Unicorns

I had the great pleasure of attending, yesterday, the Engage Invest Exploit event - EIE15 - at the beautiful Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. A large number of Scottish based early stage technology companies were both exhibiting and pitching their propositions to a room packed to the gunnels with interesting people. What a collection of companies on show! It says a great deal for the state of the Scottish start up sector; high quality people running and growing a wide range of incredible businesses with a great deal of mentoring and support clearly on display. The breadth of ideas being actively worked on was amazing.

46 pop up pitches and 9 longer pitches on the day; all polished and professional, putting the Dragon's Den to shame.

One company, Krotos Ltd, has a digital software product called Dehumaniser. It produces high quality imaginary creature and monster sounds. The company is already working with major film companies and gaming developers and is ready to take off big time. (The Zombie add-on is in development!)

Another company, Medicen Devise , is looking to help save $ billions and thousands of lives with a device to prevent catheter infections.

Yet another company, TreePress , aims to "fix" the broken theatrical publishing sector by providing an online marketplace for teachers, theatre directors, playwrights and publishers.

And the unicorns? My newly learned phrase of the day describes pre IPO tech start ups companies with a $1 billion market value. Scotland now has 2! Skyscanner and FanDuel. 5 years ago FanDuel was pitching at EIE, and came back to describe to the audience their journey over the last 5 years. Unbelievable.