As of March 2018, there were over 343,000 SMEs registered and operating in Scotland, providing an estimated 1.2 million jobs. The ONS showed that startups from Scotland survive longer than those based in London (43.7% vs. 39.3%) and in 2017 Edinburgh was named the best place to start a small business in the UK and is home to many organisations that provide support and funding to startup founders.
Skyscanner makes travel effortless for everyone with an unrivalled mix of choice and value. From flights to hotels and car hire, the company works closely with the biggest names in travel to bring over 100 million travellers every option they need to plan and book their perfect trip. Part of the Ctrip family, they are a fast-growing global business with a local outlook, employing more than 1,000 people from over 50 different countries in offices across Europe, Asia and North America.
Tackling issues of isolation and poor communication, the Neatebox “Welcome” platform removes barriers and promotes empathetic relationships between consumers and customer service teams, they are promoting societal change and heralding a new age of understanding and communication.
Based in Edinburgh, Drinkly is a drinks-on-demand service that promises “chilled beers, spirits and wines to your door in one hour”. More than 650 carefully-curated drinks and snacks are available for delivery to customers in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.
Founded in 2018 by Robin Knox and Paul Walton, Boundary is a smart home alarm venture aiming to disrupt the home security market. They have introduced an innovative home security system controlled via mobile devices, which "brings neighbourhood watches into the 21st century". Features include break-in notification, mobile phone alerts to friends or family living in the area, compatibility with other smart home systems, remote monitoring and more. So far, the startup has successfully raised £2.2M.
Administrate provides a SaaS training and learning management platform, designed to help manage and automate the process of delivering education. The company has grown to employ more than 100 people and has offices in the Middle East and the US. In February 2019, Administrate secured £3.78M in funding to help develop the company's platform that solves the challenges of defining, delivering, tracking and analysing learning within an organisation.
Created in 2015, Care Sourcer is a tech platform matching those who need care with care providers. The platform offers comparison and matching for elderly care based on price, rating, specific requirements and more. It enables users to make enquiries and receive offers from care providers who have are available immediately. To date, the startup has raised about $14.5M in funding.
Float provides online forecasting and cash management to help businesses monitor their cash flow and its users can connect the platform to their existing accounting software, whether that be Xero, FreeAgent or QuickBooks. Colin Hewitt founded Float in 2012 after running a digital agency for several years. It was here that Hewitt experienced difficulties of cash flow forecasting and found the inspiration to launch Float. In 2017, Float secured £500K in funding and has steadily expanded its team over the past three years.
Established in 2012 by Professor Harald Haas and Mostafa Afgani, pureLiFi came out of the University of Edinburgh. The firm provides high-speed, bi-directional and fully networked wireless communication that uses light, rather than radio waves to transmit data. In 2015, the firm received seed funding totalling £4M. The firm was recognised for its work in 2017 winning the digital trends ‘cool tech’ award at Mobile World Congress.
Current Health have created an AI-powered remote patient monitoring solution. The wearable tech, which is worn on the upper arm, collects vital signs in real-time and feeds this data to the cloud where it is analysed by the company’s proprietary algorithms. This process helps to monitor the wearers health and allows clinicians to intervene earlier. Four years after establishment, the startup has raised $11.7M in funding and has transferred to the Bay area.
Established in 2016, Criton is a travel tech startup that has developed an app for the hospitality sector to inform hotel guests about their own facilities as well as what is on in the local area. The app combines destination guides, guest and property management information as well as geofencing, location-based offers and promotions, and in-stay or in-app messaging.
Founded in 2017, Prodsight is enabling businesses to gain insight from customer support conversation data. The app makes this easy by automatically analysing conversations for topics and sentiment and producing a continuously updated report on the most common user issues. This allows data-driven decisions to be made quickly and efficiently, helping product teams to rapidly identify problems, education issues and prioritise fixes and improvements.
