👋 Founders Meetup, MLOps, Coworking at Bayes, Traveltech, ProductTank and more
Here’s your Campfire for February 16, 2026.
Reminder: Signals Cohort One Deadline this Friday
Do you know someone who is working on a problem that could grow into something of scale? They might already have a side project, or are just conducting initial experiments. They might be working on this full time or still working elsewhere.
Either way, as long as their insight is unique and their opportunity could grow into something large, Signals might be for them.
Signals is a new cohort-based £200k inception-stage VC investment from Techstart Ventures. It’s designed for people who have deep understanding and experience of a problem. They bring unique insight, obsession with the opportunity, and believe there’s potential to build a global company capable of significant scale.
This is for people who believe that a) their unique insight might provide the basis for building a globally important company and b) a £200k investment right now might increase their chances of raising a top tier pre-seed round within the next 18 months.
In addition to investment, Signals includes ongoing cohort-based accountability, weekly co-working, and regular challenge from investors and experienced operators.
Find more info here, or sign up to a briefing this week.
📣 Asks & Offers
🚨 Start to Scale by Shepherd and Wedderburn is offering eligible subscribers of Campfire exclusive access to their ‘Start to Scale Hub’ which helps companies create template legal agreements in minutes for free. To learn more and request access click here.
💻 ITSX Summit is Scotland’s service desk and IT support conference with keynotes, workshops, and an exhibition, taking place on 5 March 2026 at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, 08:30–16:30. Details here
🍯 The Melting Pot is hiring an Events Lead (Part-time/Permanent 16 hours per week). Salary: £13,333 pro rata (FTE: £25,000). Application deadline Tuesday, 24th of February. Details here.
⭐️ The UHI Business Competition from CREATE Highlands and Islands Hub invites students and residents (16+ in Argyll & Bute, Highlands and Islands, Moray or Perthshire) to pitch an idea or new venture for the chance to win up to £8,500 plus accountancy, legal, and IT support. Details here
👭 Interested in connecting with possible co-founders? Fill in your listing on Cofounder Curious today! Connect with others for possible cofounder matching here.
👷Are you hiring? Send us a blurb and we’ll include it in the next newsletter!
✍️ Want to write something for Campfire? Have an opinion you'd like to share? get in touch!
📅 Events
🛰️ Multiple 🗺️ Edinburgh, Glasgow, Online: Signals Briefing: Signals is a new cohort-based £200k inception-stage VC investment from Techstart Ventures. Deadline for Cohort One is Feb 20th. MORE INFO
💻 Monday 16th 1200: Virtual
💻 Tuesday 17th 0830: Virtual
💻 Tuesday 17th 1200: Virtual
👋 Wednesday 18th Evening: Edinburgh in-person
💻 Thursday 19th 1200: Virtual
👯♂️ 17/02, 18:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Meetup Tactical fireside chats with experienced entrepreneurs and speed networking with other founders, potential cofounders, and investors MORE INFO
📚 17/02, 18:15, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Storytelling: Why It’s More Important Than Ever Join us for an engaging and practical session on why storytelling has become one of the most critical leadership capabilities—and how it can be used to bring culture, values, and strategy to life in real, human ways. MORE INFO
📈18/02, 10:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Pathways to Business Growth: Getting Organised for Growth is a workshop for business owners to assess and strengthen how their business is set up and run as it scales, covering structure, admin, tools, ways of working, and using AI as a personal assistant. MORE INFO
🦸♀️ 19/02, 12:00, 🗺️ Aberdeen: Female Founder Meet Up meet-up for female and non-binary founders across Aberdeen City and Shire to connect with like-minded peers, grow their network, and share real business experiences and insights. MORE INFO
📈19/02, 10:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Value Proposition Design for Product–Market Fit is a hands-on workshop teaching founders tools to map customer jobs/pains/gains, define an ideal customer profile, and craft value propositions that improve product decisions, positioning, and sales. MORE INFO
🍺 19/02, 19:15, 🗺️ Edinburgh: People, Planet, Pint is a relaxed, no-pitches sustainability meetup where people connect over a drink to share local inspiration and ways to get involved in climate action. MORE INFO
💻 20/02, 09:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Hub - by Bayes and ScotlandIS Weekly Co-working Fridays at The Bayes Centre bring founders building scalable tech businesses together to work alongside peers, share asks and ideas, and build momentum in a supportive startup community. MORE INFO
✈️ 23/02, 17:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Traveltech Meet Up . Get ready for an informal evening of networking, reconnecting, and building the future of Travel Tech. MORE INFO
📈 23/02, 12:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: The Deal Process - From first conversation to completion is a practical session that walks founders through the end-to-end fundraising deal journey so they know what to expect, how to prepare, and how to avoid delays once investors are engaged. MORE INFO
💵 24/02, 18:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Digital & Cloud Bookkeeping – An Introduction is a 2-hour MS Teams webinar for small business owners and sole traders covering cloud bookkeeping basics using Xero, including setup, bank reconciliations, ledgers, payroll/VAT essentials, and reporting. MORE INFO
🎙️ 24/02, 17:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: ProductTank Community Flash Talks This month’s meetup is a night of community flash talks where product folks share short, honest stories about the messy, human side of the work and what didn’t go to plan, what they learned, and how they bounced back. MORE INFO
♻️ 24/02, 09:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Greentech Meetup: Using AI to Decarbonise Buildings is a monthly Edinburgh breakfast meetup featuring a talk from Building Atlas co-founder Nick Taylor on how AI can map building decarbonisation roadmaps, followed by networking with the local Greentech community. MORE INFO
💻 24/02, 17:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Tech Meetup The meet up is a monthly excuse for the tech community around Scotland to network, learn and share new ideas! Enjoy informative tech presentations from your peers, hear about exciting community projects and create new connections. MORE INFO
💻 24/02, 12:30, 🗺️ Glasgow: Turning Visibility to Revenue with LinkedIn (The Story Club) is a practical session where Jonny Rose shows founders how to use personal branding, content, and video on LinkedIn to build trust and convert attention into leads in crowded B2B markets. MORE INFO
👯♂️ 24/02, 11:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Co-Work Club Edinburgh is a flexible coworking day at YOTEL Hotel where £5 entry includes a coffee and pastries plus 25% off food and drink, with space to work solo or with others and meet fellow professionals. MORE INFO
⭐️ 24/02, 12:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Techscaler Health & Medtech Innovation Summit The Summit brings Scotland’s health and medtech community together to connect founders, investors and partners, share founder-led insights on sector challenges, and showcase Scottish innovation for real collaboration opportunities. MORE INFO
👯♂️ 24/02, 17:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders & Merchants Company Introduction a private networking event bringing together the Founders Meetup and the Royal Company of Merchants for a short intro to the society, refreshments, and networking with Edinburgh business leaders, founders, and entrepreneurs. MORE INFO
🍺 25/02, 19:00, 🗺️ Aberdeen: People, Planet, Pint is a relaxed, no-pitches sustainability meetup where people connect over a drink to share local inspiration and ways to get involved in climate action. MORE INFO
✈️ 25/02, 18:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: MLOps Meetup features a talk by Trustpilot’s Assulan Nurkas on deploying fine-tuned LLMs at scale to process 200k daily reviews, hosted by Skyscanner with pizza and drinks. MORE INFO
🔧 26/02, 13:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Scale smarter: discover AI and automation tools to build and grow A practical, hands-on workshop showing you how to launch or grow your business online with simple, affordable tools: no coding, big budget, or tech background required. MORE INFO
🍽️ 26/02, 18:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Dinner: Scaling & Legal Lessons from the front line An approval-only founders dinner featuring a fireside chat with Aveni COO Jaime Hunter and investor adviser Max Scharbert, for an off-the-record discussion on scaling a regulated business, regulation and legal decision-making with a small group of startup leaders. MORE INFO
💻 27/02, 09:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Hub - by Bayes and ScotlandIS Weekly Co-working Fridays at The Bayes Centre bring founders building scalable tech businesses together to work alongside peers, share asks and ideas, and build momentum in a supportive startup community. MORE INFO
👯♂️ 27/02, 09:00, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founder Friday Coworking Join us for a day of networking and inspiration. This is your chance to connect with fellow founders, share ideas, and maybe even spark your next big project. MORE INFO
👯♂️ 03/03, 19:30, 🗺️ Edinburgh: Edinburgh Fellows meetup is a monthly, informal RSA Fellows catch-up on the first working Tuesday at Canopy Café for relaxed chats over coffee or drinks and networking with other Fellows. MORE INFO
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That’s all for this week - have a great one!
Team 🔥 Campfire
Photo by Ocean Intelligence