The Scottish Government has announced a package of measures to help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, to be delivered next year with funding included in the draft Scottish Budget for 2025/26.

As part of the £15 million investment, at least £4 million will go towards expanding the number of female entrepreneurs by providing tailored support at the earliest stages of business creation.

The government said that the initiative will contribute to overall spending of £34.7 million across entrepreneurship, innovation and social enterprise – a 50% increase on 2024/25 – including continued investment in Techscaler, the state-run programme for tech startups.

Overall, the Scottish Government has committed to investing £42 million in the Techscaler programme, which now has more than 2,500 members, although there have previously been questions regarding the effectiveness of the flagship tech initiative. 

The government said along with its investments, there will also be another round of the Ecosystem Fund, as well as a new fund to develop clusters in sectors such as life sciences, digital, and advanced manufacturing. 

Visiting Edinburgh-based startup, Gut Wealth, the deputy first minister, Kate Forbes, said: “This Budget commitment demonstrates that the Scottish Government stands squarely behind this and future generations of business talent. 

“A growing, thriving startup ecosystem is vital to a strong and growing economy and I want to make Scotland the best place in the world for founders to launch and grow a startup business.

“Taking a close steer from Ana Stewart and and Mark Logan’s report into encouraging more women start their own businesses, the Scottish Government and our partners are building an end-to-end support network to ensure entrepreneurs are helped at each stage of their journey. Gemma’s success story is one that we are can, must and will replicate.”  

The Pathways Report, authored by Stewart and Logan, was published last year, with several recommendations aimed at increasing gender diversity among Scottish founders and entrepreneurs, many of which revolve around the need for more funding. 

That report found female entrepreneurs suffered from a sense of ‘not belonging’, an issue compounded by the lack of clear pathways into entrepreneurship, and low levels of investment for women starting businesses, highlighting the fact that although one in five Scottish entrepreneurs are women, just 2% of institutional investment goes to female-led companies.

Closing the gap could result in serious economic benefit. In April, the Federation of Small Businesses reported that women-led businesses contributed £8.7 billion Gross Value Add to the Scottish economy, but further growth had been hampered by persistent structural inequalities.

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The same report found that the percentage of female run enterprises anticipating growth had fallen drastically since 2019, and that women were keen to see more personalised support systems tailored to their unique business needs, which the newly announced investment package seems to promise.

Meanwhile, the private sector is also stepping up, with Scotland’s first all-female business angel syndicate being launched last month in an attempt to attract more businesswomen into angel investing. 

The W2W initiative, designed in collaboration between Investing Women Angels and its sister organisation AccelerateHER, is being delivered as a direct response to the 2023 Pathways Report, and will see angel investors work alongside women from female-led start-ups, sharing knowledge and practical tips to promote understanding of the equity investment process.