🫁 Nebu-Flow raise, new £5k challenge, EIE, plus free legal templates
Plus we preview the ecosystem conversation with Mark Logan.
Here's your Campfire for the 6th of May, 2024.
💼 Big news and a massive free offer for Campfire readers from our sponsor Shepherd and Wedderburn. Find out more in the Asks and Offers section (and follow the Start to Scale LinkedIn page for useful videos and posts designed to help founders).
🏕️ COMING TOMORROW: My conversation with Mark Logan, Chief Entrepreneurial Officer, adviser to the Scottish Government, and author of the STER report. We covered a lot of ground and talked about failure metrics, whether there’s too much money in the ecosystem, KPIs for Techscaler, what else (if anything) from the recommendations from STER or Pathways can be done in this funding climate, and of course, his spirited back and forth with Chris Herd on Linkedin. Mark was very generous with his time, and aside from saving you from the irritating quirks of my mild anomic aphasia, I’ve left the interview unedited.
If you’re a Campfire Subscriber, it should land in your inbox first thing tomorrow morning.
🌊 Updates
🫁 Nebu-Flow, the medical device company spun out of the University of Glasgow, raised £4.7 million from SCVC (lead), Scottish Enterprise, Foresight WAE Technology, SIS Ventures, Ascension, and Conduit EIS Impact Fund to accelerate its technology that compresses particles to such a small size that they can be absorbed more easily into the lungs. FS TS DGT
👩🏽💼 Women-led businesses contributed £8.7 billion Gross Value Add (GVA) to the Scottish economy, according to the Federation of Small Businesses. Additionally, the report shows that women-led employer businesses accounted for 22% of all employer businesses in Scotland, down from 23% the previous year. DGT
🎯 New Challenge: Up to six applicants will receive a £5,000 participation grant. FinTech Scotland and Smart Data Foundry are teaming up to host a UK-wide fintech innovation competition. The focus is on finding new, innovative solutions that help people manage their financial planning as they approach retirement. DGT
📌 Edinburgh's Engage Invest Exploit (EIE) event was back last week after a two-year break. Running over two days, EIE24 featured approximately 100 investors from the UK and beyond, alongside a robust selection of Scottish technology companies seeking investment and mentorship. IN FS DGT SFN
🚴 New cool tech: Edinburgh-based company HIT created a device which monitors the g-force of a head impact, attached to their helmets. The technology also measures the smaller cumulative impacts experienced by riders on runs, even when they don’t crash, similar to the effect on a footballer regularly heading a ball over the course of a match. IN
📣 Asks & Offers
🚨Start to Scale by Shepherd and Wedderburn is offering eligible subscribers of Campfire exclusive access to their ‘Start to Scale Hub’ which helps companies create template legal agreements in minutes for free. To learn more and request access click here.
👨🏻💻 Looking for a data-scientist job? Glasgow-based PropEco is hiring a full-time data scientist and backend engineer to further develop its data platform, which helps property professionals manage the impacts of climate change. Please email chris@propeco.io if interested.
🎧 Who do you know? Voxblock (improving children’s literacy through audiobooks - 10k so far) is hiring for a COO/Director of Ops. Role includes supply chain and inventory management, scaling processes in operations, coordinating fulfilment, project management, and marketplace management. Competitive salary and share options, full-time/4 days a week, based in Edinburgh. Jobspec here.
🗄️ Want an office AND the diverse membership of a coworking space? The Melting Pot are seeking an organisation to occupy their Hot Office for a long-term rental. Available furnished or unfurnished, capacity for up to six team members at a time. Renting the Hot Office also includes 24/7 keyholder access and discounted Pay-As-You-Go access for any additional team members. For more info, contact Sam Ross.
⚙️Do you dream about prototyping? The University of St Andrews has just opened its Rapid Prototyping Centre with facilities like HD 3D Printing Studio with premium materials, a 3D design office suite, electromechanical engineering equipment and machinery, and an electronics design studio (clean room environment). They offer services like high quality 3D scanning, stereolithography, selective laser sintering, fused deposition modelling and much much more. Campfire readers get a 10% discount (just quote CAMP10). Email them here, and find out more here.
👭 Interested in connecting with possible co-founders? Fill in your listing on Cofounder Curious today! Connect with others for possible cofounder matching here.
👷Are you hiring? Send us a blurb and we’ll include it in the next newsletter!
✍️ Want to write something for Campfire? Have an opinion you'd like to share? get in touch!
📅 Events
👥 07/05, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Tech Meetup Edinburgh | May: The Tech Meetup is a monthly excuse for the tech community around Scotland to network, learn and share new ideas! Come along to enjoy informative presentations from your peers, listen to exciting projects in the community and make some new connections. MORE INFO
📅 07/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Techscaler Takeaways: Tales of Silicon Valley [Glasgow]: Come to hear from Scottish founders and share in our key learnings and reflections from Techscaler Silicon Valley! MORE INFO
🔥 08/05, 17:30 🗺️ Stirling: Fireside Chat with Steven Drost: Join us for an inspiring Fireside chat with CodeBase Chief Strategy Officer Steven Drost, all about destigmatising and embracing failure on your own startup journey. This event is open to all, come to CodeBase Stirling to connect with members of the local tech ecosystem, network and share your own stories. MORE INFO
🍺 08/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Glasgow - People, Planet, Pint: Sustainability Meetup: Pop down to your local People Planet Pint meetup to find more about what's going on locally with sustainability and how you can get involved. MORE INFO
♾️ 09/05, 12:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Neurodivergent Conditions and Reasonable Adjustments with Auticon: Our Neurodiversity Meetup has been created as a space for Neurodivergent (ND) people and allies working in the Scottish Tech Ecosystem to meet and discuss how we can make our spaces more inclusive to neurodivergent individuals. MORE INFO
🔌 13/05, 11:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Unplugged Glasgow: Open to everyone, CodeBase Unplugged is a networking event for professionals interested in or working in tech startups. MORE INFO
👥 13/05, 18:30 🗺️ Inverness: Tech Meetup Inverness: Inverness Tech Meetup is back for in-person chats, talks and snacks. MORE INFO
🗣 14/05, 11:00 🗺️ Dundee: Dundee Presentation Club: Join us in the Abertay cyberQuarter for a chance to practice your pitches and public speaking in a friendly, supportive setting. MORE INFO
💼 14/05, 13:00 🗺️ Stirling: Marketing Meetup with Scunnered Digital [Stirling]: Join us for a six-month event series dedicated to elevate your marketing skills, build connections and exchange ideas with fellow marketers. MORE INFO
🎤 14/05, 14:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab Glasgow Pitch Day: The Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab (MSIVL) is an intensive 5-month in-house start-up accelerator program promoting financial inclusion and providing entrepreneurs of technology and technology-enabled startups with access to capital (£250,000), along with the tools, resources and connections to help further develop and scale their companies. MORE INFO
🥂 14/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Amplifying Voices in Technology – Collab with Startup Grind x The Social Hub x Glasgow City Innovation District: bringing together an incredible line up of individuals who are making waves in technology, from vertical farming and digital transformation to beauty robotics and award-winning data science at the Turing Institute! Prepare to be inspired as we delve into the diverse journeys of founders and leading voices in the tech sphere, discovering firsthand how they carved their path into the world of technology. Don't miss this chance to network with fellow tech enthusiasts, learn from the best, and be part of an empowering community driving technological advancement forward! MORE INFO
🏳️🌈 15/05, 13:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: LGBTQ+ Meetup: Planning for Pride: Our LGBTQ+ Meetup has been created as a space for LGBTQ+ people and allies working in the Scottish Tech Ecosystem to meet and discuss how we can make our spaces more inclusive to queer individuals. MORE INFO
🌱 15/05, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: #WorldProductDay - Let's Talk Product-Led Growth (PLG): oin us on this year's World Product Day for an enlightening session on Product Led Growth (PLG). In this meetup, we'll dive into how PLG leverages product usage to attract, convert, and retain customers, fundamentally shifting the traditional marketing and sales paradigms. We'll explore real-world examples from leading companies that have successfully implemented PLG strategies to achieve scalable growth. MORE INFO
🍽️ 15/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Founders Dinners: Where founders & execs of product startups relax together and connect with peers over food and drinks. MORE INFO
☁️ 15/05, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Cloud Native and Kubernetes Edinburgh May 2024: We've got another awesome CNK Edinburgh meetup scheduled. Usual format, two great talks interspersed with decent pizza and drinks - you know the drill! MORE INFO
🥂 15/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Tech Week Drinks: Drinks with Cooper Parry, Foresight Group, Harper Macleod & Virgin Money. Email kirstyi@cooperparry.com to register to attend. MORE INFO
🌐 16/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: TecTonic: Night Summit (Glasgow Tech Week):
Special discount for Campfire readers here! This debut event is a unique blend of conference and live community gathering, promising an inclusive, energised, and vibrant showcase of innovation and connectivity within Scotland’s digital business community and startup ecosystem. There will be inspiring and entertaining on-stage activities, interactive exhibitors and a dedicated business growth mentorship area for Founders to get tailored support. MORE INFO
🔌 16/05, 17:00 🗺️ Aviemore: Unplugged - Aviemore: This event aims to bring together entrepreneurs, techies, creatives, students, investors, and other regional stakeholders to network and share ideas. It is open to individuals from all sectors, from early-stage startups to established companies, as well as educators, employees and other business professionals looking to engage with more startup activity and looking to learn more about the type of Techscaler support available across Scotland. MORE INFO
👨💻 16/05, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: nocode.scot meetup #12: Whether you're a nocode enthusiast or just looking to get started learning how you can build software without writing code, you're very welcome to come along! MORE INFO
🔌 20/05, 16:00 🗺️ Turriff: Unplugged Turriff: Open to everyone, CodeBase Unplugged is a networking event for professionals working in, or interested in, tech startups. MORE INFO
🔥 21/05, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Startup Founders Meetup - May 2024: Each month, we'll have a combination of tactical fireside chats with experienced entrepreneurs and plenty of opportunities to network with other founders, potential cofounders, and investors. MORE INFO
🤝 22/05, 08:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: European Coworking Day 2024 by The Melting Pot: Join us and our vibrant community as we celebrate coworking here in Edinburgh and across Europe. Get a ticket and Come and cowork with us for free all day in the heart of Edinburgh city centre (08:30-17:30), Join us for a special lunch where you will hear from some of our members about why they cowork at Scotland's Centre for Social Innovation and the benefits coworking can have, Lunch is on us! You'll try the best soup in the whole city. Vegan and gluten-free! MORE INFO
📢 29/05, 08:30 🗺️ Glasgow: DIGIT Expo West 2024: DIGIT Expo West is Scotland’s largest gathering of technology personnel coming to Glasgow with over 1000 delegates. Themes of discussion will include Cyber Security, Data, AI, ML, Analytics, Cloud Services, Networks, Connectivity and much more. MORE INFO
🔗 29/05, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Entrepreneurs Social Club (ESC) - May 2024: Welcome to our monthly Entrepreneurs Social Club (ESC) gathering! Skip the talks, presentations and lectures - in favour of going straight to the bar, where real connections are made! MORE INFO
🌃 30/05, 17:30 🗺️ Glasgow: FuckUp Nights Glasgow Vol.I: Fuckup Nights is a global movement and event series that shares stories of professional failure. Each month, in events across +200 cities and 65 countries, we get a couple of speakers to get up in front of a room full of strangers to share their professional fuckup. The stories of the business that crashes and burns, the partnership deal that goes sour, the product that has to be recalled, we tell them all. MORE INFO
💼 06/06, 08:15 🗺️ Glasgow: Hear the story of one of Scotland’s standout exits of 2023, The trials of growing an international business: Join us for a panel discussion on one of 2023’s standout exits for a Scottish tech company. MORE INFO
🌐 12/06, 09:30 🗺️ Glasgow: Horizon Europe Roadshow: Information, Networking and Collaboration for Success - Scotland: Join us for an exciting in-person networking and information event to learn, connect and discuss the Horizon Europe collaborative research and innovation opportunities that can accelerate your project. MORE INFO
🎯 Deadlines
🗺️ TODAY: 6 May 2024: Geovation Scotland Accelerator. Application here
🤖 19 May 2024: Edinburgh University AI Accelerator. Info here
🏗️ 28 May 2024: Shott Scale Up Accelerator (Royal Society of Engineering). Info here
🇬🇧 Upcoming Innovate UK deadlines:
UK - Germany Bilateral: Collaborative R&D Round 3 Applications close 3 June
Europe Quantum Technology CR&D 2024 Applications close 28 August
New Innovators in Communication Networks 2024 Applications close 12 June
Innovate UK Smart grants: April 2024 Applications close 24 July
Smart Shipping Acceleration Fund Applications close 26 June
UK-Taiwan CRD 2024 Applications close 17 July
Are we missing your event or deadline? 👉 Submit it here!
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That’s all for this week - have a great one!
Team 🔥 Campfire