Pre-seed technology accelerator, Seed Haus, is inviting startups to apply for up to £30,000 in equity support from Scotland’s top-tier tech investors.
Seed Haus, co-founded by Calum Forsyth, CEO, and Robin Knox, chairman – aims to fill a gap in the startup support system.
It provides investment, office space in its incubator, regular mentor meetings, workshops, investor sessions, and peer meet-ups.
Seed Haus is also the only incubator in Scotland which provides entrepreneurs with startup capital as part of the package.
Only five firms will be selected for this second programme and they will receive equity investment from partners Alistair Forbes, James Watt of BrewDog, Gavin Dutch, Paul Walton, Judy Wilson, Rob Dobson, Paddy Burns, Chris van der Kuyl, Paul Davidson, and Sir Tom Hunter.
The group is comprised of serial entrepreneurs/investors with all of the partners having experience in founding, growing, and exiting companies.
Seed Haus launched its inaugural cohort this year and supported Drinkly, Kindaba, Sansible Wearables, Security CTRL and Taka.
Looking to the future cohort, Mr Forsyth commented: “Our deal terms are incredibly founder-friendly. The founders backed in Cohort 1 were looking to raise around £100,000 with very little traction.
“Based on the current investment climate in Scotland, that would have meant selling a big part of their business, at a formative stage, hampering future growth and fundraising.
“Pleasingly, they saw the value in aligning with Seed Haus which allows them to hold on to a greater portion of equity and lay the foundations for a truly scalable business.”
Mr Knox added: “We are granting startups some breathing room to build out their metrics and evidence preliminary traction. The opportunities we work with are at an early stage but they might have sold 20-25% of their business to reach the same goals without the framework of Seed Haus. In simple terms, we are helping startups to do more, with less.”
Seed Haus is keen to hear from founders with domain expertise. The average age of a founder in the inaugural Seed Haus cohort was 33. Seed Haus, which is a private entity, is the only accelerator in Scotland providing investment which allows founders to cover their living costs.
This capital injection has been key in supporting founders transition from full-time work to running their own startup.
Successful applicants will take up a place in the incubator alongside three more established startups held in high regard in the startup ecosystem – Seed Haus’ entrepreneurs-in-residence are: Callum Murray (Amiqus), Patrick Clover (Blackbx), and Sarah Stenhouse (Pixey) who will lend peer support to the incoming startups.
Applications for cohort 2 close on 30 December. More here: https://seedhaus.typeform.com/to/mtCCOr
