Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2025
Just a minute. A matter of months ago, I announced £2 million of investment in the skills and training required, and we have also invested in defence companies with regard to diversification. If the member wants any evidence of that, I refer him to previous debates in the Parliament in which members have accused us of making those investments in defence. Both sides cannot be right.
There are straws in the wind that suggest that momentum will continue to build. Techscaler, which is where we incubate and grow Scotland’s most promising start-ups, is performing beyond expectations. Since its launch, members have raised £118 million; there is strong demand for services; and membership applications are accelerating. That suggests a stronger pipeline of high-growth founders than we had anticipated at the early stage. If we are going to be proven wrong, we will at least be proven wrong on the basis of underexpectations rather than overexpectations.
That, in turn, is attracting the involvement of new investors and scaling firms. Data from RSM Consulting shows that Scotland is the UK’s fastest-growing territory for the incorporation of new tech businesses. The same figures showed incorporations in London falling by 6 per cent.