How Scottish tech engaged the world, by Nick Freer

About a decade ago, I remember joining a quite sparsely attended get together in Edinburgh where, primarily young to middle-aged males phoned pizza in, guzzled a few beers and talked computer language. Organised by academics, the developers in the room, guys who were building software and apps for a living, typically sported a good deal of denim, oversized t-shirts and hoodies, while unusual haircuts and facial hair were pretty commonplace. 

Unsurprisingly, the term “tech meetup” originated in the States and the Scottish equivalent took place primarily, like its more established American form, after working hours on a university campus. Fast forward ten years, and venues for these meetups have improved markedly to say the least. While Scotland’s universities continue to play a part, we now have a sophisticated tech incubator in CodeBase and upmarket co-working spaces like WeWork and Spaces. 

Scotland’s once fledging meetup scene has also morphed into a string of internationally-recognised tech festivals that run throughout the year - with EIE, Turing Fest, Startup Summit and DataFest among the highlights. While Turing sprung form the founding team at CodeBase and Startup Summit was launched by a Bridge of Allan teenager in a Stirling schoolroom, EIE was founded by the Informatics Ventures team on the 8th floor of Appleton Tower at the University of Edinburgh.   

Of course, academia and tech have been cheek by jowl since the beginning of the inexorable rise of the technology sector across the globe - think for example of the role Stanford University has played vis-a-vis Silicon Valley or the impact of Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Boston’s tech cluster. In the Scottish context, the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and the University of Strathclyde are three universities who can claim to have strong credentials when it comes to tech, innovation, entrepreneurship and spin-outs. 

EIE (which stands for Engage, Invest, Exploit) is in fact much more than an one-off festival. The tech investor programme - EIE’s raison d’être is to connect startups with investors who can help to fuel their growth ambitions - runs throughout the year with a focus on making the company cohort as investor-ready as possible. 

Notable startups to have gone through the programme include FanDuel, Two Big Ears, Current Health, Criton, Spire Global, pureLiFi and mLED - only a few of the hundreds of EIE alumnus companies who have collectively raised over £700 million to date. One of the interesting things for me around the 50 EIE20 companies selected to pitch this year, is the number of startups who are either locating operations or relocating wholesale to Scotland - it says something about how the Scottish tech ecosystem is starting to make the right waves outside its own borders. 

I caught up with FanDuel co-founder Lesley Eccles (pictured above) last week when Eccles, who launched relationship app Relish in 2018 and is a longstanding participant and supporter of EIE, said: "I'm so proud of what EIE has become and excited to see the continued buzz about and investment in Scottish startups.”

I always think Scotland’s tech festivals do best when they mix indigenous tech talent with industry players from outside Scotland (having attended EIE, Turing Fest and Startup Summit down the years, each does really well on this front) who can give our community here a perspective from larger, more established tech ecosystems - been there, done it, got the t-shirt etc.

At the same time, lessons from say Silicon Valley can sometimes be so far from the reality of busting a gut to get a startup off the ground in Scotland that, at least for some, a northern Californian perspective doesn’t always translate to an early stage technology company here. For that reason, it’s great so see Blackcircles.com founder Mike Welch lined up for EIE20. Welch, who built online tyre retailer Blackcircles from a base in Scotland before the business was acquired by industrial giant Michelin in 2015 for almost £100 million, is now splitting his time between Edinburgh and Miami where he recently launched a new online tire venture, Tirescanner.

Welch noted last week: “Launching a startup is not for the faint hearted. The setbacks, stress and isolation are enough to put most off! But if you get it right, the rewards can be so much greater than that achievable from a ‘normal’ job. A big part of getting it right is choosing a group of investors that you can develop a working relationship with.” 

An edited version of this article was published in The Scotsman on Monday 2nd March