🚀 Orbex Space and Phlo Raise, Gigged.ai partnership, and Seaweed

Plus applications open for the Edinburgh AI accelerator, and is VC rebounding?

Here's your Campfire for the 22nd of April, 2024.

👷Are you hiring? Send us a blurb and we’ll include it in the next newsletter!

💼 This issue of Campfire is sponsored by Shepherd and Wedderburn's initiative to supercharge start-ups and scale-ups. Be sure to follow the Start to Scale LinkedIn page for useful videos and posts designed to help founders.

🌊 Updates

🚀 Scottish space company Orbex raised £16.7 million to work on its rocket technology and construction of its launch facility in Sutherland. Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) invested £10.5m of follow-on funding, with the remainder spread across VC firms Octopus Ventures, BGF, Heartcore, the Export & Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), plus corporate and angel investors. TH DGT IN

🎯 Women interested in starting a business: A new partnership between Edinburgh Napier University and Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) to create the SDG5 Living Lab, providing tailored training, cutting-edge resources, and networking opportunities for females looking to start a business or further their careers. TS DGT

🏆 Top tech innovator nominations are open: The KPMG Private Enterprise Global Tech Innovator competition is now in its 11th year and has seen previous winners such as What3Words, SafetoNet, FIDOTech and 2022 winner HiiROC who went on to win the global final during Web Summit. SBN DGT SS

🧜 Check it out: Seaweed startup SeaDyes is using seaweed as the base for natural fabric dyes that could help fashion and textiles manufacturers improve sustainability and reduce their reliance on petrochemical-derived colourings. SBN

💊 Glasgow-based Phlo (digital drug delivery pharmacy) raised £9m from Par Equity, Thairm Bio and Scottish Enterprise. This comes a year after their acquisition of TruePill UK, and 14 months from their £10m Series A round. DGT UKTN IN ACS

💸 VC investment rebounding? A recent report says that Edinburgh has experienced a 406% increase in VC investment since 2023, with the largest funding round being Build a a Rocket Boy Series D (valued at £86.7m). More widely, startups in the UK raised £3.1bn in Q1 2024, which is almost the total of rounds raised by startups in Germany and France combined. The report was from HSBC Innovation Banking and Dealroom DGT

💰 Focal (bi-annual demo days) is hosting its next virtual demo day Deadline 9am, 24 April. Focal demo days are designed to get startups in front of hundreds of top-tier VCs. It’s open to any Pre-seed, Seed, or Series A startups, and is free. FOCAL

🤝 Glasgow-based Gigged.ai signed a deal with Insights Learning and Development to showcase their associate consultant network on the Gigged.ai platform. DGT

🤖 Applications open for the Edinburgh Uni AI Accelerator. Running from September to March 2025, the cohort will be made of up to 16 companies focused on ‘AI for good’, and support includes workshops, investment strategy discussions and financial support. Deadline 19 May, info sessions online 23rd April, in-person 3rd May. More info here. SS DGT

📐 The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Schott Scale Up Accelerator is open for applications. A 12-month leadership programme for senior leaders of high-growth engineering and tech SMEs. Includes 52-hour growth training programme, 1:1 leadership coaching, 1:1 business mentoring, £10k training grant, access to co-working spaces in London and Belfast, and more. Deadline is 28th May. More info here.

📣 Asks & Offers

🎧 Who do you know? Voxblock (improving children’s literacy through audiobooks - 10k so far) is hiring for a COO/Director of Ops. Role includes supply chain and inventory management, scaling processes in operations, coordinating fulfilment, project management, and marketplace management. Competitive salary and share options, full-time/4 days a week, based in Edinburgh. Jobspec here.

🗄️ Want an office AND the diverse membership of a coworking space? The Melting Pot are seeking an organisation to occupy their Hot Office for a long-term rental. Maybe you have a project coming up that requires space to spread out your ideas. Maybe you'll be meeting various stakeholders over the next few months and want a stable, soundproof, central place to convene. Or perhaps your team has recently grown and you’d love an office to cement relationships? If this sounds like you, the Hot Office could be the perfect solution! Available furnished or unfurnished, capacity for up to six team members at a time. Renting the Hot Office also includes 24/7 keyholder access and discounted Pay-As-You-Go access for any additional team members. For more info, contact Sam Ross.

⚙️Do you dream about prototyping? The University of St Andrews has just opened its Rapid Prototyping Centre with facilities like HD 3D Printing Studio with premium materials, a 3D design office suite, electromechanical engineering equipment and machinery, and an electronics design studio (clean room environment). They offer services like high quality 3D scanning, stereolithography, selective laser sintering, fused deposition modelling and much much more. Campfire readers get a 10% discount (just quote CAMP10). Email them here, and find out more here.

👭 Interested in connecting with possible co-founders? Fill in your listing on Cofounder Curious today! Connect with others for possible cofounder matching here.

✍️ Want to write something for Campfire? Have an opinion you'd like to share? get in touch!

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📅 Events

🔌 23/04, 12:00 🗺️ Dunfermline: Unplugged Dunfermline: This event aims to bring together entrepreneurs, techies, creatives, students, investors, and other regional stakeholders to network and share ideas. MORE INFO

🧰 23/04, 10:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: In-Person IPHatchathon® UK 2024: Join our FREE in-person IPHatchathon®, a 3-hour 1-on-1 mentoring workshop where our seasoned mentors will validate your business model and offer actionable advice on how you could integrate readily available patents/ technologies we have to offer. MORE INFO

🔌 24/04, 12:00 🗺️ Galashiels: Unplugged @ Hometown Hub, Stow: In partnership with Hometown Hub, this event is for anyone looking to learn more about what Techscaler is and what it has to offer the tech sector in the Borders. This event aims to bring together entrepreneurs, techies, creatives, students, investors, and other regional stakeholders to network and share ideas. MORE INFO

🗣 24/04, 12:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Presentation Club: Join us for a supportive and friendly afternoon of public speaking practice for people in the tech startup world. MORE INFO

🔌 24/04, 16:00 🗺️ Aboyne: Unplugged Aboyne: This event aims to bring together entrepreneurs, techies, creatives, students, investors, and other regional stakeholders to network and share ideas. MORE INFO

💬 24/00, 18:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Entrepreneurs Social Club (ESC) - April 2024: ​Welcome to our monthly Entrepreneurs Social Club (ESC) gathering! Skip the talks, presentations and lectures - in favour of going straight to the bar, where real connections are made. MORE INFO

🤝 25/04, 09:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Bridging Communities - The Extended Edition: A one-day event to bridge communities, spark connections and inspire action. Co-designed discussions, creative workshops, insightful stories, and more. MORE INFO

🗽 25/04, 09:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Breaking the US: Office Hours: Best practices on approaching the US market and what tools and connections are available to support you. MORE INFO

🗽 25/04, 10:30 🗺️ Aberdeen: Approaching the US Market with City of Mentor: Best practices on approaching the US market and what tools and connections are available to support you. MORE INFO

🌍 25/04, 12:30 🗺️ Stirling: World of Work: Organisation Culture and Values for Founders: This half-day, in-person, interactive workshop in Codebase Stirling will be co-facilitated by James and Jane from the World of Work Project. Like all of their workshops, this session will be highly interactive and will include relevant theories, practical applications and top-tips. MORE INFO

🚀 25/04, 12:30 🗺️ Online: Virtual Speed Networking: An online speed networking event where you can get to know others in the tech community across Scotland. We’ll have some questions ready for you to get the conversations going and keep things moving so you get the chance to speak to as many people as possible. MORE INFO

🌐 25/04, 17:00 🗺️ Stirling: The Social at CodeBase Stirling: Open to everyone, this is an in-person celebration to connect and catch up with the CodeBase and Central Scotland community. MORE INFO

👔 25/04, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Save the Date: Navigating Your Next Career Leap in Product: Roadmap to Job Search Success: Navigate with Precision, Land with Confidence!"A Product job search work shop to help you shape your CV & approach to the market, uncover interview secrets and proven strategies for you to approach the job market in 2024! MORE INFO

📊 25/04, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Edinburgh Data Science and AI inaugural meetup: Everyone is encouraged to attend from across the Data Science realm whether you work in a small startup or a large corporate, if you are researching state of the art multimodal vision-language models in academia or just getting to grips with linear regression! MORE INFO

🍽️ 25/04, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Dinners: Where founders & execs of product startups relax together and connect with peers over food and drinks. MORE INFO

🛠️ 27/04, 10:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: NoCode Build Day!: ​Join us for nocode.scot's first Saturday build day! Because finding the time to build stuff during the week isn't always possible. This is a time to dust off that side project, kick start that new business, or just play around building something for fun. MORE INFO

🎯 27/04, 11:00 🗺️ Inverness: Inverness Pitch Club: A supportive and welcoming environment which gives you the opportunity to practise your pitching skills and gain confidence in talking about your business. We’re here to help from the ground up! Whether you’re simply talking about your business or idea at networking events, or you’re going to be pitching at a competition to capture the attention of investors. Let’s get confident about communication. MORE INFO

🖼️ 30/04, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Big Picture AI Safety: "Good" Futures and Dangers en Route by The Melting Pot: Part of The Melting Pot's Spring - Summer AI & Social Innovation events series. The event will provide a general context of where we are in AI development, what the latest advances are and work toward some big questions that concern social innovators: what are the key threats behind the use of AI? What are the distinctive characteristics of Scotland's AI landscape? And above all, how would look a "good" future for us in our complex relationship with AI and what can you do about it? MORE INFO

👥 30/04, 18:00 🗺️ Dundee: Dundee Data Meetup: Welcome to the monthly recurring Dundee Data Meetup, a vibrant community-driven event that brings together curious learners, data enthusiasts and professionals to explore the captivating world of data and its applications. MORE INFO

🎯 Series: EIE2024: EIE24 is an exclusive, invitation-only event. Due to high demand, not all those expressing interest in attending EIE24 will be guaranteed a place. To ensure you don’t miss the opportunity for a front-row seat at Scotland’s premium tech-ecosystem event, sign up today:
📌 30/04, 19:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: EIE2024 - Investor2Investor Evening: Experience a night of global connections and networking at the spectacular Edinburgh Castle. MORE INFO
📌 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: EIE2024 - Showcase Day: At EIE24 you will network with international investors, founders, and industry experts. MORE INFO
📌 01/05, 19:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: EIE2024 - Gala Dinner: EIE24 will end with a fantastic networking dinner in a unique and memorable setting. MORE INFO

☕ Series: Unfiltered: Open to everyone, join us to connect with members of the local tech community. Come for a coffee, networking and build connections.
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Dundee, MORE INFO
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Perth, MORE INFO
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Stirling, MORE INFO
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Edinburgh, MORE INFO
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Glasgow, MORE INFO
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Inverness, MORE INFO
⛾ 01/05, 08:30 🗺️ Aberdeen, MORE INFO

🤝 02/05, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Public Sector Data & AI Meetup - The DataLab [Edinburgh]: Join us to learn how these technologies are reshaping governance, service delivery and decision-making processes as speakers showcase real-world applications of how data and AI is being used in the public sector. MORE INFO

📅 07/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Techscaler Takeaways: Tales of Silicon Valley [Glasgow]: Come to hear from Scottish founders and share in our key learnings and reflections from Techscaler Silicon Valley! MORE INFO

♾️ 09/05, 12:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Neurodivergent Conditions and Reasonable Adjustments with Auticon: Our Neurodiversity Meetup has been created as a space for Neurodivergent (ND) people and allies working in the Scottish Tech Ecosystem to meet and discuss how we can make our spaces more inclusive to neurodivergent individuals. MORE INFO

🔌 13/05, 11:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Unplugged Glasgow: Open to everyone, CodeBase Unplugged is a networking event for professionals interested in or working in tech startups. MORE INFO

👥 13/0, 18:30 🗺️ Inverness: Tech Meetup Inverness: Inverness Tech Meetup is back for in-person chats, talks and snacks. MORE INFO

💼 14/05, 13:00 🗺️ Stirling: Marketing Meetup with Scunnered Digital [Stirling]: Join us for a six-month event series dedicated to elevate your marketing skills, build connections and exchange ideas with fellow marketers. MORE INFO

🥂 15/05, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Tech Week Drinks: Drinks with Cooper Parry, Foresight Group, Harper Macleod & Virgin Money. Email kirstyi@cooperparry.com to register to attend. MORE INFO

🎯 Deadlines

🗺️ 6 May 2024: Geovation Scotland Accelerator. Application here
🤖 19 May 2024: Edinburgh University AI Accelerator. Info here
🏗️ 28 May 2024: Shott Scale Up Accelerator (Royal Society of Engineering). Info here

🇬🇧 Upcoming Innovate UK deadlines:

• UK-Switzerland CR&D Round 2 Applications close 1 May

• UK - Germany Bilateral: Collaborative R&D Round 3 Applications close 3 June

Are we missing your event or deadline? 👉 Submit it here!

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That’s all for this week - have a great one!

Team 🔥 Campfire