Scottish companies get GBP20m boost

A GBP20 million venture capital fund has been launched by the Scottish Executive to encourage investment in Scottish start-ups. The Scottish Executive’s strategy of Regional Selective Assistance has been redesigned to focus on the nurturing of high quality entrepreneurial projects across Scotland to help them achieve their full growth potential.

At a conference on Scotland’s economic future enterprise minister Wendy Alexander, said: “Our research shows that Scottish firms continue to face difficulties in obtaining small scale, early stage equity in the current market. This reflects a number of factors including the high risk nature of many early stage proposals particularly in high technology fields and the high costs of due diligence for such investments.”

She adds that the Scottish Executive’s proposed investment of GBP20 million in a new venture capital investment fund will address the current equity gap, by investing in a number of new private sector equity funds making small scale investments. It is hoped the new fund will help stimulate more research and development, technology utilisation and innovation across Scotland.