Grant and investment funding of almost £25 million has been committed to 90 young Scottish firms in a bid to ensure the coronavirus pandemic does not wipe out an entire generation of up-and-coming businesses.
The awards have been made via the Early Stage Growth Challenge Fund, part of a £38m package of early-stage support announced by the Scottish Government in July. Managed by Scottish Enterprise, the fund was established to help the country’s most promising emerging businesses continue to innovate through the economic crisis.
Administered on a competitive basis, successful applicants have received a convertible loan note along with a grant worth up to 20 per cent of the total award. Among the various winners was Edinburgh-based Vistalworks, which makes consumer protection software.
READ MORE: Big hitters join new investment bank
“We’re incredibly grateful to the Scottish Investment Bank and the Scottish Government for their Early Stage Growth Challenge fund investment,” chief executive Vicky Brock said.
“This has been transformational at a point when the business was ready for acceleration. We’re already executing our plans and have taken on four new employees as a direct result, with more to follow.”
Linda Hanna, interim chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, added: “There was concern among Scotland’s early-stage ecosystem that the coronavirus pandemic would cause investment levels to reduce dramatically, potentially wiping out a generation of Scotland’s up-and-coming businesses.
READ MORE: Health tech firm to help clear waiting lists
“The creation of the early-stage support package, developed by Scottish Enterprise on behalf of the Scottish Government, has proved to be an important intervention. Through the Early Stage Growth Challenge fun, we’ve been able to provide several of Scotland’s most pioneering young companies with the financial support necessary to overcome obstacles to growth created by Covid-19.”
In addition to money provided through the fund, the programme also included £3m for pre-seed start-up companies and spin-out projects, plus £10m for Scottish Enterprise’s existing co-investment funds.
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