Scotland’s top tech start-ups plant seeds of growth at Deloitte Greenhouse

Four of Scotland’s most disruptive start-up companies will showcase their vision of how to change the world of business to investors, venture capitalists, incubators, and academics at Deloitte’s Edinburgh Greenhouse on April 25.

The competitors will pitch their ideas in five minutes to a judging panel at the business advisory firm’s first-ever Disrupt the Enterprise event in Scotland. Previous competitions have taken place at Deloitte’s London and Belfast operations, with plans already in place for further events in Edinburgh.

After challenging for a place at the event, the final four are:

Attracting attendees from across the Scottish business landscape, the event’s judging panel will be comprised of Dr Graeme Malcolm OBE, CEO and Founder of M Squared Lasers; George Elliot, Non-Executive Director and Chairman of multiple organisations; and Vimi Grewal-Carr, managing partner for innovation at Deloitte.

Each participant will be tested on their ability to make a significant change to the way industries and sectors work, their potential for growth, and the originality of their idea.

The winner will receive a three-month secondment from Deloitte’s consulting practice, with ongoing mentoring from the wider team. Two runners-up will have access to the firm’s Propel service, a cloud-hosted accountancy tool designed to help SMEs grow.

Jonathan Meddes, director of Deloitte Digital’s Edinburgh Studio, said: “Disruption is the buzzword of the moment in technology circles, but it captures just how much these companies are changing the world of business. Traditional industries are seeing unprecedented levels of transformation through the introduction of crowdsourcing, fintech, robotics, process automation, and cognitive intelligence, to name just a few of the technological trends sweeping across the economy.

“The four finalists at Disrupt the Enterprise are at the forefront of these developments, changing the way businesses, and entire sectors, operate. We received an overwhelming number of applications, which made it a tough choice. Nevertheless. It’s encouraging to see such a hotbed of activity in Scotland, with an ecosystem that is producing some of the most ambitious young companies in the UK – we have the skills, demographics, and solid grounding to take our potential even further.”

Bruce Walker, founder of WeAreTheFuture, added: “Initiatives like Disrupt the Enterprise are excellent facilitators of collaboration between start-ups and corporates – both types of business have a great deal of knowledge and experience to share with one another. Scottish start-ups are at the forefront of change in global markets and, working with some of the country’s more established businesses, there is an unprecedented opportunity for them to shape the future of our economy.”