In the run-up to Startup Summit 2019, we're making it easier than ever for you to plan your day and work out who you'd like to speak to. With over 30 exhibitors for you to talk to in our exhibitor marketplace, we've got all the info you need to make the most of your day.
Johnston Carmichael
Johnston Carmichael is the go-to accountancy firm for the country’s most innovative and high growth businesses. Working across 12 offices, our entrepreneurial team have a wealth of technical and industry expertise and advise start-ups and scale ups at all stages of their journey.
As part of their partnership with Start up Summit, they offer invaluable access to their specialist tax, business planning and fundraising experts, and utilise their expertise to help founders tackle the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that come with growing a business.
Get in touch to arrange your free consultation.
Business Gateway
Business Gateway is Scotland’s national business advice service, offering free advice and support to anyone starting a new business, as well as to thousands of existing businesses with the ambition and potential to grow.
The free and comprehensive service offers one-to-one advice and support for every stage of the business journey and to every SME in Scotland. Business Gateway’s network of local offices spans the length and breadth of the country, recognising the many and varied geographical challenges they all face.
Business Gateway’s service includes publicly funded local workshops, one-to-one support from business advisers, extensive online resources and expert support on topics including innovation, exporting, finance and new markets.
MOO
MOO knows a thing or two about shaking those tail feathers. They create products that get you noticed - from business cards to stickers to flyer and lots more in between. They also offer great designs, fully customisable templates, the best quality paper, and proper lovely customer service to boot. It's the MOO way.
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
An Edinburgh Hotel Beyond The Predictable: perched on the edge of a picturesque private garden in the New Town, blending traditional glamour with the Scotland of today. Outside, a classical Georgian exterior stands as an ode to the past while inside, a glass-topped central garden is abuzz with activity as travellers unwind over gin & tonics, local professionals do business, and friends toast special occasions. The energy is so fresh and effervescent you’ll want to bottle it and bring it home—but then again, it feels too distinctly Edinburgh to make sense anywhere else.
AAI Employability
AAI EmployAbility is an award-winning not-for-profit which supports the private, public and third sector to access graduate and returner talent of all ages, skillsets and backgrounds.
With a highly respected name, the AAI team offer tried, tested and flexible recruitment solutions from ad hoc, short-term projects, including internships and maternity leave, to permanent positions for growing businesses of all sizes.
AAI supports both employers and graduates throughout placements and permanent employment, with any surplus used to support disadvantaged people struggling to enter the workforce.
As well as inclusive employment services, AAI offers tailored CSR offerings for private sector businesses around the themes of gender and racial diversity, disability and supporting the third/voluntary sector.
Scottish Institute for Enterprise
The Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) creates opportunities for students to be innovative. SIE works nationally to promote and support enterprise and entrepreneurship in Scotland’s students.
They work closely with local institutions to champion enterprise education and help their students start new innovative businesses and social enterprises. SIE provides free one-to-one advice, enterprise and innovation workshops and national competitions.
Firstport
Firstport is Scotland’s development agency for start-up social entrepreneurs and social enterprise. Having started work in 2007, their aim is to help social entrepreneurs- people who have an idea to help their environment or their community- develop those seeds of ideas and make them happen. With their help, people can make changes in the way they do business, help their communities and make a tangible difference. Firstport provide a full package of support that includes seed funding, business advice, and connections to help social entrepreneurs make their ideas a reality.
Scottish Edge
Scottish EDGE is the UK’s biggest business funding competition and is aimed at identifying and supporting Scotland’s innovative, high growth potential entrepreneurial talent.
Previously Government-run, the competition was spun out in 2014 to the private sector and is now a CIC funded by RBS, Scottish Government, Hunter Foundation and Scottish Enterprise.
To date, Scottish EDGE has awarded over £14 million to over 350 businesses. There are two competition rounds per year, with each lasting around 6 months from initial application period to the Grand Finals. Approximately 30-35 businesses are awarded funding each round from a just over £1 million prize pot.
The Data Lab
The Data Lab is Scotland’s innovation centre for data and AI. Through hubs in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness, they foster innovation through collaboration, build skills and grow talent, and champion Scotland’s data science community. The Data Lab help Scotland maximise value from data and lead the world to a data-powered future.
New Verve Consulting
New Verve Consulting is a software services company that helps Scottish and UK-based companies roll out and tailor Atlassian software tools to optimise project and service delivery.
Their friendly and dynamic team is based in Glasgow. New Verve Consultancy believe in strong and trusting relationships with their customers and continually strive to add value in all of their partnerships. They also believe strongly in teamwork, and have established a close-knit and collaborative culture.
As Atlassian Gold Solution Partners, the goal is simple: to help software and business teams deliver and support successful projects by applying agile techniques and maximising team collaboration.
Social Investment Scotland
Social Investment Scotland (SIS) exists to support Scottish social enterprises and charities unlock their potential for greater, sustainable impact. SIS offers impact loans, alongside dedicated support from their friendly and experienced team, to allow organisations to increase and protect the positive impact that they are creating. With an understanding that every organisation has a unique situation, there are no application forms at SIS – it all starts with a conversation.
SIS also deliver events and workshops for organisations considering social investment, as well as programmes for social enterprises looking to scale their operations and impact.
Since its founding in 2001, SIS has invested £70M in over 350 social organisations across Scotland. They offer loan finance from £10,000 to £2M, which is aimed at community enterprises and social businesses that would benefit from a supportive relationship and that might find it difficult to access finance from mainstream providers.
DSL Business Finance
Loans to Startup and Growing Businesses in Scotland
DSL delivers Microfinance Loans via the Scottish Growth Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Government and is the only Scottish based official delivery partner of the Startup Loan Company.
• Fully regulated by the FCA
• An EFG accredited lender
• Accredited for CITR
Loan Features:
• Loans from £500 – £50,000
• Interest rates from 6% per annum
• No early repayment fees or hidden charges
• Clients allocated a dedicated Loan Officer.
• Free registration to become a member of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
Contact them now to see how they can help you achieve your business goals. Various loan options are available.
Purpose HR
Purpose HR provides commercial, pragmatic and effective HR advice and practical support to early stage and high growth investor-backed businesses including high growth technology, engineering and life sciences start-ups within Scotland’s leading Angel and Venture Capital investment portfolios.
Their unique approach is highly responsive, supportive and flexible to the needs of fast growing business. They offer expertise in understanding, interpreting and applying business growth strategies and translating these into effective, user-friendly and fit-for-purpose HR strategies and supporting toolkits tailored to client needs. They help their clients manage their business and people most effectively and productively in order to help scale and meet the business challenges of fast paced growth.
Intellectual Property Office
The Intellectual Property Office, an executive agency of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), can help you understand how patents, trade marks, designs and copyright can prove an asset to your business.
Their main responsibilities are:
• Educating businesses and consumers about IP rights and responsibilities
• IP policy
• Supporting IP enforcement
• Granting UK patents, trade marks and design rights
Their work encourages innovation, helping the economy and society to benefit from knowledge and ideas.
Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowships
The RSE Enterprise Fellowship is a leading business development and training programme for the Higher Education sector. It enables science and technology researchers to develop into world-class entrepreneurs.
Each Fellowship is worth up to £90,000 in funding and training support.
Benefits include:
• A year’s academic salary, giving participants time to focus solely on developing their business
• Expert business training, to equip individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in today’s fast-paced global business environment
• Up to £10,000 business support funding
• Access to RSE affiliated mentors and entrepreneurs in the business community
• RSE Entrepreneurs’ Club membership and access to professional networking events
An Enterprise Fellowship is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the potential to truly be life-changing!
Email: enterprisefellowships@therse.org.uk
Phone: 0131 240 5000
Pure Offices
The Bonds comprises two buildings, Sugar & Bonnington Bond, two beautifully converted former bonded warehouses, which are now stunning office buildings in Leith. The business centre offers smart office space plus excellent amenity areas including a business lounge, phone booths and meeting rooms.
Brands Start Here
BRANDS START HERE is a new service offering 1-2-1 brand advice and branding packages to startups and entrepreneurs.
Creating your brand should be at the top of your to-do list as a startup. You need to think about your brand first, to give you focus for everything else that comes with starting a new business.
Your business’ brand and your branding are two very different things. Your brand is the personality of your business – the DNA that should run through everything you do. While your branding is the way it looks on the outside. The stuff that people will see, that will help them recognise you and make them think of your brand.
Email: giles@BrandsStartHere.com
Phone: 07940544804
Federation of Small Businesses
As experts in business, they offer their members a wide range of vital business services including advice, financial expertise, support and a powerful voice in government. Their aim is to help smaller businesses achieve their ambitions.
JOIN Talent
JOIN Talent help businesses scale and grow through unsourced recruitment & HR support & advice. JoinTalent provides businesses with the technology, manpower and expertise required to enable them to hire, onboard and manage the talent they need to meet their growth plans.
Think of us as the WeWork for HR and hiring.
Paredes Quality Consulting
Paredes Quality Consulting provides clientele with a variety of consulting services, including tools and methodologies to aid with a continual improvement process, knowledge sharing and fostering innovational ideas, along with the expertise and facilitation as key elements for the development and implementation of their ‘Sustainability Management System’.
They aid organisations in reaching ‘Business Transformation’ and ‘Innovative Success’ by supporting the growth of their intrinsic motivation to serve the greater good and use holistic evaluation schemes to measure their success.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Highlands and Islands Enterprise is the regional economic development agency for the northern half of Scotland. Their region is larger than Belgium; however it is home to around only 9% of Scotland's population. The programmes they are promoting at Startup Summit 2019 are specifically tailored for ambitious entrepreneurs including young people, women and social enterprises.
Lawlor Technologies
Lawlor Technologies builds bespoke mobile apps for enterprises and consumers. Their process begins with designing an interactive app prototype allowing their clients to visually see their app and how it will flow before the development phase starts. This is also useful for startup companies seeking investment, funding or applying for competitions.
CATAX
Catax are tax relief specialists in the following fields: Research & Development (R&D), Capital Allowances (CA), Patent Box(PB) and Remediation of Contaminated Land (RoCL). Long story short- the Government want to financially reward UK Ltd companies should they fall into either of these categories above. Catax are their to help you understand what these categories mean and if you are eligible to claim. Although they have been identifying eligible companies for over 10 years now, R&D is still hugely underclaimed UK wide. So go and say hello on the day, you may just surprise yourself!
E.g. Technology
E.g. Technology are a product design engineering consultancy based in Cambridge UK. Working with like-minded companies and using clever technology, they turn great ideas into real products. They have an exceptional team of talented and experienced engineers who understand how to unpick complex problems and solve them successfully.
Their customers range from entrepreneurs and start-ups to blue-chip companies, and they work on projects ranging from medical devices to consumer products to wearable tech.
By seamlessly connecting the disciplines of Industrial Design, Mechanical, Software and Electronics Engineering and developing a culture of continuous communication and co-operation, they can work faster, find smarter solutions and provide a flexible and responsive service to their customers.
Email: info@egtechnology.co.uk
Phone: 0122 381 3184
GrowBiz
GrowBiz provides a community-based enterprise support service across rural Perth and Kinross.
Covering Eastern and Highland Perthshire, Strathearn and Kinross-shire, they provide support to anyone who is considering becoming self-employed or growing an existing small business or social enterprise. This is regardless of age or experience – they work with a wide range of people from all backgrounds and sectors. Services are free and confidential and include 1-1 meetings, peer support, learning sessions, mentoring, training and networking opportunities.
GrowBiz has worked with more than 700 rural businesses in the last two years, helping them to connect and collaborate.
Their vision is to make Perth and Kinross the most entrepreneurial rural economy in Scotland.
STAND
As one of Scotland’s best-known and most effective brand communications agencies, Stand has worked with many ambitious, dynamic and entrepreneurial brands over the last two decades and recognises the vital role that start-ups play in today's modern Scottish economy.
Stand has supported a range of start-ups in a wide variety of sectors from tech start-ups such as Skyscanner to new whisky brands like the recently launched 1770 Glasgow single malt and Banditti Glasgow Spiced Rum.
Working from studios in Glasgow and Amsterdam, Stand’s 20-strong team of brand specialists, led by former Scottish Designer of the Year Stuart Gilmour and MD Maggie Croft, recognise the challenges that start-ups face and are flexible in their approach to ensuring that all start-ups get the right brand to start their journey.
Wayra Accelerator & The University of Edinburgh
The AI & Blockchain Accelerator is a collaboration between The University of Edinburgh (UoE), and Wayra UK, part of Telefónica Open Future. It is supported by Scottish Enterprise and sponsored by CISCO.
The programme selects up to 10 companies, which range in their maturity from early stage angel investment to securing initial seed investment.
What they offer is a 6 month support programme, Wayra’s and the UoE’s investor networks and acceleration services, use of a dedicated accelerator facility within the UoE in central Edinburgh, Telefonica and partners, Access to Edinburgh’s data-driven talent, £7500 grant (to cover cost of travel).
Pivomo
Learn fast, or fail.
Pivomo is an AI-driven e-learning platform designed to enable founders, entrepreneurs, and change agents rapidly acquire scale-up competencies. It is now in use in more than 30+ multinationals, universities, tech accelerators globally, with 1000s of users.
Pivomo targets real-world learning needs, blending psychometrics, bite-sized tutorials, web-classes, online mentoring, e-libraries, designed around you and your venture.
Dynamiqe™ analyses your entrepreneurial role and identifies the attributes that you need to sustain, grow or reduce to create your target profile. It links seamlessly to a Development Advisor and e-learning modules.
Who are you looking forward to chatting with? Double-check you have your ticket to SUS19: you don't miss out on the exhibitor marketplace and our inspiring speaker lineup on the 30th October at the Assembly Rooms Edinburgh!