scale the startup’s AI infrastructure which deploys legal agents across organisations to guide them to outcomes faster.

To read more, click here.

Scottish PropTech Firm Utopi Lands £5 Million Investment

Data solutions and property technology firm, Utopi, has secured a further £5m investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank, supporting the Glasgow-based company to secure and resource several long-term income contracts.

Utopi’s technology collects data from multi-tenant buildings, tracking and measuring six different performance indicators: temperature, humidity, air quality, light, noise, and motion.

The latest investment will help unlock the company’s next phase of growth, which includes an initial contract with global real estate company, Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd, to provide electric panel heaters and smart sensors for 1,500 student rooms within its UK student housing properties.

To read more, click here.

Edinburgh AI Healthtech Lands £3.6M Scottish Enterprise Boost

Scottish healthtech firm Canon Medical Research Europe has been awarded £3.6 million from Scottish Enterprise towards a £14 million project using AI for faster data analysis, with the aim of improving medical scans for both patients and health workers.

With the funding, the Edinburgh-based medical R&D firm plans to develop AI smart solutions to automate routine tasks that could help speed up patient scanning, and allow consultants to make quicker and more informed decisions for patients, such as those receiving cancer treatment.

To read more, click here.

Strathclyde Spin-out Bags £750K for Cancer Therapy Tech

University of Strathclyde medtech spin-out, ScreenIn3D, has secured £750,000 seed investment for their cancer therapy testing technology.

The spin-out developed a ‘lab-on-a-chip’ technology that allows drug developers to test multiple cancer therapies on small tumour samples from patients. This offers an alternative to animal testing that is faster, easier, and more accurate.

With this investment, the company will expand its applications beyond cancer to other disease areas including women’s health, immune therapies and fertility treatment – all areas where access to accurate, human-relevant testing models is critical.

To read more, click here.

£24M Boost for Kishorn Port to Power Offshore Wind

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has announced that it will invest up to £24 million at Kishorn Port in the west Highlands to enhance its capacity and capabilities, with an expanded dry dock and land reclamation enabling the manufacture of floating offshore wind foundations.

The expanded facilities are forecast – according to the Scottish Government – to attract projects with the potential to support up to 1,500 jobs once the port is fully developed.

The investment forms a part of the Government’s commitment of up to £500 million over five years to develop the country’s ports and offshore wind supply chain. The funding will help ensure businesses and communities secure maximum benefit from the country’s growing renewables capabilities.

To read more, click here.

Edinburgh-based LawTech Valla Secures £2M Funding

Legal platform Valla has secured £2 million in seed funding to ‘democratise access to justice for millions across the UK.’

The platform seeks to simplify the legal process by enabling users to collect evidence, generate necessary documentation, and get fixed-price support without incurring the substantial costs typically associated with conventional services.

The fresh capital will fuel Valla’s plans to dramatically expand market reach through enhanced marketing initiatives, create additional AI-augmented tools that further slash costs for consumers and forge strategic alliances with unions and insurers throughout 2025.

To read more, click here.

East Renfrewshire doctor secures Scottish Enterprise grant for AI-powered education platform

East Renfrewshire-based Dr Haseeb Hamid has secured £65,000 in Scottish Enterprise funding to grow his AI-powered medical education platform, MedSnapp.

Launched in 2024, the app modernises traditional revision with gamified short-form videos, virtual patient simulations, and leaderboards. Inspired by his own experiences as a student and educator, Haseeb validated the concept with 250 learners before launching.

With support from Business Gateway East Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire Council and the ERA Programme, MedSnapp has gained early traction, won multiple grants, and attracted overseas interest.

Dr. Hamid is now focused on growing the user base, expanding into institutions, and finding a technical co-founder to scale further.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Par Equity and Praetura Merge to Form £670m PXN Group

Two venture capital firms based in Scotland and the North of England are to merge, forming a new entity named PXN Group with more than £670 million in assets under management.

The merger between Edinburgh-founded Par Equity and Manchester-based Praetura Ventures is subject to regulatory approval by the Financial Conduct Authority.

According to both firms, PXN Group will be positioned as the fastest-growing venture and investment firm outside of London and the South East, having tripled assets under management since 2021. The new entity will focus on backing early-stage and scale-up companies across underserved regions of the UK.

To read more, click here.

loveelectric acquires Bypass to cut EV charging costs

Edinburgh-based EV firm loveelectric has acquired charging tech startup Bypass to cut the cost of public electric car charging for employees across the UK.

The acquisition will enable loveelectric to integrate Bypass’s real-time card issuing and app technology into a powerful new employee benefit.

Both public and at-home EV charging will soon be available through salary sacrifice, allowing employees to pay for charging via their gross salary and turn a major adoption barrier into a financial advantage.

Deals

Scots Steel Mill to Become Green AI Hub in £3.9Bn Transformation

New plans have been unveiled to convert a former North Lanarkshire steelworks into what could become the UK’s largest green AI data centre.

Once one of the biggest hot strip steel mills in Europe, the Ravenscraig steelworks closed in 1992, but now Edinburgh-based renewable energy developer Apatura has submitted ambitious proposals to develop a major data centre with battery energy storage on 160 acres at the post-industrial site.

The development, just 12 miles east of Glasgow, will be powered by 550 megawatts of grid connections due to come online by 2030, with Apatura estimating the project will cost £3.9 billion to build, but could bring in an extra £729 million in GVA each year for the region and support around 2,400 long-term jobs.

To read more, click here.

Scottish Government Commits Further £40M to Save Dundee Uni

Education secretary Jenny Gilruth has confirmed up to £40 million funding in principle for the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to support the University of Dundee’s recovery.

Funding will be provided to the SFC over two academic years or three financial years. This is in addition to the £25 million funding announced by Ministers in February for the SFC to support universities facing financial challenges, of which the University of Dundee received £22 million. This means total additional funding made available for the University by the Scottish Government via the SFC is up to £62 million.

The SFC and Scottish Government have said it will work together to develop appropriate conditions for the funding, which is subject to further due diligence, adding that funding will only be released once a sustainable, long-term recovery plan is put in place by the University that leverages commercial and private investment.

To read more, click here.

Offshore Wind Infrastructure Bags £1BN in Private-Public Deal

A deal between public and private institutions will invest £1 billion in offshore wind supply chains across Scotland, Teesside, South Wales, and East Anglia.

The Crown Estate has pledged £400m to support new infrastructure for offshore wind, including in ports, supply chain manufacturing, research, and testing facilities. This is in addition to the £300m of funding from Great British Energy.

Industry has matched this funding with a further £300m, aiming to deliver investment to supply chain supporting advanced turbine technology and foundations and substructures.

To read more, click here.

Scottish Investment Zones Secure £320M UK Gov Backing

The UK Government has released more details regarding two new investment zones in Scotland, with hopes that they will support thousands of jobs and bring in millions in investment.

Following initial plans laid out in the Chancellor’s Spending Review last week, the Government has confirmed the focus of both the Glasgow City Region and the North East Scotland Investment Zones (IZ), each backed by £160 million in public funding.

The Investment Zones, which are joint projects between the UK and Scottish Governments alongside the Glasgow City Region and North East Scotland Regional Economic Partnerships, have been designed to ‘turbo-charge’ each region’s innovation economy, taking advantage of the skills and business infrastructure already in place.

To read more, click here.

Edinburgh’s Supercomputer Project Back Online After £750M Boost

The University of Edinburgh will become home to the UK’s most powerful supercomputer as part of the UK Government’s plans to drive national renewal and unlock economic growth through artificial intelligence.

Up to £750 million for the new supercomputer in Edinburgh has been confirmed following the Prime Minister’s commitment of an extra £1 billion in funding to ramp up the UK’s AI compute power twentyfold.

This vital piece of national infrastructure, which will be located at Edinburgh University’s Advanced Computing Facility, will give scientists across the UK access to compute power on a world-leading scale and place Edinburgh at the centre of a nationwide effort to drive tech innovation.

To read more, click here.

Scottish Councils Strike £300M EV Deal for Northern Regions

Irish electric vehicle charging firm EasyGo has been awarded a 20-year, £300 million contract to provide EV charging infrastructure for the north of Scotland.

The deal, which covers the Highland, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, and Moray Council areas, is the first inter-council contract to have been awarded as part of the Scottish Government’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund and is the largest grant award in Scotland since the fund’s inception.

The large-scale EV infrastructure project is expected to accelerate the region’s transition to net zero, with 570 new charging points installed across northern Scotland by 2028, more than doubling the existing EV infrastructure.

To read more, click here.