Informatics Ventures, Scotland’s technology entrepreneur support programme, has picked 60 early stage companies for Engage Invest Exploit (EIE), being held this year at McEwan Hall in Edinburgh on Thursday 19 April.
Over the course of the day, the companies – drawn from sectors including artificial intelligence (AI), data science, internet of things, energy, climate and cleantech, digital health and medtech, fintech and cybersecurity – will pitch for seed to Series A funding.
Now in its 10th year, EIE has been a springboard to over £500m in funding; FanDuel, Mallzee, Celtic Renewables, Two Big Ears, ZoneFox, pureLiFi, and MindMate are a few of the companies to come through the programme in recent years.
“EIE continues to be about making connections that can translate to investment and other business opportunities for our most exciting young technology companies,” said Dr Steve Ewing, director of operations at Informatics Ventures.”
Twelve per cent of startup founders at this year’s EIE are female.
Ewing added: “Scotland has been exporting innovative technologies across the world for centuries and in 2018 we have some amazing talent coming through. While we’re starting to see the real emergence of sectors like AI and Healthtech, it’s also encouraging to see the level of female founders in the EIE18 cohort.”
The cohort includes Triscribe, who are developing ePrescribing analytics for NHS hospitals, Wallet.Services, a secure blockchain technology platform positioned for the next generation of real world applications, Virtual Revolution Technologies, who create bespoke virtual reality environments for unlimited users to collaborate and share immersive experiences, and Good Loop, an ethical video advertising platform.
EIE18 is supported by Scottish Enterprise and the University of Edinburgh. Sponsors are Cazenove Capital, Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation, Johnston Carmichael, LINC Scotland, Marks and Clerk, MBM Commercial, Scottish Equity Partners, Royal Bank of Scotland, TalentSpark (powered by Eden Scott) and the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics. Partner organisations for EIE 2018 are The DataLab, Sevenfive Creative Design, and VisitScotland.
In partnership with the University of Edinburgh Business School and the Freer Consultancy, Informatics Ventures is launching the 2018 Scottish Startup Survey in February and its results will be available in advance of EIE18.
This year, Informatics Ventures will become an integral component of the Bayes Centre for Data Science and Technology, the new centre for data-driven innovation at the University of Edinburgh.
