R&D tax credit firm Amplifi Solutions grows top team a year on from Scottish launch

A research and development tax credit specialist that launched into Scotland just over a year ago has bolstered its top team after a raft of high-level business wins.

Left to right in photo are Jeff Drennan, Roger Daynes and Jamie Watts of Amplifi Solutions, which has been expanding its footprint in Scotland. Picture: Stewart Attwood

Amplifi Solutions, which was founded in Belfast in 2014, has appointed Roger Daynes as its regional manager for Scotland, bringing experience from an international career in technology, sales, marketing and growth, working in leadership teams at organisations including Aegon, Zurich and Nasdaq-listed Copart.

He will work alongside Amplifi’s commercial director, Jamie Watts, who joined the business from Scottish tech recruitment firm iMultiply last year.

Amplifi was co-founded by Jeff Drennan and Chris Maylin in Belfast six years ago, but with the Edinburgh office growing quickly over the last 12 months, around half of the firm’s new clients are now headquartered in Scotland.

That client base includes QikServe, the hospitality sector app that enables touch ordering and payment, identity and access management platform Symphonic Software and Aberdeen-headquartered clean energy technology group East Coast Oil & Gas.

Drennan, managing director and co-founder of Amplifi Solutions, said: “We’re excited to grow the team in Scotland, a country whose entrepreneurs continue to build a global reputation for innovation, tech know-how and are creating some leading technology companies.

“Most of these businesses are in the SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] sector and are innovating every day, which means they have the most to benefit from the R&D tax credit incentive.”

He added: “Getting Roger on board, in addition to Jamie joining the senior team last year, gives us a wealth of advisory talent at a time when government support has never been so high, nor so essential.

“For our new Scottish clients, we are highlighting areas of innovation within their business they didn’t even realise qualified, which is opening up a new R&D tax relief avenue for businesses of all sizes and sectors across the country.”

Daynes said: “Being part of the Scottish diaspora in North America and the Middle East allowed me to see how highly rated the nation is when it comes to all things tech.

“At Amplifi Solutions I now have the chance to work with many of our most dynamic businesses and help them to harness their growth aspirations and potential.”

Private equity firm Maven Capital Partners is one of Amplifi’s advocates, with Maven’s investment director, Alan Robertson, adding: “At a time when businesses are being tested by a number of external factors, it has never been more important for them to continue to innovate.

“A number of Maven investee businesses conduct high levels of ongoing R&D as part of their day-to-day operations and it is encouraging that they are able to get support for this important investment by making use of the R&D tax credit incentive.”

HMRC’s latest R&D tax credit statistics, published at the end of September, revealed that Scottish SMEs made 2,405 claims equating to £135 million of R&D tax credit funding in 2018/2019. In the UK as a whole, £5.3 billion of R&D tax relief support was claimed in 2018/19 equating to £35.3bn of R&D expenditure.

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