Theo heads to Edinburgh for Scottish EDGE Awards

On 3rd December Theo headed to Edinburgh to the Scottish EDGE Awards.

Scottish EDGE is the UK’s biggest funding competition for potential high growth businesses. It supports Scotland’s most innovative, high-growth potential early stage businesses with up to £150,000 in cash and provides a business support package that includes mentoring, support and signposting to alternative finance. It is awarded as 40% grant and 60% loan which is paid back to help fellow entrepreneurs on their pathway to success.

The Scottish EDGE Pledge also asks recipients of its funding to pledge a minimum of 1 per cent of the funding they make if they successfully exit their business to back more entrepreneurs through the programme.

On the day Theo took to the stage for an in-Conversation-with entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter. The Q&A covered Theo’s journey in business and also questions from the audience in everything from politics, to business advice to some inspirational quotes. The event culminated in an evening awards ceremony which Theo also attended and guests heard him in conversation with Scottish EDGE chief executive officer Evelyn McDonald.

Eighteen businesses took part in the Scottish EDGE finals on 3 December at the Royal Bank of Scotland Conference Centre at Gogarburn in Edinburgh with many more pitching in semi-finals and the Young EDGE and Wildcard EDGE competitions.

The two biggest winners were medical technology firm Nebu-Flow and industry services company Paragon Inspection Services which took home £125,000 each as winners of the Higgs EDGE award for science, technology and engineering focused businesses.

University of Glasgow spin-out Nebu-Flow, founded by Elijah Nazarzadeh and Jon Cooper, has created a novel aerosol formation technology for the efficient respiratory delivery of hard-to-nebulise drugs. Respiratory disorders are the main cause of death and disability in the world with an estimated cost of about £340 billion a year.

David Phin founded Dundee-based Paragon Inspection Solutions which has developed a unique patented inspection system, Tru-Fit. It enables fast, accurate inspection of small-bore tubing systems used in industry without any shutdown of plant.

The final brings the total pot of money awarded through Scottish EDGE to support early stage, high growth businesses to around £15 million in the 15 rounds now completed.

Theo Paphitis said: "It's been a pleasure to be involved in the Scottish Edge finals. There was a huge amount of Scottish talent there today, showing the rest of the world what they're made of!  A trip down memory lane with Sir Tom was the icing on the cake for me too."

Sir Tom Hunter said:  “Scottish EDGE provides pivotal gap funding to potential high growth businesses, but the funding is almost secondary to the support those businesses then benefit from, not least the peer to peer knowledge exchange. Scotland lags in building substantive high growth businesses and Scottish EDGE is a key component to eradicating that gap and accelerating Scotland’s economy.”