Building the early-stage market in Scotland
Scottish Enterprise supports Scotland’s most ambitious companies, working with them to innovate, win investment and gain access to international markets.
The organisation has a mission’s approach focused on energy transition, scaling innovation, and supporting businesses to drive productivity through investment, ultimately delivering a more successful, greener, and fairer Scotland.
As part of this, Scottish Enterprise is addressing the finance gap for early-stage high growth companies with scaling potential by delivering co-investment and equity funding solutions with partners through equity and debt investment solutions.
It remains Scotland’s most active investor in the early-stage market by deal participation and the fourth most active in the UK. Recent deals have seen:
- SeaWarm, a University of Edinburgh spin out has secured £550,000 in funding to roll out its renewable heating system across Scotland’s communities with investment from Equity Gap, one of Scotland’s leading angel investment syndicates, Scottish Enterprise, and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund. SeaWarm’s modular, low-cost heat exchanger technology harnesses natural warmth from rivers, lochs, seawater, and mine water to deliver affordable, sustainable heating and cooling. By replacing oil and gas systems, it can cut CO₂ emissions by up to 90 per cent, while also saving households and businesses hundreds of pounds on energy bills.
- 1nhaler, a Scotland-based drug delivery device developer, has secured an additional £1.5 million in seed funding to drive development of its novel pop-up cardboard dry powder inhaler (DPI). The funding round was led by Archangels with support from Scottish Enterprise and BBB Investments. It follows an initial raise of £2 million in 2023 in a funding round also led by Archangels. The investment will enable 1nhaler to advance its innovative platform technology towards a first Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) targeted for late 2027. This includes the manufacture of clinical material for regulatory studies and the design of large-scale commercial manufacturing processes.
- Rhizocore Technologies, a biotech firm based at the Northern Agri-Tech Innovation Hub in Edinburgh, has raised £4.5M for North American expansion. The company specialises in the production of locally adapted mycorrhizal fungi to support woodland regeneration and tree planting success. Their flagship product, the RhizoPellet™, delivers bespoke fungi to each planting site, accelerating natural ecosystem recovery and supporting long-term forest productivity. The funding round was led by The First Thirty, a specialist investor in technologies to improve soil health, with co-investment from Scottish Enterprise, and from existing customer The Grosvenor Estate, one of the UK’s largest landowners. Additional investors in the round included Sand River, Generation-Re (Regenerative Agriculture Syndicate), Kibo Invest, John Thomson, and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund.
- Scottish Enterprise Account Managed Company Trogenix closed one of Europe’s largest early-stage biotech rounds this year—a £70M Series A to advance potentially curative therapies for aggressive cancers. This milestone highlights the transformative potential of their Odysseus® platform and Scotland’s growing leadership in cell and gene therapy. Following initial support through Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Spin Out Programme, Trogenix has benefited from strategic account management, and long-term investment in the Edinburgh BioQuarter -home to the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and the world’s largest academic grouping in cell and gene therapy and tissue engineering. From exciting spinouts like RoslinCT, Resolution Therapeutics and Trogenix to cutting-edge facilities and funding, Scotland provides a world-class environment for companies tackling global health challenges.
