SCOTLAND’S high-profile competition to identify and nurture the country’s up-and-coming entrepreneurs – Scottish EDGE – is launching a new initiative to enable previous winners to support the next generation by giving something back.
The EDGE Pledge will see business owners make an agreement to contribute a minimum of one per cent from exits or future revenue streams to help back the entrepreneurs of the future through the Scottish EDGE programme.
Sir Tom Hunter, an investor in Scottish EDGE and founder of The Hunter Foundation, described the move as “a fundamental step forward in the mindset of Scotland’s entrepreneurs, underpinning the culture of giving back with purpose – in this case supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs by sharing in their own success”.
He said: “This is creating a virtuous circle where success supports success, entrepreneurs help one another and ultimately Scotland wins out.”
Among the first Scottish EDGE-backed company founders to sign up to the EDGE Pledge are Michael Corrigan and David Kellock of travel pillow firm Trtl who said that Scottish EDGE came along at a time when his business needed funding to “scale a proven concept”. Mr Corrigan, managing director, said: “It allowed us to place our first order with a mass manufacturer and gave us the freedom to grow the business the way we wanted to.”
Others include Calum Smeaton of TVSquared, Lynn Mann of Supernature Oils, Callum Murray of Amiqus, Matt Stevenson of Carbon Dynamic, Tanya Ewing of Glaze & Save, Martin Murray of Rock Rose Gin; Jo Chidley of Beauty Kitchen, James Brown of Beer 52, Garry Stewart of Spyglass Innovations, Graeme Lindsay of Uisage Source, and Darina Garland and Kristian Tapaninaho of Uuni.
Evelyn McDonald, chief executive of Scottish EDGE, said: “Scotland is building one of the most exciting start-up ecosystems in the world and what founders are telling us is that they want to find more ways in which to give back to the community that supported their own growth and success.”
Scottish EDGE has so far made 262 awards totalling more than £8 million, boosting turnover of awardee companies by £45m and helping to secure an additional £44m in investment.
Round 10, which will see £1.3m in grant and loan funding awarded to 40 Scottish start-ups, takes place next week.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here