News
MiAlgae lands £2.5 million for Grangemouth plant
Scottish biotech company MiAlgae has secured a £2.5m investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank. This funding is allocated to support the company’s new commercial-scale production facility located in Grangemouth, with the announcement made on 6 October 2026.
Source: Scottish Business News
World Cup connection helps spark new Scotland-US partnership
The UK and Scottish governments have joined together to fund science collaboration with the United States.
Venture Café Edinburgh hosted the official launch of the Biobridge programme, a new partnership connecting Scotland's life sciences ecosystem with Massachusetts.
The “Scotland-Massachusetts Bio-Bridge” will bring business leaders from Massachusetts to Scotland to explore investment and collaboration opportunities.
Source: The Herald
Funding gap widens as investors become more selective
Scotland's early-stage investment market remains active, but raising capital is becoming more difficult for ambitious growth companies.
While investors continue to back innovative businesses with strong growth prospects, fundraising rounds are taking longer to complete, investors are carrying out more detailed due diligence and capital is becoming increasingly selective.
Source: The Scotsman
Scotland attracts record 76 new funders to the market in 2025
A record 76 funders backed Scottish companies with risk capital for the first time in 2025, up from 73 in 2024, according to the latest Annual Newcomers Report from Young Company Finance (YCF), which tracks the financing of early-stage companies in Scotland.
Midlothian Science Zone-based Rhizocore Technologies is one of those companies, attracting five investors to the Scottish risk capital market for the first time including The First Thirty, The Grosvenor Estate and Sand River, investing alongside Scottish Enterprise and the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Capital.
Source: Scottish Financial News
SNIB tightens exposure to risk but broadens targets
Scotland’s state-owned development bank is tightening its exposure to risk by backing companies with an established growth record and a clear market advantage in their sector.
David Ritchie, who was installed as chief executive of the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) in January, has also revealed he will broaden the range of companies it is targeting.
Source: Scottish Financial News
Scotland’s spinout potential is real – and its capital is finally catching up
University Spinouts are having a moment. Investment in the sector hit £3.35bn in 2024, up 44% on the year before, and the institutions driving those headlines – UCL, Oxford, Cambridge – are clustered within a few miles of each other in London. UCL Business’ recent research underscores the point, with academics at a single London university having driven £3.06bn in external investment across 95 active spinout companies over the past five years.
Source: DIGIT
Biotech spin-out secures £1.58m as bio kits sell in US
The University of Edinburgh spin-out BIOCAPTIVA has raised £1.58 million in a new funding round and launched its first product in the US.
BIOCAPTIVA’s a novel magnetic bead technology is designed to solve one of liquid biopsy’s biggest bottlenecks - preparing blood samples for cancer research and diagnostics. By improving how cell-free DNA is captured from blood, the technology aims to make liquid biopsy testing more reliable, scalable, and accessible.
Source: The Business
‘Step-change’ for UK’s digital horsepower
A major new compute investment could accelerate the progress of astronomers exploring the mysteries of the universe, chemists searching for cancer-killing drugs, and historians analysing archives.
The £76m investment from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is set to enhance the UK’s computing and AI capability.
Scottish equity investment tops £1bn as investors focus on fewer but larger deals
Equity investment into Scottish companies rose by almost a third to over £1 billion last year, even though the number of deals increased by less than 1%, a new report has shown.
The figures suggest investors are becoming more selective and refining their focus with fewer but larger deals and more capital deployed overall, according to Mercia Ventures.
Source: Scottish Financial News
Midlothian junction upgrade reaches final design stage
As one of the flagship infrastructure investments of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal, the Bush Loan junction upgrade has now moved into its final design phase.
This development will improve vehicle safety, reduce traffic speeds, ease access to employment and research sites and enable future development across Midlothian Science Zone, whilst addressing Transport Scotland’s safety concerns.
Source: Scottish Construction Now