Tech firm appoints new finance director ahead of £1m fund-raising

Miigen, a Scottish-based social platform for senior life living with global ambitions, has strengthened its top management team as it moves towards a new £1 million fund-raising round with the appointment of entrepreneur Alasdair McGill as finance director.

Mr McGill, co-founder and managing director of Ashton McGill, his Dundee-based accountancy and consulting business, has held board positions in a number of major enterprises as well as top-level academic posts.

Although joining the team at Miigen recently, he has been working closely with the company since September.

Miigen said Mr McGill’s role will scale as the firm continues to expand but will continue in post at his Dundee firm.

Having qualified as an accountant and spending time with EY, Mr McGill went on to take up a financial controller post in a client firm and becoming Group MD. He has also built and sold businesses and specialised in design.

In 2014 he was appointed as head of enterprise and entrepreneurial strategy at the University of Dundee. He led the design and implementation of the University’s strategy and remains the University’s Entrepreneur in Residence.

Mr McGill said: “I have known Miigen co-founder Craig J Lemmon for several years. We are both members of Entrepreneurial Scotland and I have been aware of what Craig has achieved in a number of spheres.

“On a personal level, I like and appreciate what Miigen does. I have ageing parents and the way Miigen helps older people to reconnect with their lives - and stay connected - makes it a really powerful and valuable tool.”

Craig J Lemmon said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been able to attract someone of Alasdair’s calibre to join the team and help us on the next stage of the Miigen journey.

“Although Alasdair’s core role will be his Finance Director responsibilities, he has unrivalled commercial experience at senior levels and he understands very well what it takes to start, run and grow a business.”

Miigen co-founder Campbell Ferrier said: “Alasdair McGill shares the same entrepreneurial spirit as Miigen and has an outstanding track record in all aspects of the business environment which will be of enormous benefit as we move to the next stage.”

Miigen, which is supported by Scottish Enterprise, is a new technology which allows older people to create a digital time capsule. It has created a key to the store room of senior life memories, meaning they can be enjoyed by family and friends wherever they are.

The company has already raised £250,000 from its own network of business contacts and is now actively engaged on the next funding round which will raise £1 million, a target it said will most likely be pursued through controlled crowdfunding.

The Miigen community can now retrieve old photographs, videos, and documents and upload them to their Miigen pages. The platform is fully private unless users want to share.

It is integrated with Facebook and Facebook posts can be converted to Miigen Moments with added voice tags.

The company is targeting a demographic of more than 600 million social media consumers over the age of 50.