An artificial intelligence-powered app that stands to revolutionise business project management has secured £400,000 in seed funding.
Edinburgh-founded Sharktower, which launched a week before lockdown, has raised the sum in just over 12 months thanks to support from investor house Equity Gap, backed by Scottish Enterprise.
The app has already achieved global reach with clients in the recruitment, education, energy and retail sector – giving businesses the ability to work consistently across territories. This new funding will enable Sharktower to expand across additional sectors in the UK, and globally.
Sharktower’s intelligent delivery software enables project leaders to deliver better business outcomes in one simple platform, helping their teams waste less time, collaborate seamlessly and spot problems before they happen.
Sharktower is the product of first-hand experience, with co-founders Craig Mackay and Lynsey Taylor both having witnessed unnecessary project waste and failure rates when delivering large scale transformation and change programmes throughout their careers.
Mackay said: “We were painfully aware of how outdated methods and tools were no longer fit to deliver the rapid change needed for businesses to survive. We’re all being challenged to deliver more, and at a faster and faster rate, but we still face the stress and frustration of misalignment and surprises in projects.”
Having launched Sharktower as a standalone business just one week before the UK lockdown, the founders quickly realised 2020 would be a challenge, but the online platform has proved to be a valuable resource for clients during the pandemic.
Taylor said: “The growth of remote working has opened up global opportunities faster than we had expected, and we now have project teams using Sharktower to deliver projects every hour of the day across the world. This investment will allow us to accelerate our growth and expansion globally.”
Fraser Lusty, from Equity Gap, said: “Equity Gap is delighted to conclude this seed investment round in Sharktower. Sharktower is redefining project management, bringing innovation to well-established sectors and markets. By blending intuitive project collaboration with AI-driven analytics and real-time reporting, Sharktower gives teams the tools to deliver better outcomes.” Equity Gap is a business angel syndicate actively investing and co-investing in early-stage Scottish-based companies.
The company also announced the appointment of Gordon Cooper as chairman to help guide the next stage of growth. Having founded and taken VisionWare, an acclaimed software company in the Master Data Management (MDM) space, to a successful multi-million pound exit, he brings proven experience to the team in accelerating growth and opening new international markets.
Cooper said: “I’m delighted to be appointed as Chairman of Sharktower. The ability for organisations to deliver better, faster outcomes is even more vital as the economy recovers, and data and AI are the game changers. Sharktower is at the forefront of AI-driven project management and has solid growth potential in various markets.”
