Inside Scottish EDGE Round 27

Earlier this June, 24 ambitious startups came together at the Royal Bank of Scotland Conference Centre for round 27 of Scotland’s biggest small business funding competition, the Scottish EDGE.

The energy in the room was high all day, with finalists going head-to-head in live pitching sessions for a share of £100,000, or up to £150,000 for future-focused sectors like space and fintech. Judges scored each pitch against six criteria: Value Proposition, Team, Impact, Customer Focus, Business Growth, and Utilisation of Funding. The panel featured high-profile business leaders, including Colin Temple, President of Schuh, Kerry Sharp of Scottish Enterprise, Scott Smyth of Accenture, and Jenny Phillips of NatWest.

Who was there: 

Out of 24 finalists, 13 were Techscaler member companies, with an additional 4 Techscaler featured in the Wildcard category. In total Techscaler companies secured £260k in funding, with 8 companies taking home awards. Here’s a look at who they are and what they’re building: 

Finalists: 

• GreenFlip - An AI platform making home decarbonisation investable. GreenFlip instantly assesses a property’s retrofit potential, heat loss, and ROI for landlords and housing associations.
  
  
• VidAI UK- A B2B infrastructure platform that helps enterprises safely scale AI from experiments to production-grade systems with built-in cost governance and vendor independence. 

• Sip Seekers - A unified booking system for Scotland’s drinks industry, simplifying how customers discover and book experiences at Scottish distilleries, breweries, and vineyards. 

• Lasting Asset - A digital security solution using cryptographic authentication to tackle business impersonation fraud and protect communications. 

• Faciit - A fintech solution for individuals without a UK credit history. Operating on a ‘saving-led borrowing’ model, users save a third of their goal over three months, with the remaining amount provided by lenders. 

• Shifted - A hospitality workforce management platform where workers can flexibly choose shifts to match their schedule or location, and receive prompt post-shift payment.  

• Storm Renewables - A peer-to-peer energy trading platform (OpenGrid) matching renewable energy buyers and sellers in real time using cryptographic, trustless settlement.

• Neurodapt - A healthtech startup designing wearable task-manager devices that help school children manage daily routines, alongside an accessible education research platform. 

• Irrigate App - An IoT-enabled green irrigation solution and custom software system specifically designed for net-zero golf course management. Irrigate App won the Scottish EDGE award and secured £100,000 in funding. 

• Beryl AI - Beryl AI turns complex energy legal contracts into actionable reality, linking compliance requirements directly with a business's operational, financial, and production data. 

• Sepsensor - A healthtech startup designing portable biosensors for rapid detection of asymptomatic sepsis. 

• Openbook Analytics - An AI driven investing co-pilot that simplifies stock market insights and research for the everyday investor. Open Analytics secured £10,000 in funding from the Young EDGE award. 

• Safescope - Through physical guidance, Safescope is enhancing video airway devices, helping to reduce airway injury, lower complication and save time. Safescope won the Wild card award, receiving £10,000 in funding. 

Wild Card companies: 

• XYNQ - A digital notary for automated decisions in the music industry, creating cryptographic certificates that prove automated platform decisions were fair and compliant. XYNQ took home £15,000, winning the top spot amongst the pre-trading businesses in the Wild Card category. 

• Sendix - An AI compliance system turning EHCP into a structured workflow. Sendix won the Young EDGE award, securing £15,000 in funding from ScotGov. 

• Bilayer - Using AI to predict how drug molecules interact within bacteria, Bilayer is helping scientists to design antibiotics with speed and efficiency. Bilayer received the Young EDGE award, taking home £10,000 from Milltimber. 

• Husu Ltd - A diagnostic platform for accounting firms, helping to spot hidden workplace issues early. Husu took home the Young EDGE award from Glasgow, winning £15,000 towards their mission. 

Pitch Highlights: 

With over 300 applications competing for a place on the day, making it to the final 24 was an achievement in itself. But once on stage, each founder had to make their case fresh, with six strict criteria and a panel ready to ask hard questions. Two pitches in particular showed what that pressure can produce. 

GreenFlip's pitch moved fast, and so did Amandeep Kalra’s argument. Co-founder and CEO of GreenFlip, Amandeep’s pitch highlighted their mission to move past solely providing dashboards to actually driving capital investment for physical retrofits. Citing GreenFlip’s ability to turn “weeks of data-led analysis into 60 seconds with a click”, it was a confident pitch that left the judges in no doubt. Following the award ceremony, GreenFlip walked away with the Circular Economy EDGE Award and an impressive £90,000.

Where GreenFlip led with data, Lasting Asset led with a story. As a prime example of an early stage company always on the go, the team arrived fresh from joining Techscaler at London Tech Week.  Nanik Ramchandani, co-founder and CEO of Lasting Asset started with his mother and the story of her being targeted by scammers. From there, the pitch took on a commercial narrative, landing on a single line that stuck: "We don't detect, we prove." Referencing M&S's £300 million fraud loss gave the judges a number to match the story, a pitch that balanced both heart and evidence. 

By the end of the day, the founders who stood out hadn't necessarily built the flashiest product, but had found the clearest way to tell the judges why it mattered. GreenFlip turned weeks into seconds. Lasting Asset turned a mother's story into a mission. Despite different ideas, they shared the same lesson: a good pitch is a good story told with conviction. 

Check out the full list of winners from round 27 here and if you’re interested in taking part in the next one, find out more here!