The co-founder of Scotland's oldest business angel syndicate has received one of the top accolades in the UK investment sector following his 30-year career in the industry.
Mike Rutterford of Archangels was honoured for his lifetime achievements at today's Angel Investment Awards, which are held annually by the UK Business Angel Association. Other Scottish winners included Par Equity, which was named Angel Group of the Year, while the Exit of the Year went to Edinburgh-based Symphonic Software, backed by Par Equity and Scottish Enterprise.
Educated in Edinburgh, Mr Rutterford was in his 20s when he launched Stuart Wyse Ogilivie. Over a 10-year period he developed the estate agency into the biggest in Scotland, subsequently selling to General Accident in 1987.
He co-founded Archangels with business partner Barry Sealey in 1992. The investment syndicate now has more than 100 members who put £16.3 million into Scottish start-up and early-stage companies last year.
In June 2010, Mr Rutterford received an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Edinburgh Napier University. During his 30 years of investing, he has personally put £11m into 90 companies.
“When Barry Sealey and I set up Archangels 29 years ago, we did so because we wanted to give something back, to support Scottish tech businesses, to have some fun and maybe even make a wee bit of money along the way," Mr Rutterford said. "So that’s what we did and I accept this award on behalf of both Barry and myself.
“Now we have a fabulous team at Archangels and I want to pay tribute to them, to the inventors, entrepreneurs and change-makers who we’ve been lucky enough to support over the years and to my fellow investors at Archangels without whom this angel investment syndicate wouldn’t be the success it is today.”
READ MORE: Scotland top for equity finance deals outside of London
Founded in 2008, Edinburgh's Par Equity celebrated a recod-breaking year in 2020 with more than £17m of capital deployed, a 48 per cent increase on the previous year. It was the lead investor for more than three-quarters of those transactions.
Its current portfolio of 40 technology companies across Scotland, Ireland and the north of England includes firms such as Current Health, Cumulus, Nova Pangea Technologies, Integrated Graphene and Novosound.
Set up in 2014, Symphonic Software specialises in dynamic authorisation for protecting APIs, data, apps and other resources through identity. It was sold to Ping Identity of the US in November of last year.
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