With some of the most innovative start-up companies among its cohort, hundreds of international investors, renowned speakers and the International Market Square offering incredible opportunities, EIE21 has proven to be another landmark year for the investor readiness programme and conference.

Delivered by the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre, in partnership with the DDI programme and with support from a wide range of sponsors, EIE21’s Investor Showcase on the 10th June, marked the culmination of a year round programme, involving thirty five data-driven cutting edge tech start-ups.

The cohort pitched at the conference to an international panel of investors, looking for funding from seed to series A,

The conference started with 25 companies completing 3 minute pitches and finished with 10 companies who had the opportunity for extended pitch’s which lasted for 5 minutes. The 10 extended pitch companies were eligible for being voted as pitch of the day by the EIE21 audience.

These extended pitches were from:

At the conclusion of the pitches Ionburst received the most votes and was named as the ‘Pitch of the Day’.

CFO of Ionburst Anne Lanc, a former Treasury Director at BlackRock, said:

“We’re delighted to win EIE21, it’s such a prestigious event and the standard of competition was incredibly high, and now that EIE has showcased us we look forward to speaking to investors that want to help us build a global business.”

EIE featured a world-class line up of speakers, including:

Keynote speaker Sir Ronald Cohen, the father of impact investment and European venture capital and pioneering philanthropist, venture capitalist, private equity investor and social innovator.

Kate Forbes, Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, who presented the opening statement.

Lesley Eccles, an EIE alumnus and co-founder of gaming platform FanDuel, which went on to achieve a $1 Billion valuation, making it Scotland’s first unicorn. She went on to found HelloFresh and is working with the Scottish Government to help Scotland become a world-class technology hub.

Alex Joss  the Lead for Technology and Innovation with the UNFCCC Climate Champions team for COP26 and scaled an AI-led healthtech startup Sight Diagnostics through its $70m series D round.

Professor Peter Mathieson, the Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Edinburgh will provide important insight into the way that Universities work with business and what the future may hold for the University of Edinburgh.

Michael Welch OBE founder of online tyre retailer Blackcircles.com in 2001, going on to sell the company to Michelin in 2015.  Since then, he has founded a series of other ecommerce startups including fashion site Atterley, and earlier this year Welch merged his US-based online tyre retailing business Tirescanner with American Tire Distributors’ Tirebuyer operation.

EIE has supported over 500 tech startups since 2008 who have collectively raised over $1 billion from seed through to Series A and later stage funding – with Current Health, FanDuel, Celtic Renewables, Amiqus, Novosound, Two Big Ears, Speech Graphics, pureLiFi and mLed among EIE alumnus companies.

EIE21 was supported by a  wide range of sponsors, including Huawei, Chiene + Tait Chartered Accountants, The School of Informatics, LINC Scotland, MBM Entrepreneurial Business Lawyers, Murgitroyd, Royal Bank of Scotland and TalentSpark, as well as being supported by Scottish Enterprise.