Scottish EDGE, the UK’s largest business funding competition has decided to move its final event from its traditional home of Edinburgh to Stirling where twenty businesses will gather to participate in Round 12.

Contenders will pitch to an expert panel of 15 judges, chaired by Jim McColl OBE of Clyde Blowers to win a share of the £1 million prize pot, with awards of up to £150,000 in cash available and a business support package from the Scottish EDGE partners.

The judging panel will include business heavy-weights such as; Steve Dunlop of Scottish Canals, Simon Hannah of Fishill, Maeve McMahon of Royal Bank of Scotland and Carol Beattie of Stirling Council.

Journey to the Finals & New Venue

The latest round of Scottish EDGE attracted 250 business applications from across the country. Of all the hopefuls, 57 were short-listed and progressed to the semi-finals, where that figure was further whittled down during a round of intense panel pitching sessions, which took place over three days.

600 delegates are expected to attend the event for a day of live business pitching, excellent keynote speakers and business support exhibitors. The event will be held on the 29th of May at the Macrobert Arts Centre, located at the heart of the University of Stirling.

Scottish EDGE CEO, Evelyn McDonald, said of the move: “For us, Stirling is the perfect location for EDGE’s first venture away from its native Edinburgh venue. The city’s pro-business attitude and fast progression towards being a centre of excellence in start-up innovation, aligns perfectly with our agenda to attract and support the best entrepreneurial talent Scotland has to offer.”

The Full Finalist List

ARX Maritime (ARX Defence Ltd) – Designs and develops cutting-edge solutions and hardware to the forefront of maritime operations – its core product is an antipiracy barrier called ABaC.

Aurora Sustainability Ltd – Sets up demonstrative Circular Economy Biorefinery in clusters for social, private and public organisations, offering mentoring and trainings on the CE business model.

Broker Insights Ltd – A platform that provides insurers with powerful search capabilities to direct their sales resources to the right brokers, at the right time, for the right business.

Carbogenics Ltd – Produces the carbon-based additive CreChar(R) for anaerobic digestion (AD), helping enhance the microbial activity in their AD plants.

Cearban Ltd – An adventure wildlife tourism business, offering transformational experiences, such as swimming with basking sharks around the Inner Hebrides.

Citizen Ticket – An ethically driven event ticketing platform that links tickets to Blockchain to give event organisers a new layer of transparency and protection from ticket touts.

Curious Chip Ltd – Creator of Pip – a handheld computer that combines programmability, expandability and high-performance graphics into a portable, attractive and easy-to-use package.

Cytochroma – Combines state of the art, automated technology and pioneering science to generate stem cell derived liver cells that model human physiology.

Guy & Beard Ltd – High quality barber shops made out of converted shipping containers in convenient locations, with free parking and affordable prices.

Just Venue Holding Ltd – An online platform that aims to socialise event space booking, by connecting event hosts and organizers with space owners and managers.

McCormack Innovation – Creator of FlushAway™ Stool Collector, which seeks to dramatically increase the diagnosis of Bowel or Colorectal cancers due to its sanitary benefits using soluble materials.

MiAlgae Ltd – Developed a novel algae production to harvest Omega 3 oils from micro-algae grown on waste water.

Novosound – Sells novel, printed, ultrasound sensors to the industrial inspection, medical imaging and dental imaging markets.

RAB Microfluidics – Developed cutting-edge microfluidic ‘Lab-on-a-chip’ technology that delivers OCM analysis a 1000x faster and 10x cheaper than the current approaches.

Spark and Rocket Ltd t/a SoundBops – Developed Soundbops – a music educational platform of hardware and software that enables children to create, learn, play and love music.

SpeyCardio Ltd – Medical life-sciences company undertaking the design, development and commercialisation of the SpeyCardio Lifestyle Defibrillator™.

Sustain (Scotland) Ltd – Sale of innovativeUK patented kitchen handle fitting tool for use by kitchen fitters and DIY enthusiasts.

The Little Herb Farm – A fine food manufacturing business creating a range of sweet fruit vinegars using mainly its own herbs and a range of chilled dips.

The Start-up Drinks Lab Ltd – Provide manufacturing, packaging and storage solutions for small-medium sized soft drink companies for everything from “concept to shelf”.

Veloeye Ltd – Offering a bike registration system which comprises of a tamper resistant QR label and a free smartphone app.