Investor panel revealed for Dragons' Den-style tech investment event EIE21

Stuart Paterson, the Scottish Equity Partners co-founder who led the firm’s investment in travel search site Skyscanner, is among the panelists lined up for Scotland’s top tech investor conference.

The EIE21 event will see company founders pitch for investment from seed level to more than £2 million on June 10.

Among the investor panelists confirmed for the conference is Paterson, who originally led SEP’s investment in Skyscanner which was sold to Chinese travel agency Ctrip –since rebranded Trip.com – for £1.5 billion in 2016.

EIE has supported more than 500 tech start-ups since 2008 who have collectively raised some £750m from seed through to Series A and later stage funding. About a quarter of the EIE21 company cohort are from outside Scotland this year, the highest proportion to date.

Stuart Paterson, Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) partner and co-founder.

Silicon Valley Bank’s Flavia Popescu-Richardson, UK Business Angels Association’s Jenny Tooth, BGF’s Euan Baxter, Old College Capital’s Andrea Young, Archangels’ David Ovens, TusPark UK’s Jerry Wu and Robert Bosch’s Gitte Bedford are the other investor panelists for this year’s event.

SEP’s Paterson is currently non-executive director of European online eyewear retailer Mister Spex and Berlin-based online language learning business Babbel and has been instrumental in building the Scottish investment firm’s presence and reputation in Germany.

Paterson also led SEP’s investments in Reykjavik-headquartered travel technology business Dohop and in online craft equipment and supplies company LoveCrafts and sits on the boards of both companies.

He said: “SEP has been a longtime supporter of EIE, a forum that provides a great opportunity for emerging technology companies from Scotland, and now from the rest of the UK and the international scene, to engage with the investor community and plot a path to growth.”

Steve Ewing, director of Entrepreneurship at Bayes Centre and EIE21 lead, said: “We have an amazing mix of investors for EIE21 this year, representing investor communities from Scotland, the UK, Europe, North America and Asia.

“The investor collective means our pitching companies will get invaluable experience of interfacing with some of the most respected angel, early stage and venture capital investors on the start-up scene.”

EIE21 is run by the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre in partnership with the DDI (Data-Driven Innovation) initiative and supported by Scottish Enterprise.

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