A slew of north and north-east business scooped a range of cash prizes in a funding competition aimed at supporting companies with high growth potential.
Lossiemouth-based GaitAR, which develops mobility solutions for Parkinson’s patients in the form of Smart Glasses was one of the biggest winners at the Scottish EDGE Awards, picking up £75,000.
Ava Innes from Elgin secured £20,000 using their UK-made, sustainable insulating fabric in clothing and bedding to help customers keep warm this winter.
Meanwhile Gledfield Distilleries won £10,000 for developing Sutherland’s first modern botanical spirit in a paper bottle and Aberdeen’s Bliss Hot Tub hire also picked up £10,000.
Across the Pentland Firth in Kirkwall, Orkney Cloth Company, making woven textiles, artisan scarves and blankets in limited collections, also picked up £10,000.
The Habitat People in Inverurie offering sustainability assessments and a carbon offsetting service through creation of wildflower meadows won £10,000, while Zephyrus Aerolabs from Aberdeen, which manufactures a carbon-efficient drone monitoring greenhouse gas emissions directly from ships, secured £15,000.
New ‘community edge’ for Inverness firm
This year also marked the inauguration of the Community Edge Award, which recognised the efforts of an enterprise which may have otherwise missed out.
The award, arising from a crowdfunding campaign which raised a total value of £20,000, was awarded to Inverness-based Clarity Walk by public vote.
The award event for this round featured guest speakers including Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Minecraft founder Chris Van Der Kuyl, and philanthropists Sir Tom Hunter and Lord Willie Haughey.
Nicola Sturgeon said: “Ten years after it started, Scottish Edge is now the largest funding competition of its kind anywhere in the UK.
“Recovery from the pandemic and the current cost crisis we are facing has caused huge challenges across our business sector – but the innovative ways businesses have adapted and reacted has been remarkable.”
Ava Innes founder Joan Johnston told the Press and Journal: “This time I went in under our secondary product which is effectively a coat which people can wear using our fibre that keeps them warm at home.”
Ms Johnston said the £20,000 would be used to market and launch the coat in February adding: “We designed around the idea of staying warm at home and fine-tuned it for the energy crisis because everyone is struggling with heating bills.
“The Scottish Edge timing is perfect – we have been in focus groups and have had feedback from the product – people already want to order.”
Sir Tom Hunter said: “Scottish Edge plays a pivotal role in the entrepreneurial ecosystem helping build high growth businesses, many of them going on to scale and indeed several now being funded to do so by the Scottish National Investment Bank.”
The Edge Awards are supported by The Hunter Foundation, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise.
This round’s Scottish Edge received 200 applications with finalists pitching to judges on December 6 and 7 in front of a live audience.
A total of 42 businesses from across Scotland benefitted to the tune of over £1.6million in what was the twentieth round of the Scottish EDGE Awards.
Return of Net Zero Edge category
The awards also saw the return of the Net Zero Edge category, which launched last year with backing from the Royal Bank of Scotland to coincide with COP26.
