Scots technology chief reveals investment target

But the technology veteran said the syndicate, which will launch this month, is ultimately looking to raise a significantly higher amount of capital to deploy.

Mr Wilson told The Herald: “We are going to evolve that [£1.5m] within 18 months into a regulated fund, and we will be targeting £10m to invest into more companies but also [those] at the next phase of scaling. So we will make early-stage investments and scaling investments, which is part of the main challenge – access to capital for early-stage companies in Scotland.

“We have picked our first three investments to present to the syndicate in December.”

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The update came as Mr Wilson shared his vision of Scotland emulating the Canadian town of Waterloo, now home to one of the richest pipelines of technology start-ups in the world.

Waterloo’s success, which sees it routinely compete with the biggest names of Silicon Valley in California, followed the decline of Blackberry’s headquarters in the city. That led to a resolve in the city to never rely on a single company for its prosperity again.

STAC runs a 250-desk co-working space for deep tech start-ups at thebeyond, which is supported by 20 corporate players, including Pelion, Plexus, and Keysight. Earlier this year, it forged a new partnership with Volvo, which will see Scottish technology firms at the hub work on innovations for the Swedish car maker. Three new partnerships with companies involved in aerospace, AI, and the audio sector are about to be announced, with STAC ultimately aiming to have 10 such deals in place to allow homegrown Scottish tech players to trade with these companies.

This activity comes shortly after STAC formed a new deep-tech accelerator in partnership with the University of Glasgow. The Infinity G accelerator is home to 15 ventures, including 10 spin-outs, looking to commercialise innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology, with applications in sectors such as healthcare, industrial, aerospace, and defence.

Mr Wilson said: “Clearly, they [University of Glasgow] have been really rich in innovation [and] research but in terms of commercialising and having programmes like incubators [and] accelerators to add on to their commercialisation team… they didn’t have that in place. 

“So there was pent-up demand and ventures sitting in Glasgow.”

Some of the Infinity G cohorts are already incorporated, but the goal is to get as many of them incorporated and turned into start-ups as possible.

Mr Wilson said: “Our programme is all about helping them understand how to build companies out of IP [intellectual property] and research, not just starting companies, but companies that have got that international ambition, and getting them to think about international markets and impact. We are encouraging them to think about becoming bigger and bolder and international, but giving them a methodology and tool kit that enables them to see that this is possible.”

He added: “It really is a big milestone for the university plus for STAC, because it is also a paid for contract, which is super helpful for us as a business. But it also brings in a really high-quality pipeline and potentially what happens next with these ventures [is exciting]. It is a 15-week programme, whereas the normal STAC programme is 18 months. So it brings in a real high-quality pipeline into the extended STAC programme too. It adds occupancy of 20-plus people into thebeyond, which is our co-working space.

“We now have 15 university-led ventures added on to a portfolio of over 65 of a portfolio at STAC, plus we are supported by 20 corporates… we are creating this cluster of over 100 tech-focused companies which is pretty significant in that smart things, deep-tech space.

“So I am really pleased with how it is going. The quality, admittedly, is even higher than I was anticipating. The good thing is that participants are really seeing that what we are offering is something different to what they have received within the academic space. We are not academics, we are business people with pretty significant careers in the industry and on an international basis. We are all about business, industry, opening markets and developing killer products from the foundations of academic research, so the feedback we are getting from participants is really positive and encouraging too.”

Mr Wilson set up STAC in October 2021, on his return to Scotland following a globetrotting career in the technology sector. He began his career in Silicon Glen with Solectron, an electronics manufacturing company based in Dunfermline, in the 1990s, and worked up through the ranks as the firm expanded its operations worldwide. Solectron was a key player in the manufacturing supply chain of computing giants such as IBM, Cisco, and Ericsson, and at one stage had 150,000 employees worldwide.

Mr Wilson said: “I enjoyed an international career just by being in the right company, doing a good job, and after 14 years from starting at operator level, I left as a senior manager, managing a £1.5 billion procurement [budget] in electronics. I travelled the world and was very early into Asia, and lived for quite a significant period in eastern Europe, setting up operations there.”

While Silicon Glen eventually declined, senior Scottish executives such as Mr Wilson went on to have successful careers in the technology sector around the world.

His career took him to the Waterloo headquarters of Blackberry, where several Scots were in the team, when it was in the ascendancy in the early days of smartphones.

Over the course of his time in Canada, he saw Blackberry rise and gradually decline, but in its place it was replaced by a flurry of homegrown start-ups that would go on to scale and compete internationally with the best Silicon Valley had to offer, despite California’s financial advantages. Mr Wilson became “curious” as to why this was not happening in Scotland sufficiently, despite the quality of research and innovation here.

“My conclusion was that we had the research, talent, and innovation, but we hadn’t practised a methodology of building companies, that had the key foundations and building blocks that were ready and rounded to go and compete internationally,” he said. “We had also lost our way a little bit. What does it mean to be a competitive nation? What does good look like? What is the bar of excellence you have to achieve to be a truly competitive eco-system?

“My intention was to bring [the Canadian methodology] back to support Scottish companies from the same blueprint.”