Heriot-Watt's new DeepTech LaunchPad aims to generate more Scottish-based global start-ups

A new hi-tech accelerator programme is aiming to help Scottish robotics entrepreneurs turn disruptive technologies into viable businesses with international potential.

Accessing deeptech at the National Robotarium will help to create companies of a truly global scale, say those behind the new scheme. Picture: Colin Hattersley Photography.

Heriot-Watt University's DeepTech LaunchPad pilot aims to help Scotland-based start-ups become investment-ready with proven prototype products, industry partners, and a viable route to market. The initiative is focused on deep technology (or “deeptech”) that harnesses major scientific discoveries or engineering innovations and is seen as having the potential to revolutionise whole economic sectors, rather than leading to incremental advances in individual products, processes, and services.

The six-month pilot scheme is being supported by the Barclays Eagle Labs Ecosystem Partnership Programme, funded by the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and aims to give six entrepreneurs from across Scotland access to experts, facilities and equipment at Heriot-Watt and its on-campus £22.4 million robotics and artificial intelligence facility the National Robotarium.

Participants will each receive a £15,000 innovation voucher, which they can spend on access to facilities and expertise at Heriot-Watt, and if their companies go on to raise funding or hit operating profit targets then they will repay the sum. Furthermore, the pilot scheme could be rolled out across other Scottish universities if successful.

Grant Wheeler, head of commercialisation at Heriot-Watt, said: “Having a deeptech accelerator is one of the missing pieces in Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and will allow our nation to create companies that can compete on an international scale. Our DeepTech LaunchPad pilot will give entrepreneurs from outside the university access to the same scientific discoveries and engineering innovations as the students and academics who want to launch spin-out companies, levelling the playing field. We expect that the businesses that will be created will go on to attract support from other parts of Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as Codebase’s Techscaler programme and Scottish Enterprise’s programmes for high-growth businesses.”

Matthew Corbidge, director of Barclays Eagle Labs, added: “Heriot-Watt University’s DeepTech LaunchPad is exactly the type of game-changing initiative that we want to support through our Ecosystem Partnership Programme. Deeptech is one of the most-promising opportunities within both the Scottish and wider UK economies – and accessing deeptech at the National Robotarium will help to create companies of a truly global scale.”