Edinburgh companies triumphed at last night’s Scottish Edge awards, where 38 Scottish businesses with high-growth potential were awarded a share of £1.5million.
Seven Edinburgh student startups and one staff spinout won a total of £195,000 for their innovative initiatives that will improve the lives of older people and families with sick children, amongst others.
Current Informatics student Alexandre Colle and Edinburgh College of Art graduate Camila Jimenez Pol won a Main Edge award of £80,000 for their company Konpanion, whose robotic companion Maah is designed to provide comfort and companionship.
Picture: L-R Mark Scott of Bella Duke, Konpanion's Camila Juminez Pol and Alexandre Colle
Joint Edinburgh/Dundee spinout Eye to the Future also won a Main Edge award of £70,000 for its retinal imaging software that aids optometrists to refer patients with eye conditions to secondary care.
And Clinical Sciences graduate Ioannis Stasinopoulos won the IBioIc Edge award of £65,000 for his biotech startup Prozymi Biolabs, which aims to revolutionise the gluten-free bread market using gluten-degrading enzymes.
Psychology graduate Lizzie Smith’s Gradatim, which creates picture books to aid the delivery of complex disability/illness information to children under five, won in the £10k Wild Card category, which supports pre-trading businesses to get to market.
Picture: Cexal's Matteo Case with Marjory Sweeny of Scottish Enterprise, which supports Young Edge
And there were four £10k Young Edge winners, for managing directors under 30, including CEXAL, founded by Social and Political Science graduate Matteo Cese, which creates rapid, accurate and cost-effective test kits for the identification of harmful pathogens in water samples.
Other Young Edge winners were Ujaama Spice, founded by molecular biology PhD student Rist Van de Weyer and CEO Jawahir Al-Mauly, which aims to decolonise the spice trade, and Planner Bee Services, founded by Sociology graduate Maya Vertigans, which supports sustainable and ethical businesses to make a buzz with their digital marketing. Finally, Moray House School of Education and Sport graduate Rosie Tooby for Quine Magazine, the only digital-first publication for women in Scotland.
This year also saw the introduction of the new Scottish Government-backed £100,000 Pathways Award to support an ambitious female entrepreneur, which was presented to Good Nude Food, a multi-award winning, probiotic fermented sauerkraut company.
Two of the other big winners of the evening were Brose Oats, which triumphed in the Food and Drink Category, a new award sponsored by Food & Drink Scotland, and Conneckt Charging, an EV charging network which won in the Net Zero category, supported by Royal Bank of Scotland. Both winners took home a prize worth £100,000, while GLORIAH, a company manufacturing sustainable intimate care products for women experiencing menopause, won a prize worth £80,000 in the Zero Waste Scotland supported Circular Economy category.
Sir Tom Hunter of event supporter the Hunter Foundation said:
Bold, brave and brilliant – those are the characteristics of Scottish EDGE winners. All the evidence points to Scotland needing far more of these businesses. EDGE is a brilliant supporter of high growth business and I’m sure could do a lot more for Scotland’s economy with the right Government support. ”
Dr John Lonsdale, Head of Enterprise at Edinburgh Innovations, said:
It’s fantastic to see so many of our companies winning awards that will help them take their ideas further out into the world.
Edinburgh Innovations is proud to have supported them this far, and we will continue to do so on their journey towards impact. ”
Evelyn McDonald, CEO of Scottish EDGE, said:
As businesses across Scotland find themselves facing challenging circumstances, there’s never been a more urgent need to drive creativity and innovation. The winners of the 22nd round of Scottish EDGE are testament to the incredible potential within Scotland’s start-up landscape. ”
Read the full story on the Scottish Edge website
